I botched my first PM brew...OG 1028. Help please?

[ICWiener]

Hi,

I tried my first parital mash recipe tonight. I was making a British best/premium bitter. Not sure how it got blown so bad, but I need a little bit of help. Here's the recipe/process that I followed:

2 lbs. 12 oz DME
3 lb. 2 oz Maris Otter
14 oz. crystal malt (60 °L)
.5 oz Challenger hops (60 min)
.5 oz. Challenger hops (15 min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings hops (2 min)
1/2 Whirlfloc tablet
White Labs WLP-002 (with a starter)

I tried to do Colby's countertop partial mashing technique,
http://***********/component/resource/article/511-countertop-partial-mashing

Here's the quick version of what he tells you to do:

Put crushed grains in a large nylon steeping bag. Heat 5.5 qts. of water to 165 °F and pour into your 2-gallon cooler. Slowly submerge grain bag, using a large brewing spoon to ensure that grain mixes completely with the water. Let mash rest, starting at 154 °F for 30 minutes. While mash is resting, heat 0.75 gallons of water to a boil in your brew pot and 5.5 qts. of water to 180 °F in a large kitchen pot. Recirculate by drawing off a pint or two of wort from the cooler and returning it to the top of the mash. Repeat until wort is clear or 3 quarts have been recirculated.
Next, run off entire first wort and add to boiling water in kettle. Add 180 °F water to cooler until liquid level is the same as during the first mash. Let rest for 5 minutes, then recirculate and run off wort as before. Bring wort to a boil, add dried malt extract and bittering hops and boil for 60 minutes. Add liquid malt extract, Irish moss and flavor hops with 15 minutes left in boil.
Add aroma hops with 2 minutes left in boil. After boil, cool wort until side of brew pot is cool to the touch. Transfer wort to fermenter, add water to make 5 gallons, aerate well and pitch yeast from yeast starter.

I did all of that...but there was a problem. The second wort runoff didn't go well. The bag wouldn't close all the way, so a lot of the grain spilled out into the cooler. It clogged up the spigot. I couldn't get anything...I basically had to pour it out of the top of the cooler to collect it.

Everything else went fine. First wort runoff was great. But my OG was 1028. Not good. It's in the fermenter, but I don't really know what to do. I guess I could just leave it alone and enjoy a 2.4% ABV beer. Just kidding. Please help. Can I boil up and add a mini-wort of LME and some water? Or is that a bad idea?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Zen_Brew]

Yes, you can add some additional wort boiled up with some LME. You may loose a bit of the contribution from the Maris Otter malt assuming the LME is just basic, but it will get your gravity up and should still make a good beer. If you choose to do that though, the sooner the better as you don't want to let unpitched wort sit around longer than you have to.

 

[silverbowarcher]

I notice in the instructions it says to add liquid malt extract with 15 minutes left in the boil, yet your ingredient list only shows dme. Did you forget to add the liquid malt ext?

 

[tektonjp]

Any time you add water to wort in the fermenter, there's a great chance that the two don't get mixed up very well. It takes a lot of stirring and shaking to thoroughly combine them. It is a real possibility you took a hydrometer reading from the top watery portion of the fermenter. Shake it up and measure again.

edit* just reread material list and silverbowarcher's post. 2lbs 12 oz of DME seems like way too little fermentable for a 5 gallon batch. You're missing something.......

 

[ICWiener]

If you choose to do that though, the sooner the better as you don't want to let unpitched wort sit around longer than you have to.

Well, I already pitched it. I filled the hydrometer flask, then stuck it in the fridge to get down to 60F while I pitched the yeast and got everything finished up. I know...Should have looked first. It hasn't really taken off yet. I pitched it about 8 hrs ago.

Did you forget to add the liquid malt ext?

No. The original recipe called for 3.3 lbs of LME. I had a bunch of DME on hand, so I just used it instead.

It is a real possibility you took a hydrometer reading from the top watery portion of the fermenter. Shake it up and measure again.

I guess it's possible, but I shook the crap out of it. I always try to aerate well.

2lbs 12 oz of DME seems like way too little fermentable for a 5 gallon batch. You're missing something.......

