gravity question

[boothbrew]

Hello,

I did my first all grain last weekend.
:rockin:
I went with the Nukey Brown Ale (NewCastle clone?) from Northern Brewer because I thought it was a relatively easy one to start with. NB said the gravity after sparging should be between 1.008 - 1.012; however, my gravity turned out around 1.024 after sparging. What does this mean? How does this affect my brew?

Thanks in advance guys

 

[WOP31]

Congrats on your first AG brew!

I believe that NB meant that you should sparge until your runnings are at a gravity of ~1.010. The gravity of your collected wort would be much higher.

If you continue running off wort after the runnings have hit ~1.010 you run the risk of increasing the amount of tannins you extract from the grain husks.

Cheers

 

[boothbrew]

so does that mean that I really screwed up that batch?

and, if I would have stopped my runnings much earlier, wouldn't I end up with much less wort than I really need?

I guess I don't know what I should have done differently to avoid this for my next batch.

Please help!!!

Thanks again.

 

[Turkeyfoot Jr.]

Couple questions...

When did you take the reading of 1.024 and what temp was the wort when you took that reading?
Did you take a reading once it was in the primary? If so, what was that reading and temp?

 

[david_42]

How did your gravity in the fermenter compare to the expected gravity? If you are fly sparging, sparging until the runnings are 1.012 would give you more wort than if you stopped at 1.024.

 

[SenorWanderer]

yeah, im confused too. please explain exactly what you were measuring to get 1.024. is this runnings from the mash? or is it your pre-boil wort? if this is your pre-boil wort, and you measured it at 60F, and not at 130F then you're gonna have a weak beer, unless you plan to boil off half your volume. if this number is a measurement of your runnings after you have the volume you need then you're probably fine, your efficiency just sucks.

 

[Turkeyfoot Jr.]

I'm going to go on the assumption that the 1.024 was after collecting all his runnings but pre-boil. If that's the case, he should be in good shape. Assuming his wort was 150ish before boiling then 1.024 corrects to @ 1.047 and after boiling for an hour that will climb even more.

 

[boothbrew]

I did batch sparging instead of fly sparging.

The gravity reading I am speaking of was taken after I combined the first and second run offs into my brew kettle but before I started boiling.
I don't believe I recorded the temperature of the combined run-offs.

Does this help?

Thanks again for your advise.

 

[Turkeyfoot Jr.]

Do you know what volume you were working with pre-boil? 5, 6, 6.5 gallons?

 

[boothbrew]

it was close to 6.5 gallons.

 

[Turkeyfoot Jr.]

Alright, if you had a gravity of 1.024 with 6.5G of wort and we can assume it was at least 130F you should be just fine. I'm guessing that boiled down to 5G or so which would have concentrated it even more and then once it cooled to the correct temp you're easily looking at a 1.040 to 1.050 beer. No worries, you're in good shape. RDWHAHB!

 

[WOP31]

Sorry I guess i wasn't too clear in my last post.

You have a couple of different readings gettting tossed around here.

There is your Pre-Boil Gravity just as the term implies, the gravity of all the runnings combined and in your brew kettle. My advice would be to cool this sample in the freezer or something, then take a reading, much easier and more acurate then trying to take a reading at 130.

Then there is the Sparge Run-Off Gravity, that is the Gravity of what is coming out of the Mash tun. Once the wort that is running out of the mash tun hits ~1.010 it is pretty much useless and would contain a crap load of tanins. So you would usually stop when you hit your target volume or that gravity.

Then there is Post Boil Gravity (or Original Gravity) that is what you have going into your Fermenter.

I am sure that Northeren Brewer was talking about the Sparge Run-Off Gravity, when they stated "the gravity after sparging should be between 1.008 - 1.012"

Like all the other posters stated your beer sounds like it will be fine, what was your original gravity on this batch? As long as that falls into the range of what the recipe said you should be fine.

Cheers

 

[Bobby_M]

The OP should clarify whether or not the 1.024 was a "hot" reading or if it was precooled or otherwise temp corrected. If it's a temp corrected 1.024 then I'm afraid your sparging technique needs to be worked on. However, what I suspect the main issue is, you didn't stir up the wort in the kettle before you took a sample. If you think about it, the last runnings of sparge are way low in gravity. When you add it to the higher gravity wort already sitting in there, it isn't going to mix instantaneously.