Low og cause on hefe question

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

Hi there. We've attempted a hefe twice now consisting of 7# wheat and 4# pils. Mashed 90 minutes at 153 and did a continuos sparge and hit 174 on the mash out temp. Both times our og was 1.027 on the money. Any idea on what the problem with our effectively is? Should be around 1.050.

Thanks,
Jeramie

 

[wes79]

We will need more info to help ya.

 

[RM-MN]

Get your own grain mill and adjust it tighter when you do the wheat. The kernels of wheat are smaller and harder to crush so they mostly just fall through the mill with little to no crushing. Your 1.027 OG is mostly from the Pilsener malt.

 

[mashinary]

Me totally assuming things...

In a 5 gallon batch, measuring the gravity after boiling and at the right temperature for your hydrometer; 7 pounds of Red Wheat and 4 pounds of random Pils malt:
75% brew house eff = OG of 1.061.
65% brew house eff = OG of 1.053.

At what point did you measure the OG and at what temp? Check the calibration temperature for your hydrometer, and adjust from there, if you didn't.

Outside of the questions and what not, welcome to brewing all grain! I totally screwed up my first few AG batches but it's pretty fun turning grain in to beer. Don't let a few set backs, set you back. This is a pretty fun and rewarding hobby.

 

[bluedevil]

Get your own grain mill and adjust it tighter when you do the wheat. The kernels of wheat are smaller and harder to crush so they mostly just fall through the mill with little to no crushing. Your 1.027 OG is mostly from the Pilsener malt.

Another trick to help with this is to mill the wheat and combine it with the rest of the grains and then run that through the mill. This is what I do and I don't have any issues with efficiency on beers with wheat.

 

[Andy_2]

There's a good chance you're not getting a thorough sparge with that much wheat. Wheat malt has no husks so you might want to try throwing in some rice hulls to compensate.

 

[wischwm]

I would never consider fly-sparging a high wheat content grist - too much channeling!

 

[starsman20]

I would never consider fly-sparging a high wheat content grist - too much channeling!

You just have to add a lot of rice hulls to make up for it.

 

[baer19d]

Are you able to check your mash Ph? If the Ph is outside of the window (5.2-5.6 depending on what you read and who you talk to) you won't get proper conversion because the enzymes are denatured. If tpu Ph is correct You can also try a Beta Amalise rest at aroumd 140 and a protein rest at 120 can be helpful with wheat beers.

 

[wischwm]

You just have to add a lot of rice hulls to make up for it.

Rice hulls help prevent a stuck sparge, not channeling in my experience.

 

[10_degrees_play-doh]

In addition to the suggestions above, here are a few other items to consider:

properly mashing in / breaking up doughballs

thermometer accuracy (if you're using say, a meat thermometer, they can be pretty inaccurate)

double check the temp at the end of the mash

verify hydrometer accuracy with distilled water at the calibration temp

wort volumes- how much did you run off , boil off, etc?

verify the wheat you got is malted (it usually is, but worth double checking when you buy it)

collect your gravity sample before aeration and/or off-gas the sample

Of course, all these suggestions are conjecture without knowing more of your process...

 

[homebrewer_99]

Hi there. We've attempted a hefe twice now consisting of 7# wheat and 4# pils. Mashed 90 minutes at 153 and did a continuos sparge and hit 174 on the mash out temp. Both times our og was 1.027 on the money. Any idea on what the problem with our effectively is? Should be around 1.050.

Thanks,
Jeramie

I have to agree with an earlier question concerning your grind. Wheat doesn't have a hull therefore the grain is smaller than barley.

Wheat needs to be ground separately and 1/4 lb of Rice Hulls added to the mash tun to avoid a stuck sparge.

Another thing, I ONLY do Batch Sparging. After the wort is racked to the brew pot I know how much sparge water to use to hit my 6.5 gal mark. I tried my hand with the whirly-gig and about 90% of the time my beers were ruined by excessive tannins. No more. I'm back to batch...forever.

