Brewing right now over shot gravity by 6 points - help

[fluketamer]

I am brewing a lager right now and was hoping for 6.5 gallons at 1048. Right now I’m at about 7 gallons and gravity is already 1054 . I’m at least 6 points over right now and still have 36 mins left to the boil which means it’s only get get stronger.


please help. Should I dilute it with spring water to get down to 1048 ? Or let it ride and hope it doesn’t turn into rocket fuel.

 

[day_trippr]

Lol! SG is a bit low for "rocket fuel"
Anyway, 6 points and an extra half gallon ain't bean bag. Have you brewed your recipe before?

How certain are you regarding your measurements? Because if you hit a dense spot because of stratification or insufficient stirring and do something drastic it could come back to bite you later.

If you are bottling, I'd stay the course, and if you decide to dilute a bit, you can add some more bottles for the additional volume. Otoh, if you're kegging, and your finished volume is above 5 gallons, you might have a dilemma on your hands, eventually. You can always use a 2 liter soda bottle as a big beer bottle But I'd wait it out and see what happens first...

Cheers!

 

[lumpher]

It won't be rocket fuel either way. Sounds like you got better efficiency for some reason... best to figure out how. For the fg, you can either add water to bring it down, or go with it. It would be stronger and take a little extra time. Decide what you want and run with it, but no worries.

 

[tracer bullet]

Yep, as mentioned, you can add water but you might get a lower IBU count per volume. You could also dump some out. You could stop boiling. Lots of options all with side effects. But none of them terrible. I'd stick to the plan, and just have a higher gravity beer. I bet you'll be fine. Might even decide you prefer it.

Next time, figure out what you have before you boil, and make any corrections then.

Also look up "RDWHAHB"

 

[AlexKay]

The answer is always to let it ride.

Commercial brewers need to hit their numbers both for reasons of product consistency as well as satisfying the TTB. As a homebrewer you have the luxury of not needing to worry about any of that. Make good notes on your process and you'll hit your numbers next time.

 

[skunkape]

Hmmm, higher gravity and more of it…BONUS!!

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

I am brewing a lager right now and was hoping for 6.5 gallons at 1048. Right now I’m at about 7 gallons and gravity is already 1054 . I’m at least 6 points over right now and still

Any chance you took a hot sample for a refractometer? If so, evaporation could easily lead you to believe you have 4 to 5 more gravity points than you actually do.

 

[OleBrewing]

Yep no worries as stated. Only a problem when short even then dry malt extract is nice to have on hand.

 

[fluketamer]

guys thanks so much for the responses. i ended up with 6 gallons of 1054 wort in the fermenter . it looks like it should be a winner. i’m going to have to go over my notes to try to figure out what i did. some where i lost like 2 gallons of water. after i sparged . i was hoping to have 7.25 gallons in the kettle after sparging but was way short. . i know my grain soaked up a lot but could 11 lbs of grain soak up 2 gallons . i didn’t squeeze them at all. the runnings were still a tiny seeet and 1021 when i tossed the grains. could that have increased my gravity. i’m so confused. all grain is much harder then extract and the first batch i hit everything on target so i tried to do the same.

 

[Zambezi Special]

You're not doing bad at all
You just need to adjust the figures in whatever program you use: efficiency, boil off, grain absorption etc

 

[tracer bullet]

guys thanks so much for the responses. i ended up with 6 gallons of 1054 wort in the fermenter . it looks like it should be a winner. i’m going to have to go over my notes to try to figure out what i did. some where i lost like 2 gallons of water. after i sparged . i was hoping to have 7.25 gallons in the kettle after sparging but was way short. . i know my grain soaked up a lot but could 11 lbs of grain soak up 2 gallons . i didn’t squeeze them at all. the runnings were still a tiny seeet and 1021 when i tossed the grains. could that have increased my gravity. i’m so confused. all grain is much harder then extract and the first batch i hit everything on target so i tried to do the same.

Give us your numbers at each stage, we might help figure it out. How much you added and how much you had.

1/4 gallon or something isn't unreasonable to be off, and you also have to remember that hot water noticeably expands. But 2 gallons makes no sense.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

The moral of the story is not to get freaked out. With every batch, there's going to be subtle differences. Some we have control of and some not.

When I brew I know I'm not going to hit every number exactly, as long as I'm in the ball park that's good. In the end the chances are real high that it'll turn out to be beer.

 

[whoaru99]

i was hoping to have 7.25 gallons in the kettle after sparging but was way short.

What am I missing?

In the first post it seems you're saying at about 7 gallons roughly 1/3 through the boil.

Doesn't seem like you could be too far off, certainly not 2 gal, if volume-wise 7.25 was your starting/target.

