First All Grain and Low OG

[TwoSheaStl]

Yesterday, a friend and I brewed our first 5.5 gallon, all grain batch of beer. We were pretty sloppy about it, being that it was our first time, and we had a few missteps.

1.) We had a hard time crushing the grains. We ended up with 10 LBS of malt, but didn't have access to a grain mill. We used a rolling pin on some of them, a blender for some, and eventually tried to build our own makeshift mill with a crank that led the grains into two cylinders that smashed the grains. In the end, we had some powdery grains, some smashed grains, and a some grains that hadn't been smashed at all.

2.) The recipe called for 10.5 LBS of Malt. We totally forgot to add .50 LBS of Crystal to the recipe. I'm not sure how this is going to effect the flavor?

3.) I'm not sure if our hydrometer was screwed up, or what, but our OG, right before pitching the yeast, was 1.025—which seems extremely low. My fear is that we didn't not draw enough sugar from the grains being that they were not crushed well enough. However, after our mash out, the wart had a great golden brown color, and was very sticky and smelled great. The temperature was about 153 degrees the entire mash and our sparge water was right on, so there were no temperature issues. What could be the problem here?

Overall, everything went smoothly. The wort looked good, and smelled good too. The boil went well. Everything looked and smelled great—we just got a low OG, which is making me crazy. What do you guys think???

Also, here is the recipe:

Alright Already Amber

Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 10.38
Anticipated OG: 1.060 Plato: 14.70
Anticipated SRM: 14.7
Anticipated IBU: 64.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 86 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Formulas Used
Color Formula Used: Morey
Hop IBU Formula Used: Tinseth
Tinseth Concentration Factor: 1.30

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
77.1 8.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3
4.8 0.50 lbs. Aromatic Malt Belgium 1.036 25
4.8 0.50 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt 1.033 2
4.8 0.50 lbs. Flaked Barley America 1.032 2
1.2 0.13 lbs. Roasted Barley America 1.028 450
2.4 0.25 lbs. Special B Malt Belgian 1.030 120
4.8 0.50 lbs. Crystal 60L America 1.034 60

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.00 oz. Centennial Pellet 10.50 37.6 60 min.
1.00 oz. Amarillo Gold Pellet 9.00 24.8 30 min.
1.00 oz. Cascade Pellet 5.75 1.7 2 min.
1.00 oz. Amarillo Gold Whole 8.60 0.0 Dry Hop

White Labs WLP001 California Ale (or S-05)

 

[70Cuda383]

my first all grain batch was a bit lite too. recipe called for 1.050 gravity, I ended up at about 1.035 after the boil and before pitching yeast. I too, had several mis-steps, and messes as part of my learning process.

chalk it up to learning experience. the beer is still aging, goes into bottles here in about another week or 2.

my second all grain batch yesterday went WAY smoother! I made a mash tun from a cooler, and had buckets ready to collect the sparge water. I ended up with 7 gallons of wort BEFORE the boil. and my pre-boil gravity was around 1.030, which was already about the same as the the first batch, after boiling it down to about 4 1/2 gallons. had I boiled the 7 gallons down to 5, I'm sure my gravity would have been pretty good.

however, because of lack of grain, I was 3 lbs short on wheat from what I wanted, so I suplimented the wort with 3 lbs of wheat DME, and also added 2 lbs of honey, so my gravity was then 1.063, and I saw no need to boil down the water all the way, and just ended up with a 6 gallon batch instead of 5.

 

[TwoSheaStl]

So, I missed my OG by quite a bit, and the fermenter has stopped bubbling after two days. My fear is that the gravity was so low (1.020), that the yeast has ran out of sugar to eat. What would happen if I added some DME or Honey to the Primary fermenter?

 

[soup67]

So, I missed my OG by quite a bit, and the fermenter has stopped bubbling after two days. My fear is that the gravity was so low (1.020), that the yeast has ran out of sugar to eat. What would happen if I added some DME or Honey to the Primary fermenter?

You could do either, although with that low of an OG, I would probably go with the DME. Boil it (maybe with some hops, as your IBUs will take hit with the added volume), chill and add, sooner rather than later.

 

[TwoSheaStl]

So…for a 5 gallon batch with an OG of 1.020, how much DME should I add to get the gravity up to about 1.060?

 

[soup67]

A lot. Download and plug your recipe in to this software-- it's free.

http://brewtarget.sourceforge.net

I'm no expert in saving beers, but if it were me I would start adding DME (and maybe hops) to the recipe until you get close to where you want to be, and then use that for your addition. The hops will be off because you aren't going to boil the addition for an hour in 5 gallons of water. Good luck.

 

[MoodyCopperpot]

So, I missed my OG by quite a bit, and the fermenter has stopped bubbling after two days. My fear is that the gravity was so low (1.020), that the yeast has ran out of sugar to eat. What would happen if I added some DME or Honey to the Primary fermenter?

Dont rely on the airlock bubbling to tell you how fermentation is working. Some beers won't bubble at all, and some will bubble for weeks! It's not a clear indicator of the fermentation quality. Your best bet would be to (in a VERY sanitized setting) take a sample of the beer and take a gravity reading. You may be right on track and don't even know it.
As for your OG being low, I'm not sure where you could have gone wrong. I question your efficiency, if you say it was 86%, but we're that far off your OG reading, either your efficiency wasn't that good, or your OG was actually higher. Definitely get access to a grain mill! When in doubt, go through your process and try to standardize any questionable aspects, such as using the roller pin.
Certainly dont stress over your first AG batch. Everyone has their own learning curve, and if we all made quality beers on our first attempts, we'd all be running DogFish! Brew another batch and make a checklist of steps to make sure you are doing everything that is necessary. Soon enough it will all be second hand nature and you can scrap the checklist.

 

[Bobby_M]

See what you get with this one but I'd just call it a learning experience. You can't really crush a full batch worth of grains in any makeshift way. Get the grains premilled next time and try again.

 

[gwcr]

I would agree with the crush being a big part of the problem. The OG on my first AG was lower than the recipe, and my efficiency was 62%. Then I built a grain mill, got better mash temp control, and hit 83% mash efficiency since then.

You also mention your hydrometer maybe being out of whack. What was the temp of the hydrometer sample? Did you correct the reading for the sample temp?

 

[bmunos]

if we all made quality beers on our first attempts, we'd all be running DogFish!.

YES!!! HAHAHA I love it!

If you have a homebrew store close have them mill the grain for you? Also mills are fairly cheap so if you dont have access to a hombrew store i would defenetly recomend one. Also I think your Efficiency calculations are off. The math doesnt add up?

 

[TwoSheaStl]

The efficiency posted was that of the original brewer. Those number are not mine, unfortunately.

 

[boist]

The efficiency posted was that of the original brewer. Those number are not mine, unfortunately.

This is a very common mistake a lot of beginner AG brewers make. You should always try to scale the recipe to your own efficiency. The problem is that when you first start AG (and every time you change your brew system) you don't know what your average efficiency will be, so it's hard to scale.

Most advice you'd hear would be to scale the recipe to 70% efficiency and then add grain until it balances again. I would say that when you first start your efficiency will be even lower, so I'd start with 65%. There are plenty of recipe calculators out there who would do this for you, or you can use something like Beersmith, which is really good.

One of the things that most impact your mash efficiency is the crush. If you had a problem in that area, that would be where I'd look. If you don't own a mill, your LHBS should be able to pre-mill the grain for you.

Good luck