I use:

5 lbs, 12 oz Wheat
3 lbs, 12 oz Pale

(9.5 lbs compared to your 11lbs.)

Mash Schedule 30 minutes at 50C/122F then 60 minutes at 66C/151F
I usually collect 6.5 gals into the brew pot.

Boil time: 90 minutes. Adding the hops at 30 minutes into the boil.

My last batch had an OG: 1.050, FG: 1.006, 4.620% ABW.5.775% ABV.

 

[DTAB]

Sounds like you're only getting conversion (or mostly) from your pils not from the wheat. I'd suggest ensuring that your wheat is actually malted and that it's ran through your mill properly.

I highly doubt it has anything to do with a stuck sparge - I feel you'd notice the lack of water coming out of your mash tun.

 

[RM-MN]

Sounds like you're only getting conversion (or mostly) from your pils not from the wheat. I'd suggest ensuring that your wheat is actually malted and that it's ran through your mill properly.

I highly doubt it has anything to do with a stuck sparge - I feel you'd notice the lack of water coming out of your mash tun.

The Pils malt probaby has sufficient diastatic power to fully convert unmalted wheat. I've tried up to 65% unmalted and with proper milling it converted fine.

 

[nshack]

Lots of good advice here. The first thing I'd recommend is checking your thermometer. I missed my corrrct mash temps a few times because of s thermometer that was off by 10-20 degrees F.
Then if check your grind. Too fine is better than too coarse when it comes to conversion/efficiency.

 

[foxchainman]

pH test strips, pH 5.2 buffer from 5 star(the makers of star San and PBW) one table spoon per 5 gallons will insure your pH is perfect regardless of the source water, one teaspoon of calcium chloride added to your strike water will give your starch conversion enzymes the calcium is hey need. Finer grind on your grains will help a lot . Run you grains through your homebrew store grain mill twice or close the gap on your personal grain mill to the thickness of a credit card. Slow down the flow rate on your fly sparse. Buy more grains. My brew house efficiency is 65 percent. I buy 20 percent extra grains to make-up for my efficiency compared to the recipe efficiency. My brew house efficiency went up 10 percent when I started milling my own grains with the credit card as my gap adjustment guide. Adding one teaspoon of Calcium chloride to my RO water strike water and sparse water helped 3-5 percent to my efficient as a slower sparge rate will help a little too. I use a brew in a bag mesh bag 24 by 24 inch nylon $9 for insurance against stuck sparge. I have a bayou classic 10 gallon mash tun with a false bottom and had a couple of stuck sparges but now with the brew in the bag never a problem. All the little things add up to better efficiency. Grind and pH being the biggest. Plus calibrate your thermometer also. Missing the right temp on your mash might cause bad effieien too.

 

[lawdawg]

I also had efficiency problems when using high amounts of wheat (usually white wheat) until I started having my local homebrew shop double crush the wheat malt.

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

Thanks for the responses. Meant it should have been around 1.060. Temps were verified on a calibrated thermometer. We had 1lb of rice hulls in there. Ph of the water was 6. We kept a 2 inch layer of water above the grain while sparging. Grain was milled seperatly from the store with no roller adjustment. Hope this helps.

 

[DTAB]

How big of a batch were you making?

 

[Smellyglove]

If target was 60 and the result was 27 then I have to ask if the grains were crushed? If yes then there's a big error in measurment. 27 is pretty low.

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

This was a 5 gallon batch. My runnings looks good. Vorlaughed a gallon and it was looking good. Grains were all crushed and temps were all hit. It's sounding like a grain milling problem. We're debating about getting our own grain mill an buying grain wholesale since we have our FEIN and Michigan sales tax license. Might have to make the next leap. My thought was the wheat didn't convert.

 

[doug293cz]

pH test strips, pH 5.2 buffer from 5 star(the makers of star San and PBW) one table spoon per 5 gallons will insure your pH is perfect regardless of the source water, ...

