First All Grain (w/o the proper kettle size)

[lordstark]

Hello!

I've been a member of this forum for a long time and constantly troll/search for answers to most of my questions without having to post them again. Its been invaluable! Thanks to all the community.. But, I'm a new homebrewer (about 4-6 months) and I've quickly worked on building my equipment to support AG recipes and make brewing easier. However, I'm definitely not yet "complete" on my setup - as I imagine I might never be.. being that I'm still brewing out of my kitchen. But, heres my recipe and what I did that I want your help with... My goal was to brew a "blue moon style wit" but instead of orange/coriander I used dried grapefruit and clove pellets. Here's the details:

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 4.27 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 3.90 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 4.60 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage


Date: 29 Jan 2014
Equipment: Pot and Cooler ( 5 Gal/19 L) - Extract/Partial Mash
Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 82.8 %

Ingredients
6 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 55.6 %
5 lbs Red Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 44.4 %
0.50 oz Comet [9.50 %] - Boil 50.0 min Hop 3 11.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Motueka [7.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 4 6.2 IBUs
0.50 oz Comet [9.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 5 4.2 IBUs
4.00 Items Clove Pellets (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 6 -
1.00 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Fresh) (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 7 -
1.0 pkg American Wheat Ale (Wyeast Labs #1010) [124.21 ml] Yeast 8 -
1.00 oz Grapefruit Peel, Bitter (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 9 -


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.062 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.5 %
Bitterness: 21.5 IBUs
Est Color: 4.7 SRM

Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Measured Final Gravity: n/a yet
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.2 %
Calories: 165.2 kcal/12oz


Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Sparge Water: 2.10 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE


Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 4.0 oz
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20

In short, what happened was I didn't have my 9 gal kettle yet - all I had was my 6 gallon kettle, which prevented my from sparging all the traditional 6.5-7 gals wort from the tun. Instead I was only able to do about 4-5 gals. After boil I was left with 3.5 gals. Normally I would have added my top off water into my primary to get the 5.5 gals into my bucket. But, I didn't want to "water down" my beer to further dilute my efficiency. However, my OG was still well below goal. I did top off the wort with about .75 gals to bring my totals to as close to a 4 gal batch as possible...

Here's my question: Considering my setup, did I make the right decision? Should I have still topped off another gal of water?

Onto fermentation: my fermentation was very active. My airlock ended up filling with wort and popped off on day 4. It was so much pressure it actually splattered against the wall when it popped. I cleaned up the yeast that was ontop of the bucket and resanitized the airlock and replaced it for another 4 days in primary. It still was actively fermenting for another couple of days. on day 9 I racked it to secondary. During the racking there was a very heavy krausen on top.. it was thick and dough like. My bucket smelled like dough/yeast versus beer. I siphoned just above the cake and below the krausen to get it as clear as possible. However, its now in secondary and is very orange/cloudy still. Its been there for 9 days and is dry hopping with 1oz of dried grapefruit peel... it appears to be cleaning up. I haven't taken another gravity readying yet - and didn't when I racked it. I'm regretting not taking one then, but, it was such a mess in the primary, I didn't know how to take a clean sample.

Question: What should have I done? Let it stay in primary longer?

How long should I leave in secondary?

Is there a chance I could have a stuck fermentation from taking to secondary before the primary yeast was done?

Thanks for the input!

 

[lordstark]

oh yeah.. here's the eff rating from beersmith.. why is it so terrible?

 

[kh54s10]

Without further study, You should have ended up with a very high OG since you were going for 5 gallons and got only 4. I don't know how it made the calculations based on a batch size of 5 gallons and a preboil size of 4.27. This does not compute!! You can NOT start with only 4.27, boil, and end up with 5 gallons!!

Were the grains well crushed?

You did transfer to secondary too early. You need to take gravity readings and make sure you are at FG before transferring to secondary.

Take final gravity readings and if close to your predicted level I would not worry about a stuck fermentation. Something below 1.020.

 

[snowtires]

Is it because your beersmith profile is set for extract/partial mash? Not sure what went wrong but if you want to do all grain but with a small boil and top up like extract you would simply need more malt to start and allow for dilution.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[lordstark]

Without further study, You should have ended up with a very high OG since you were going for 5 gallons and got only 4. I don't know how it made the calculations based on a batch size of 5 gallons and a preboil size of 4.27. This does not compute!! You can NOT start with only 4.27, boil, and end up with 5 gallons!!

Were the grains well crushed?

You did transfer to secondary too early. You need to take gravity readings and make sure you are at FG before transferring to secondary.

Take final gravity readings and if close to your predicted level I would not worry about a stuck fermentation. Something below 1.020.

Thanks.. I DID NOT end up with 5 gallons.. its still in secondary, and max going to keg will be 4 gallons.. That part of beersmith that shows 5 gals final batch size was auto populated. But, the OG reading was accurate, unless something was noted wrong from my hydrometer reading. I agree.. I thought it would have been higher too!

Grains were well crushed.

Also, I now have my proper equipment/kettle to do AG correctly. So, this shouldn't be an issue going forward. Just so I'm clear.. any FG below 1.020 should be okay to go to keg?

 

[snowtires]

I would imagine with that OG you will get a significantly lower FG. Depending on your yeast.

But what I was saying about upping the grain was if you DID want 5 gallons in your fermenter it is still possible by using more grain and less efficiency.

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