First All Grain Complete. Does this sound right

[Izzie1701]

I just finished my first all grain. It was a Brains Welsch ale close. Grain bill as follows.

3.4kg 2 row
.300 kg crystal 60
.113 kg cane sugar
.057 kg Corn Syrup

18.9L batch size

Used11L for mash
14L for sparge

At 18.9L I am sitting at an OG of 1.059 which Brewers friend is showing an efficiency of 87%. This can't be right can it. I expected 70% so had that in the recipe and it showed an OG of 1.045. My PH in my mash was 5.5 with no adjustments. My mash started at 149F and ended at 140. Was brewing outside and it's cold today so suspect this is why it dropped so much. But 87% I must be calculating something wrong?

Also it seems a little bitter. Will that mellow out with fermentation?

30g fuggles 60 min
15g fuggles 15 min
15g fuggles 2 min
AA=3.8

 

[Sammy86]

Your mash temperature is probably the culprit as to why your OG is high...the lower the temp the more fermentable the wort

 

[theseeker4]

Your mash temperature is probably the culprit as to why your OG is high...the lower the temp the more fermentable the wort

Mash temperature should affect final gravity, but it should have a negligible effect on OG, if any.... The same amount of starch should be converted to sugars, the temperature should just change the percentage of those sugars that are fermentable, unless I am missing something.....

 

[bbrim]

Your mash temperature is probably the culprit as to why your OG is high...the lower the temp the more fermentable the wort

This is not totally accurate. A lower mash temp will increase fermentability of your wort, it does not cause more fermentables in your wort. In fact a low temp takes longer to finish mashing and tends to lead to lower efficiency if the brewer does not give enough for the beta amalyse to do what they do. You may have miscalculated or you may have had awesome efficiency. The most likely miscalculation would be final volume. Are you sure you had as much wort at the end as you though, also are you sure your gravity reading was accurate?
Ultimately you had a successful all grain brew day. Now it's time to dial in exactly what your efficiency is and remain consistent. Congrats and cheers.

 

[Sammy86]

This is not totally accurate. A lower mash temp will increase fermentability of your wort, it does not cause more fermentables in your wort. In fact a low temp takes longer to finish mashing and tends to lead to lower efficiency if the brewer does not give enough for the beta amalyse to do what they do. You may have miscalculated or you may have had awesome efficiency. The most likely miscalculation would be final volume. Are you sure you had as much wort at the end as you though, also are you sure your gravity reading was accurate?
Ultimately you had a successful all grain brew day. Now it's time to dial in exactly what your efficiency is and remain consistent. Congrats and cheers.

Listen to this guy! Wasn't complete with my answer...big my bad! Sorry for any confusion!

 

[doug293cz]

At what temp was the 18.9 L post-boil volume measured? It makes a difference. Also, I'm not sure how BrewersFriend handles sugar additions. It's a little tricky since you have to calculate mash efficiency without the sugars.

Brew on

 

[Izzie1701]

At 90F

 

[Izzie1701]

Ok so I figured it out. It was the sugars throwing me off. When I put it into Brewers friend efficiency calculator it shows an efficiency of 68%. So I did better then my expected 65% but still could be a little better. But for a first all grain brew I'll take it. I suspect that my mash temp was a little low and I also through out more wort then I should have with my sludge from my boil and hops. Think I tossed around 2L of it and then topped this up with RO water to hit my 19L mark. Probably should have

A) used a hop bag
B) not have topped up
C) tossed less of the sludge as I basically took none of it into my ferment or and sure I could have take a liter more out of my brew pot with only minimum sludge but for some reason the sludge scared me.

Lessons for brew number 2. Now to just get this fermented and I to secondary.

 

[doug293cz]

I just finished my first all grain. It was a Brains Welsch ale close. Grain bill as follows.

3.4kg 2 row
.300 kg crystal 60
.113 kg cane sugar
.057 kg Corn Syrup

18.9L batch size

Used11L for mash
14L for sparge

At 18.9L I am sitting at an OG of 1.059 which Brewers friend is showing an efficiency of 87%. ...

Let's look at some numbers. 3.7 kg of grain with 4% moisture and an extract potential of 80% (dry basis) has the following maximum sugar potential:

3.7 kg * 0.80 * 0.96 = 2.84 kg​

You added 0.113 kg of pure sugar and 0.057 kg * 0.78 = 0.047 kg of sugar from the corn syrup (which is about 78% sugar). So, the total potential sugar was:

2.90 kg + 0.113 kg + 0.047 kg = 3.06 kg​

18.9 L of 1.059 SG wort weighs:

18.9 L * 1.059 * 0.9982 kg/L [density of water at 20°C] = 20 kg​

An SG of 1.059 is 14.51°Plato, which is 14.51% sugar by weight. So, the weight of sugar in your fermenter is:

20 kg * 0.1451 = 2.90 kg​

So, your brewhouse efficiency was:

2.74 kg / 3.06 kg = 0.895 => 89.5%​

Something isn't adding up here. OP: are you sure the recipe numbers in your first post are correct? Can anyone see an error in my math?

Brew on

 

[Izzie1701]

I'm an idiot. I topped up to 20.5l as I wanted 18.9L of finished beer after racking off the yeast cake and posted the last 2 posts as finished product not amount I have in the fermentor at the above OG.

Sorry for wasting people's time I should have been more accurate.