 

[fluketamer]

ill organize my notes and try to post exactly what i did . i think the dead space on my aio which is a massive 7 liters throws me off. (but shouldnt). also i thik i got very lucky on my first batch onyl 2 point over. with a rediculous efficiency.

i thiknn a several reasons my numbers could have been high were:
1 a much thicker mash like porridge. last time it was llike soup.
2 i sparged til the drippings were very dry tasting almost water, last time the grains still tasted very sweet when i tossed them out. this time they didnt taste sweet at all.
3 the last batch i used the default eff on brewers friend which i think is 70 percent. after i found out i was 2 points over i think i realized i got like 75 percent efficeny or something close on my first batch. i figured it was just luck and woudlnt happen again so i still used the 70 percent on brewers friend. im pretty sure that number is too low for my brewery.
4 i mashed lower at 154 for 75 mins instead of 158 for 60 mins. . both recipes had a pound of corn i could have got much more sugar out of the corn this time.
5 i swtiched out a pound of base malt for vienna to make my straw colored pilsner more like a golden lager.
6 and my base was 2 row this time over pilsner last. ( althoug isnt pilsner 2 row?)

What am I missing?

In the first post it seems you're saying at about 7 gallons roughly 1/3 through the boil.

Doesn't seem like you could be too far off, certainly not 2 gal, if volume-wise 7.25 was your starting/target.

after i finished sparging i was hoping to have 7.25 gallons preboil. so i could boil for an hour leaving me about 6.25 in the kettle. so i could get 6 in the FV and leave a quarter with the trub. i did end up with that but when i finished the sparge i only had a little over 5.25 in the kettle. i had to add 2 full gallons of water to get up to preboil and that water wasnt preheated so it cost me time . by cooling down my boil. its true i didint take into account grain absorption but on the first batch i didint and the beer is aces.

on the bright side my session lager which will now be a 5-6 percent lager is the clearest wort i ever made.

i think the whirlfloc plus letting the kettle settle for 10 mins before transfer , along with the thicker mash really filtered the wort crystal clear.

 

[tracer bullet]

I meant - how many pounds of grain did you use, and how much water was used? And when was the water added - mash, sparge, or afterwards?

Also, do I see an Anvil Foundry being used?

 

[hotbeer]

Notes for one batch won't tell you much. You need to have notes for all your batches.

Understanding the reasons you might have a higher or lower OG than desired will let you start to make corrections to your process to get you closer.

A lot of it is just the efficiency of the processes you use and your ability to maintain consistency with all you do. If your aren't consistent with your procedures you'll never have consistent results to compare and figure out the efficiencies.

Efficiency should not be used as a grade or score of your brewing prowess. 60% is not going to result in a better or worse beer than one that was made with 80 or 90% mash and/or other efficiency.

Size of your grain crush, amount of water used and left behind in the grist. As well as how much boiled off as steam leaving you less or more wort in the kettle than planned on will affect OG.

For your higher OG wort, it was only a little higher. You could have diluted it with some water to bring it down to the desired OG.

 

[Bobby_M]

In an all-in-one system, the only way one might get derailed on pre-boil volume is via an inaccurate grain absorption ratio in the equipment profile or water measurement error. That's because it's mash water + sparge water - grain absorption = preboil volume.

The tall skinny baskets usually run 0.4 quarts per pound of absorption loss without any kind of mechanical manipulation of the grain. So, for 12 pounds of grain, you'll lose just under 5 quarts.

Coming up 2 gallons short sounds like a major volume measurement problem and if the mash was noticeably thick, I'd say you were 2 gallons short on your initial strike water measurement.

Shoot for an initial strike water of 1.5 quarts per pound of grain + 1 gallon. So, 12 pounds of grain needs 18 quarts (4.5 gallons + 1 gallon) = 5.5 gallons.

Knowing you want 7.25 preboil,

7.25 - (5.5 gallons strike - 1.25 gallons absorption loss) = 3 gallons of sparge.

 

[tracer bullet]

Shoot for an initial strike water of 1.5 quarts per pound of grain + 1 gallon. So, 12 pounds of grain needs 18 quarts (4.5 gallons + 1 gallon) = 5.5 gallons.

Totally agreed. For Anvil's I've found it's dang near 1 full gallon under the basket, and as for the rest, about 70% of the cross sectional volume is inside the basket, 30% outside it.

I also aim for 1.5 qts / pound target, plus a gallon for the dead space underneath, seems to work out. Even though a lot of water is actually outside the basket and thus outside the grain, I've still got a little over a quart per pound inside the basket mixed in with the grain. I also do the lift / lower / stir 2 to 3 times during the mash to get it all closer to even.

It's kind of why I got away from sparging. I didn't mind the work but if I reserved water off the the side I ended up having some dry-ish mashes.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's kind of why I got away from sparging. I didn't mind the work but if I reserved water off the the side I ended up having some dry-ish mashes.

