This is incredibly frustrating. I really need a grain mill.
Brewed a 5 gallon batch of Barleywine tonight and missed my numbers by a huge margin.
Recipe and stats:
- 20 lbs Maris Otter
- 0.5 lbs Caramalt
- 0.5 lbs Dark Crystal
Mash at 150F for 75 minutes, recirculating on LOW flow.
Mash thickness: 1.2
Mash pH was 5.3
Mashout at 170 for 10
Fly sparge with 5.3 pH water to 6.5 gallons preboil over the course of 1 hour
Stir the mash every 20 minutes during mash and just after mashout (followed by pump vorlauf until runnings cleared)
Preboil OG: 1.073.
Target: 1.081 at 70% efficiency - apparent efficiency = 58%
Post Boil Gravity: 1.087.
Target: 1.106 - missed it by 19 points
--Side note, how does gravity jump from 1.081 to 1.106 after just a 60 minute boil?? I'm getting this jump in both BrewTarget and BrewersFriend software.--
I *thought* I was only 2 points off on my preboil gravity but it turns out I had my boil volume plugged in as 7 gallons into my brew software rather than 6.5, so I was actually off by 8 points. I proceeded to hop accordingly. After I boiled, chilled, and took an SG reading, I realized I was 19 points off from target SG, which sent my BU:GU to 0.78.
Is this beer ruined? I was aiming for a BU:GU of about 50. Should I boil up some DME? Add a sugar-water solution to help balance the BU:GU ratio back down by adding gravity units? I'm afraid of drying it out too much, but I'd rather have a slightly dryer beer than something that makes my mouth pucker like I'm licking a 9v battery.