efficiency help??

[ibleedbrew]

so the recipe is

2 row-11.50
crystal 20 1.00
light munich.75
carapils.75
wheat flakes .25

mashed for an hour at 154 for 60
sparge with 170 for 60+ min
boil 90 min

took a gravity reading in my "test tube" with about two and a half gallons in the the brew pot and got 1.052 then took another reading when at about five gallons and got 1.029 this is all pre boil then the after boil reading was 1.052 my goal was about 1062 so just wondering why i get such low numbers if anyone can help thanks

 

[BendBrewer]

sparge with 170 for 60+ min

What is your process? Are you saying you did a slow fly sparge?

 

[ibleedbrew]

yeah cooler to cooler fly sparge

 

[hopalotamus]

are you sure your temps are right i had a bad themometer that was off and wasnt hitting my temps like i thought took a few batches to figure out also stared to do an iodine test to make sure my mash is done

 

[jtakacs]

maybe that's the reason? intuitively it seems that you'd have a significant temperature drop fly sparging over the course of 60 minutes and in addition you would not be able to get even distribution for sparge over that time? possibly the sparge water would find channels to drain through over the course of a looooong sparge time like that? did you agitate/stir the mash while sparging?

a 60 minute fly sparge (assuming 2 gallons of sparge water) is a rate of 4+ ounces of water per minute.. seems slow to me but i don't fly sparge so ymmv.

 

[ThePearsonFam]

ok... so, for verification, you were expecting 1062 as POST boil, right?

- Did you end up with the correct post boil volume? Maybe boil less off than you expected?
- What sort of manifold/false bottom do you employ in your mlt?
- Are you using software? What efficiency did you use? Beersmith assumes 75% efficiency. May be a bit high for your system

1 hour sparge seems long but it shouldn't decrease efficiency, even if you weren't able to maintain 170 degrees over the whole sparge process.

 

[ibleedbrew]

hopalotomus--i use two different thermometer so my temps i feel are correct

jtacks---the sparge water only had a two degree drop over the span of sparge time and no i took the first runnings vaourlof and sparged away i did not agitate the mash when i started sparging am i suppose to? channeling could be an issue but i didnt notice it and i had a good inch and a half to two the entire time on top of the grain bed

Pearson-- yes i was looking for 1062 after the boil
and the post boil volume came out at a little under five gal-started with 6.25-6.50 (i use a stick to measure)
my manifold is a cpvc with slits cut into it and for software i use "brew365" for strike temp and amounts for mash so maybe im just using that program wrong and maybe im just confused on what my target gravity should be i just shot for what the recipe said it was the recipe is from these forums called "my 2 time gold winning IPA" so thats where i got the 1065 - thanks

 

[njschmidt]

What temperature was your after boil reading taken at?

 

[ibleedbrew]

took both of them at 106 107 area and just compensated as if they were taken at 110 my hydrometer says to add 7 points at 110 so thats what i did

and this is off topic but i tasted a belgian wit thats been bottles for 9 days and it has a terrible HOT alcohol taste will that go away in time? its first all grain batch and third batch ever so any input will be greatly appreciated thanks

 

[hopalotamus]

did you mill you grains yourself maybe somthing with the crush

 

[ibleedbrew]

no i use the stores mill i think that might be the biggest issue cause it def cant be me doing someting wrong ha ha no it prolly is the crush i used it on the "high" speed setting this time and i think that played a role but thanks everyone for the help

 

[ThePearsonFam]

Okay... So your pre-boil gravity was roughly 1029 with about 5 gallons collected...

I'm with hopalotamus. It sounds like your grains were not properly crushed.

--break--

The hot alcohol taste in the wit is probably from your fermentation temperatures. I'm guessing that the temperatures got too hot in the first couple days. I'd recommend starting a new thread to discuss this one.