Low Gravity

[Porter0220]

Hello,
Brewed an IPA last night, it was my second all grain batch and the first recipe i created on my own. I decided to brew a smaller batch as a test (2.5) gallons.
I am a beersmith user and used it to help get everything straight with my recipe
I created a new equipment profile for the new batch and all the attributes are correct.
My grain bill is as follows
5lbs American 2 row
8oz crystal 40
80z carapils
4oz rye malt
I mashed at 1.5 quarts per lb (9qts) for 1 hrs
I had a little bit of a mis calc on my strike temp which caused me to be at 160 for about 15mins.
I decided to batch sparge to save time.
My first runnings produced just a bit over 1 gallon.
I used 2.75gallons of sparge which i believe was too much (boil off about a gallon an hr)
I stopped my second runnings at about 3.1 gallons to take a gravity reading
and it came out at 1.040 after correction which is well below what I was expecting. should have been somewhere around 1.053 i believe, i don't have my software handy.
trying to determine root cause of low gravity
I used a 10gal square cooler, was my grain bed too shallow?
I probably was a bit high on my sparge water, that much to throw it off?
Is batch sparging really that less effecient? my effeciency was 45%
Note: my last all grain batch was also a high G brown ale which I used fly sparge and gravity was dead on

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Tim

 

[MEPNew2Brew]

Following are a a few of the issues that most often cause low starting gravity:

Poor grain crush. This is the most frequent cause of low starting gravity, in my experience.

If you are batch sparging - did you stir the heck out of the mash before draining. As Yooper said, you need to stir it like it owes you money.

I don't quite understand your volumes - If you stopped at 3.1 gallons total runnings, you did not sparge enough, assuming a 1 hour boil and boil off at one gallon per hour. But, your post sounds like you think you had too much sparge.

Square cooler, even with a shallow grain bed, should not be an issue.

My guess is that you did not stir enough prior to draining. I stir A LOT before I drain.

 

[Porter0220]

Thanks for the response
For the sparge, I stopped only to take a gravity reading to make sure I was on target, i did not stop completely at 3.1, but I was expecting my gravity to be way higher than my expected pre boil gravity which is why it was so alarming when I saw it was so low and I was still going to dilute it more.

In terms of stirring, I did not stir before my 1st runnings? Should I have?
I definitely stirred like crazy when I added my batch sparge water.

It just seems odd that my efficiency could be that far off. Luckily I had some DME available