Agreed. I was going to suggest skipping the sparge completely but I thought I'd practice staying in the OP's lane for a change.

 

[tracer bullet]

I also aim for 1.5 qts / pound target, plus a gallon for the dead space underneath, seems to work out.

In case OP or anyone else cares, I actually have a grain bill, target final volume, target OG, and I know how much I boil off in an hour. I work backwards to get the mash water needed. If it's not at least 1.5 qts / lb then I will skip the sparge and add that sparge volume into the mash as well. I'll check again for 1.5 and if I didn't hit it before, probably will by now. In the case I still haven't (imperial stout for example) I'll either add extra water and plan to boil longer to get rid of it, or do something else like remove some base grain and add DME later instead.

 

[fluketamer]

I meant - how many pounds of grain did you use, and how much water was used? And when was the water added - mash, sparge, or afterwards?

Also, do I see an Anvil Foundry being used?

anvil - i wish. its my chinese knockoff klarstein mundschenk ( aka brewdevil, brew monk, guten ace hopcat beer torrent and prolly a few other names.)

which btw is working awesome so far no glitches on my second brew. a little bit of build up on the bottom after using only the 1800 watt power setting . but a few drops of vinegar and a paper towel and it came right off without any scrubbing.

here she is keeping my mash temps within 0.5 degrees

i was very impressed but i think the reflectex def helps.
i stole it for $230 with tax and shipping. if it lasts me 2 years im good.


All Grain Zamba Lager

6 gallons
1048 sg 1008 fg 5.19 abv 25.92 ibu 3.41 srm
8.5 lbs of briess 2 row
1 lb vienna ( the crush was super fine on this basically flour)
1 lb flaked corn
.5 lbs carapils
2 oz rice hulls
,5 oz galena at 60
.25 os galena at 15
1 oz zamba at flame out (in hind sight i think i should have used 2, the airlock doesnt smell as hoppy as im used to)


the last time i used my aio i got a great tip online and it worked better than i thought. i dont have a seperate sparge water heater so as long as im not brewing more than 5-6 gallons i use my aio to heat the mash and sparge together then drain off the sparge and keep it warm while i mash.


process :

so i brought 6 gallons of water to 174 degrees then drained off 2.5 gallons to keep warm in the oven. left with 3.5 in the kettle i added 1 gallon of cool water to bring the temp down to mash temp and the volume up to 4.5 gallons. the level in the pipe was very low. my dead space is a whopping 7 liters. it didnt look like icould fit all the grain in there so i added another .5 gallons to have 5 gallons in the kettle. and fill the pipe up about half way. i figured i could just borrow that from the sparge and sparge less to get to my preboil of 7.25. i completely neglected grain absorption at this point.
the mash was very thick with all the dead space under the pipe like porridge.
anyway i mashed lowish 154 for 75 mins to try to get at the corn. (maybe some evaporation?). i completely forgot to mash out in my haste to sparge. btw there was a "tunnel" in the grain bed right under where my pump outlet was which also scared me thinking i didnt get the sugar out of the grain at the sides of the tun. i need a longer return tube i think so it circulates alittel arount instead shooting straight down into the sparge pan.

anyway back to the sparge. i took out my 2.5 gallons of sparge water that was still perfect 170 degrees. i figured i would add 2.25 gallons of it to get back to 7.25. i sparged about 2 gallons and took the basket out becasue thats the only way i can see the level (i hate that its on the inside and the pipe blocks the markings - i know 2 workarounds and am thinking about it. one is to replace with brewzilla sight glass which fits. the other is to attach a clear tube to the spigot and run it up the side to see the level in the kettle while the spigot is open. ) . to my surprise the level in the kettle was very low like 5 gallons maybe a little more. i had to add 2 gallons of spring water. to get preboil 7.25. i think a gallon was left in the grain i lost some to evaporation i guess.

im convinced beer gremlins drank the difference.

the beer is bubbling away it smells great. hoping i get the zamba melon punch

thanks for any pointers !

 

[tracer bullet]

I checked my calculator, and would expect 11 pounds of grain to retain right at 1 gallon of water after getting some squeezing going on.

I'd be looking at 6 gallons for mashing, 2 for sparging, and with 1 being retained by the grain expect to have 7 gallons in the kettle at the start of boil (6 + 2 -1)

 

[jerrylotto]

If you end up with wort at too high a gravity and you care about it, split the batch and dilute the larger fraction to 5 gal at the desired gravity. You can always ferment the wort you have left over at full strength in a bucket to see how it would have turned out otherwise.

 

[tracer bullet]

I'll just throw in that if volumes are reasonably off, hop IBU's will be affected as well. If one wants 5 gallons but ends up with 6, even if the gravity is as expected, it will end up less bitter or more sweet. Diluted, essentially, in regards to the hops.