First all grain- missed og

[lyonst2]

Hi all,
Did my first all grain today and am waaaay of my anticipated og. It is a basic porter:
Pmg 3.6kg
C145 535 g
Crystal 530
Chocolate pale 330g
Aciduated 50g

Fuggles 35g @ 60
15g @ 10.
Nottingham yeast.
Anticipated og- 1.052

Actual og- 1.030

I lost maybe 3l of wort in the boil as I had the lid slightly off. I have watched a lot of YouTube and have lurked around these pages for a while, so wasn't really expecting such a big difference. Any thoughts??

 

[thadass]

Was your final volume on target? What kind of mash temp readings were you getting (as compared to your target temp)? Was this BIAB or in a cooler or something else?

 

[lyonst2]

Mash temps were pretty good, around 65c for the most part- although I did lose a little control at one stage and it got to about 71. I lost quite a lot of liquid- wanted to end up with 22l from an initial 26, and after I drained the bag had 22l, however only ended up with 18l in the fermenter as a lot evaporated durin the boil.
Biab was in a 30l bucket type fermenter with an element installed at the bottom.

 

[RM-MN]

In almost all cases of low OG, if your mash temps were within the proper range and your wort collected isn't terribly high you can blame the quality of the crush. This is especially true with BIAB since you can have the grains milled extra fine. For this batch, the answer is to add some malt extract to get your fermentable sugars up to where you want. For the next batch, double crush the grains or set the crusher closer or both if you can.

 

[Cider123]

Maybe I misunderstand, but did you mention that you had the lid on during the boil? The recipes are designed so that you include the evaporation that occurs from boiling completely uncovered. If you had the lid on, then you didn't allow for the proper amount of water to escape and that would keep your OG diluted. Also, covering the pot will not allow some off flavor chemicals from evaporating.

 

[Epimetheus]

Some questions to reduce assumptions:
1. What was the expected efficiency to reach 1.052?
2. What was the expected volume into the fermenter, after grain absorption and boil-off?

 

[lyonst2]

Rm: interesting- my local brewshop did the crushing. Will ask them about it during the week.

Thanks cider- that was something that I was wondering about during the process.

Epimetheuss;
1. Because it was my first go at biab and all grain, I made a very standard recipe pulled from a book in my local brew shop. The details were from that - I don't have brew software or anything.
2. I was anticipating 21 litres- I started with 25

 

[Cider123]

If you are starting out at BIAB and are having trouble figuring out how much water, grains and trying blindly to hit your OG, then my friend, have I got the advice for you.

Go to BIABrewer.info and check out that forum.

Read as much as you can from their stickies and posts. Then, start learning how to use the greatest program a BIABer can ever have. It is called the BIABacus. Everything is totally free. You need to learn a bit how to use it. If you are not interested in all aspects of brewing science and just want to make sure you use the right amount of water and ingredients then you don't need to fill out every line.

I was lost in figuring out amounts and such, but that site and that program made me a much better and confident brewer. I don't work for them. I'm just passing it forward. If a guy named Pistolpatch gives you advice, he is a moderator there and what he says you can hang your hat on.

I just made my first Munich Helles today, and as always the BIABacus allowed me to hit my OG dead on. Good luck!