The marris otter was supposed to provide the rest of the fermentables. At least according to the recipe.

 

[dbhokie]

I am a novice, but I would have probably used about 3-4 lbs of DME for this recipe.

Additionally when recirculating, the instructions I am having a hard time comprehending. If you are doing a PM with a nylon grain bag, your liquor will not be quite as efficient at extracting the wort. When you recirculate I don't know how it would clear out, there isn't a grain bed really to filter the wort. However, In this case I would prepare about 4 gallons of water and as I was pulling the wort out of the cooler, sparge the nylon bag with it to rinse off extra wort, which will help with your gravity as well. While sparging the grain bag, the runoff into the kettle should get it up to about 6 gallons (your grain absorption with that much grain will be quite low), however, that is the only things I could see.

 

[ICWiener]

I am a novice, but I would have probably used about 3-4 lbs of DME for this recipe.

4 lbs of DME would have given me 7 total lbs of fermentables. That's too high for the style I was shooting for.

 

[Bobby_M]

My guess is that the grain wasn't milled.

 

[ICWiener]

Maybe I should just brew a high gravity 3 gal batch and blend the two.

 

[ICWiener]

My guess is that the grain wasn't milled.

It was milled. My LHBS mills it on the spot when you order.

 

[ICWiener]

Maybe I should re-phrase....I'm not looking for reasons the brew didn't turn out. I'll iron that out on my next attempt. Right now I'm more worried about the ultra low gravity beer that is starting fermentation. I was just looking for suggestions to bring the gravity up to a normal level. I've never added any ABV booster to a brew after fermentation already started, so I'm not sure what will work. I don't want to outright ruin this batch.

 

[ICWiener]

Well, I tried. Boiled up a quart of water, added 1 lb. of light DME, and gently added it to the fermenter.

Checked on it this morning, the color has gone from a beautiful copper to muddy cloudy brown. Awesome. But hey, the yeast is happy.

Another day, another sub-par batch. Woo hoo.

 

[RM-MN]

Before you go crying in your beer that isn't even finished fermenting, let this finish and bottle it. Give it a month in the bottle and then come back and tell us about it, the color, the clarity, and the apparent alcohol.

 

[ICWiener]

Before you go crying in your beer that isn't even finished fermenting, let this finish and bottle it.

Hey man. I said woo hoo...not boo hoo.

Just kidding.

I'm just frustrated. Tried to branch out, didn't work out well (yet). No one likes setbacks.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Leave this one in the fermenter and start planning your next batch. At some point you need to quit fiddling with it and let the beer gods do the rest. Too many adjustments and you won't know what works and what doesn't.

 

[iskuse]

I just ran this through a beer program, for what you listed I am getting a O.G of 1.030

what were you expecting to hit? another 2lbs of DME should bring you to 1.046 and 4.19%

1lb will get you 1.038 at 3.54%

I guess at this point, it wouldn't hurt to try

 

[ICWiener]

I just ran this through a beer program, for what you listed I am getting a O.G of 1.030

Really? The recipe I used said it would come out at 1.046 or so...but that was with an additional .5 lb of DME (I didn't have quite enough on hand to make up that half lb.). I didn't think it would make that much of a difference. So, chalk it up to a bit of a funky recipe and me being a noob, not running it through beersmith first.

Well, it's a moot point. The deed is done....I added the extra lb. of DME. It looks kinda cruddy now, hopefully tastes okay. Lesson learned.

 

[iskuse]

I work out everything on paper first, then plug it into iBrewMaster (for the iPhone) to check my work. it is usually dead on, but then again I have only ever done one all grain batch. I usually do partials with about 3 to 4 pounds of grain and the rest a mixture of LME and DME. I wouldn't think a half a pound would be that off either. Was this a kit?

 

[ICWiener]

Was this a kit?

No. Just a recipe that I got off the internet. I made a couple of changes:

Went with Challenger hops in order to line up a bit more with the beer I was modeling.
Used DME instead of LME because I had a bunch on hand already. (And yes, I did the math for the conversion)
Left off about .5 lb DME beacuse I didn't have quite enough when it came time to add.

That's about it. I think I'll just pony up for a program from now on. Seems safer than trusting someone else's recipe.