efficency problem during boiling

[paolov]

Hi,
we have done a 100 liters batch for the first time and we had an efficency problem.
everything was perfect before boiling the wort.
is it possible that vigorous boiling can couse loss of efficency ?
if yes why ?

thanks
Paolo

 

[Yooper]

No, unless you added water to the boil kettle, you can't "lose" sugars.

What was your grain bill and procedure? We can help figure out what happened.

 

[paolov]

No, unless you added water to the boil kettle, you can't "lose" sugars.

What was your grain bill and procedure? We can help figure out what happened.

Here it's our recipe :

Pale Ale
liter preboil 60
liter post boil 45
boil time 60'
OG 1.044
Eff.% 57


PALE MALT(MARIS OTTER) 8000 71%
CARAAMBER 1000 9%
FLAKED BARLEY 600 5%
MUNCH 1000 9%
CARA VIENNA 600 5%

E.K.Goldings 100gr x 60'
Williamette 60gr x 20'
E.K.Goldings 43gr x 5'
Williamette 40gr x 0'
E.K.Goldings 40gr x 0'

Yeast Safale S-04

we did a batch sparge adding first 15 liters for the first run off and then 30 liters for the second runoff.

 

[kanzimonson]

At any point did you add water during or after the boil to hit your target volume? I've been guilty of this in the past and I messed up my numbers because I lost wort to the trub.

Otherwise, it's gotta be a problem with incorrect measuring (no offense!)

 

[paolov]

we had a lot of evaporation, these are our measurements :

60 liters preboil at 1.046
35 liters end of boil at 1.057

after the boil we added 10 liters to reach 1.044 that was the OG we planned.

may be i'm missing something on how to measure .... suggestions?

 

[doulovebeef]

sounds like a case of not mixing well.. when u add water to wort, its surprising difficult to mix into wort thoroughly. i wouldnt worry about it to much, its still going to be beer

 

[kanzimonson]

Something is definitely wrong with that math there.

60 liters x 1.046 = 2760 total gravity points

Dividing 2760 by 35 liters = 1.079
Dividing 2760 by 45 liters = 1.061

It sounds like there's a combination of things going on. Perhaps you lost some wort to your hop trub, then topped off, and also may have done some measuring of wort that wasn't properly stirred. And are you making sure to correct your gravity readings for the temperature of the sample?

 

[paolov]

we had all the measures at 26°c with a refractometer and it sounds strange also for us that we lost gravity points.

may be we had bad readings
but if they were correct is it possible that an hard boiling had recombined sugars and those sugars fell down into the kettle ?

 

[doulovebeef]

did i not read correctly that u added water to top off ur fermenter?

 

[paolov]

did i not read correctly that u added water to top off ur fermenter?

correct i added water at the end in the fermenter in order to obtain the OG 1.044

 

[Yooper]

correct i added water at the end in the fermenter in order to obtain the OG 1.044

Adding water is fine, to obtain your OG, but that changes the math. The sugars don't go away and fall out- they are there. But adding water dilutes the wort.