First AG day in the books w/ Questions

[Weezknight]

Just finished my first AG brew session. Everything went swimmingly. The 10-gallon Ice Cube cooler MLT lost only 2 degrees over the course of an hour. The new Bayou SP10 boiled like a charm. Perhaps, too great, though. The only bump we encountered was the boil off was a lot more than expected. We ended up with only about 4.25-4.5 Gallons in the fermentor. I had extra, sanitized water handy, so we topped it off to 5.25.

The result, obviously, is going to be a Dunkelweizen that is not as strong as expected. The OG ended up being 1.042, when it should have been 1.052. The interesting thing is, though, when I put this dilution into BeerSmith, it says that my original (pre-diluted) OG was 1.052. So, my question is, if I hit the OG at a smaller volume, was it too much boil off, or did I not measure my collected wort correctly? I need the mathematical gurus on this one.

As I said, though, the whole experience was fun, and I look forward to trying my next one, as I hone in my system.

 

[scinerd3000]

your efficiency was lower than expected...

 

[Weezknight]

I had a feeling that may be an issue, too. Unfortunately being the first AG, things were a little hit and miss, so I didn't take certain readings when I should have. (Which is a bit shocking since i'm so anal about my extract batches).

We were a little confused on the batch sparging thing. Were we supposed to let it sit again, or just let it settle, then drain?

I'm reading the "increase your efficiency with batch sparging" thread right now, so for the next one we can see what we can improve upon.

I'm not upset about it, though. We'll still have beer in a few weeks.

 

[iamopie2]

The other poster was correct. You just had a lower efficiency than the program was calculating for. For the batch sparge I pour it in, mix it up again and let it sit about 15 min, then vorlauf and drain. That's what works for me. The trickiest thing I have learned when I switched to all grain was learning my system and setting it up in beersmith so that everything matches.

 

[scinerd3000]

The other poster was correct. For the batch sparge I pour it in, mix it up again and let it sit about 15 min, then vorlauf and drain. That's what works for me.

agreed...

 

[pkeeler]

How much wort did you collect? Your efficiency might have been fine, but you didn't collect enough. For instance, instead of collecting 6.5 gal. of 1.040 wort, you collected 5.5 gal of 1.040 wort. If you had sparged another gallon, maybe you would have had 6.5 gal. of 1.040 wort. That would have boiled to 5 gal. 1.052.

In other words, check your volume measurements too.

 

[Weezknight]

Going over our notes and calculations it looks like we may have erred in our collected wort. What we thought was ~6.5G may have only been ~6G. But I'm also sure that our efficiency wasn't that great given it was our first AG.

Guidelines for dunkelweizen go as low as 1.044, so we missed style by a little bit. But, as I've said, I have learned to relax and think that I will have a tasty brew at the end of all of this (along with some new lessons learned).

 

[Grizzlybrew]

Why has nobody mentioned improperly mixed wort?!? If you topped off with sanitized water and then took a hydro reading, you probably weren't taking the reading from thoroughly mixed wort.

You should always take a gravity reading before adding any water. If you had found out that your smaller volume had hit the correct OG, then I would have settled for less of a "good" beer, rather than more of an "ok" beer. If you think in terms of GU's (gravity units), you can actually calculate exactly how much water to add to reach your desired OG.

 

[archiefl98]

It sounds like you have a handle on the issue at any rate. Possible volume mis-measurement, possible biased hydro sample, possible low efficiency. The biggest thing you can do is take notes. Even with using BeerSmith I'm constantly writing notes.

I take a sample from my first, second and third runnings for a hydro reading. I measured out my boil kettle in gallon increments (going to add in half-gallon markings on the stainless spoon too I think) to measure volumes. After a friend brought some poorly-crushed grain from the LHBS I always check my crush just to make sure it always looks as I expect it. I write down any deviation in the timeline of the brew sheet to make sure that I can account for the change in the next batch.

Congratulations on the first AG! I bet it'll be nice and tasty. (The pride of making something the hard way really adds to the flavor)

 

[KevinW]

All great points so far. One thing is to check the pre-boil gravity then compare to the post-boil gravity(before adding any water) if you want a good idea behind efficiency.
I hit my volume numbers in Beersmith consistantly so I trust it for volume but I always take pre-boil, post-boil, pre-bottling gravity readings.