First All Grain

[Sidious]

I'm posting my second all grain brew and was hoping to get some feedback. Made a mistake during my first all grain when I doughed in and it went down hill from there, I ended up with about 3.5 gallons in the carboy and way overshot the OG. Tasted good though. Made it on 3/10 and will let it sit in the carboy for a while.

The second was Yooper's dead guy clone. I really like that beer.

Set up as follows

10 gal Brew Built kettle
10 gal Lowes water cooler MLT
5 gal Lowes water cooler HLT

13 lbs maris otter (recipe calls for 12 lbs but I added 1 lb figuring my efficiency would be low)
1 lb cara-munich
1 lb munich
.5 lb crystal 40L

Brewtarget #'s assuming 70% efficiency and boil size of 7 gal
SG 1.056
OG 1.062
FG 1.015

I filled kettle with 10 gal store bought spring water and heated to 180*
Transferred 5 gal to MLT and put lid on, after 10 minutes water was at 170#
Added half the grains and stirred, then second half and stirred. Temp was at 160*
Stirred again to get temp down to target mash temp of 158*. Time was 5:57.
Transferred 4 gal 190* water to HLT, this left me with 1 gal in kettle.
7:01 mash temp 155*, mash out with 1 gal boiling water. Let sit ~10 minutes, temp 163*
Lauter til 7:18 then drained MLT into kettle, 4 gal of first runnings.
Added 3 gal of 175* sparge water to HLT and stirred. Let sit 10 min, temp 162* time 1:33
Lautered til 7:49 the drain to kettle. just over 7 gal in kettle.
Boiled for an hour then cooled to 58*, took 30 minutes to ccol from boiling to 58*

I pitched with Pacman yeast I harvested from an extract batch of this recipe i made a few weeks before using WoodlandBrew's Simple Yeast Storage Procedure. Based on the info in that thread, i used 250 ml of my yeast slurry. I added the 58* wort to the yeast and let it sit for 45 minutes then pitched at 11:30. By 5:30 I had so much bubbling I had a foam ball on top of the air lock.

I ended up with an SG of 1.054, OG of 1.068 and an FG of 1.026. These number don't seem to jive with any of the calculator's I've used. It would seem I underpitched based on the FG.

What doesn't seem to make sense is the SG vs OG. To get an SG of 1.054 I would have to have an efficiency of 68%, but that would give me an OG 1.062 according to BT. If I bump the efficiency in BT to 76% i get the FG of 1.068, but that gives an SG of 1.061. What am I missing here? I never did get my mash temp to 168* when I mashed out, maybe that has something to do with it? Any other comments or advice in my methods would be appreciated.

 

[day_trippr]

Quick question: how are you measuring the FG?

Cheers!

 

[beermanpete]

First, let's clarify some of the terms:
SG = specific gravity. This tells use the amount of extract in the wort but does not indicate the point in the brewing process the sample was taken.
OG = original gravity. This is the specific gravity after the wort has been cooled and is ready for the yeast pitch.
FG = finishing gravity. This is the specific gravity after the fermentation is completed.

It looks like your listing of gravity targets uses SG as the boil gravity. In other words, the specific gravity of the collected wort from the mash before it is boiled. During the boil water evaporates, condensing the wort and increasing the SG.

A boil gravity of 1.054 in 7 gallons calculates to 68% efficiency from your 15.5 lbs of grain. You said, "just over 7 gals." so your efficiency was actually a bit higher.

Your OG of 1.068 works out to a volume of 5.5 gals of wort after the boil which is typical. The boil-off rate is an important data point to know for consistency and recipe scaling.

The FG targets are estimates at best. The actual finishing gravity (FG) is determined by the fermtability of the wort, yeast strain, yeast health, pitch rate and temperature control during fermentation. In your case the mash temperature is on the high end of the range which results in a less fermentable wort, thus a high FG.

All in all it looks like you had a good mash and should have a good beer as a result.

 

[Sidious]

Quick question: how are you measuring the FG?

Cheers!

With a hydrometer, same for all gravity readings.

 

[Sidious]

Correct. To clarify, SG is the preboil reading. This was the entire wort (just over 7 gal), 1st and 2nd runnings stirred well and sample cooled to 60* .

OG was the post boil reading of the chilled wort 60*

FG was taken just before I posted, 9 days after pitching yeast.

I did make note of pre and post boil volumes.

 

[Sidious]

Forgot to mention the recipe calls for a mash temp of 156-158, I would have thought it compensated for the higher temp/fewer fermentables.

 

[glugglug]

I think you did pretty good for second time. Good notes, important. My first day though is that mash temp was a little high, but saw your response that it was on target. Awesome. Take some tasting notes and think about what would improve the beer if anything. Have some others give you feedback.

 

[RM-MN]

Just for a bit of info, you appear to be batch sparging. With batch sparging you don't need to do a mash out and you don't have to let the sparge water sit in the grains. Just dump it in, stir very well, then drain. All you are doing with a sparge is rinsing the already converted sugars off the grain. Also, many people will lauter until the wort is completely clear. That isn't necessary. Lauter until you don't have many grain particles coming through (grain bed set) and drain the tun. Those of us who BIAB never lauter and the wort comes out pretty cloudy with the very tiny particles of grain that come through the bag but still end up with clear beer.