First AG batch - OG a little high

[danio]

Hello all! I just pulled off my first AG batch last night. Pretty awesome. Been brewing extract with specialty grains (mostly AHS and some local stuff) for 3 years or so. I can't believe I waited so long to do AG....also, wort chillers are a gift from the gods.

Anyway - My mash temp was right at 152F and stayed really steady for 1 hour (cylindrical 10 gal cooler w/ 17.65 lb of grain). Then I took the runnings at about 1qt per minute (Palmer said this was good, I think) or even less and poured in strike water around the same rate but maybe a little faster. I tried to keep my strike water hot but it mighta dropped (goal was around 175F....I took it from a pot on the stove and poured it into the cooler using a cup). Anyway - boiled, etc. and checked OG several times with wine theif, trying to get the bottom and top ends of the carboy...no top off water either. Long story short - I ended up at 1.10 rather than predicted 1.095. Is this because my strike water got too cool and got more fermentables rather than 'body'? Or does a lower strike temp not result in a high gravity? All of this is me assuming that mash temps (fermentables vs body) affects gravity. It makes sense it would since gravity is all about potential fermentation...

I'm stoked that it was efficient and .005 is not a big deal to me, I'm just trying to nail down all the variables and understand better. Talk about fun! It was the AHS Winter Ale by the way. Tricerahops next. Gonna start doing my own recipes now...I think I'll buy beersmith2.

Anyway - cheers!

Dan

 

[JLW]

When I first started AG I was having similar issues with always missing my OG on the high side. Over time what I learned is that my sysem was more efficient than what the grain bill was designed for. So in beersmith I started playing around with recipes and the brewhouse efficiency. What I found is that I need less grain to achieve the desired OG. What I do no is take a recipe and plug it into the software assuming 75% efficiency then I can back the grain bill down to get within tolerance.

Some of what you will need to do is just get comfortable with your technique, your equiment and then tweak from there. The fun part of that is you get to brew beer to get there.

 

[DSmith]

I had a similar experience with first time all grain. I used a recipe for 70% efficiency and came up with 82%. My collected water volumes were where I needed to be for my boil-off rate but the pre-boil OG was high. I chose to dillute with extra water pre-boil and live with a slight hit on IBU and a little higher gravity. I didn't have extra hops on hand.

It's still new equipment to me so I think for future batches I'm still going to plan for 70% efficiency and purchase additional hops until I have enough batches to adjust the recipe for efficiency.

Another way would be to discard some preboil wort after dilluting if the efficiency is high again. That would only be a good option if it was going to be in a secondary that wasn't big enough.

 

[JLW]

I should also add that it is important to take a pre-boil hydrometer reading. Make sure you cool the wort to around 50* I stick one in the fridge for a few hours. Then go to this site and plug in the numbers. This will tell you what your efficiency is for that brew. Then over time you will begin to see trends in the data and have good confidence in your predicted efficiency.

Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator | Brewer's Friend

 

[RLinNH]

I have been an AG brewer now for longer then I care to mention. I have been using Beer Smith since it came out, and I also have the same issue. My eff. rating run between 82%-88% on beer with an O.G. Less than 1.080. What's nice about knowing this is that it takes a lot less grain to get to your O.G. Hence, you save money. BTW, damned fine job Rookie.

 

[Rev2010]

Disregard, got my decimals points screwed up

 

[danio]

Wow! Thanks for all the responses. So basically I'll figure I have an efficient system and for pre packaged recipes I could order extra hops and then for my own recipes I'll just try and calibrate beersmith. Perfect.

Thanks again for all the advice and shared experiences. Beer is now bubbling away up to the airlock. Maybe time for the blow off tube. I'm stoked!

Dan

 

[daksin]

Just one thing to note- this is just your first batch. I would do a few more and try and get a better idea of what your average efficiency will be like before you start applying that to everything you do. Something about this recipe or one part of your process may cause different batches to have different efficiencies. Once you pretty much know what your efficiency is going to be every time, then you can start trying to account for it. Consistency is key!