This part is bad advice. pH test strips are not accurate enough for brewing, and you are trying to interpret shades of brown in a brown liquid. If you want to actually measure pH, get a good pH meter, and learn how to calibrate and use it properly. The good news is you don't have to actually measure pH to know that it is "good enough." If you can get a water report that tells you the alkalinity and the Ca, Mg, Chloride (not chlorine), Sulfate, Na, and K ion concentrations, or just use RO water, you can use a program like BrunWater to figure out what to add to get your mash pH where it needs to be.

The pH 5.2 buffer will definitely NOT give you perfect mash pH with any water. The consensus around here (including a couple of water chemistry experts) is that the 5.2 buffer is essentially useless.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

Thanks for the responses. Meant it should have been around 1.060. Temps were verified on a calibrated thermometer. We had 1lb of rice hulls in there. Ph of the water was 6. We kept a 2 inch layer of water above the grain while sparging. Grain was milled seperatly from the store with no roller adjustment. Hope this helps.

pH of mash water is pretty much irrelevant. It is the alkalinity of the water, and mash pH that matter. pH of sparge water should be less than 6. If it measured 6, you are borderline, and any measurement error could have put you over the limit. But, these are not usually causes of extremely low mash efficiency. The posters that bring up the possibility of mostly uncrushed wheat, are probably on the right track.

Brew on

 

[Andy_2]

Ideally your mash Ph should be around 5.2 but 6 shouldn't cause you any problems. You want to add rice hulls at the same volume as the wheat malt. Do a protein rest at 122°F for 20 min then bring the temp up to your saccharification temp. Mash out at 168° for 10 minutes to lower the viscosity of the liquid. If you're fly sparging go slow. It should take about an hour and a half to collect 9 gallons of wort. I heat my sparge water to 180°F before I put it in the cooler. By the time it trickles into the mash tun it's down to 168°.

 

[lawdawg]

My local homebrew shop wouldn't adjust the rollers either but he was willing to double crush the grains. The double crush seemed to do the trick. We also milled the wheat separately. By the way, in a later discussion, he told me that he had recalibrated the rollers after I mentioned that I was getting low efficiency when using lots of wheat. Also, Weyerman Barke Pils seems to have better efficiency than most if your local guy can get it.

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

We may attempt this hefe again using the advice here and see how it goes. We haven't had any issue with any other beers, only ones involving wheat. It makes sense on the crush of the grain. I think we are going to purchase our own grain mill and start getting our own grain to keep the process in house. The recipes we are focusing on all have similar grain. We've mastered a cream ale, a citrus blonde ale, banana bread beer(also low OG but not bad) and a pale ale. Were onto hopefully a hefe, ipa and some kind of stout. We want the get enough beer going to keep 8 taps going. lol Thank you everyone for the great answers and tips.

Thanks,
Jeramie

 

[lawdawg]

I only had efficiency issues when using wheat too. The crush will fix your issues. You may occasionally still hit 1.058 instead of 1.060 but I doubt you'll sweat that. Best of luck on the brewery! Where are you located in case I'm ever in the area?

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

That's pretty much what I was thinking. Close enough is good enough for us! Lol We are just starting out actually. Have a 3 year goal. Right now we are on the funds building stage and finding beers that people like. Basically doing market research with all our friends. Lmao! I think we're going to get our own mill and buy the grain in bulk and see what happens. We are in Michigan.

 

[RM-MN]

That's pretty much what I was thinking. Close enough is good enough for us! Lol We are just starting out actually. Have a 3 year goal. Right now we are on the funds building stage and finding beers that people like. Basically doing market research with all our friends. Lmao! I think we're going to get our own mill and buy the grain in bulk and see what happens. We are in Michigan.

Regardless of where you live, buy a cheap Corona mill and a strainer bag. Mill your grains fine as with using a bag as the filter will avoid plugging since you can lift the bag to expose more filter area. Then redo the hefe that you just attempted.

Fair warning: If you get the Corona mill and set it tight you may be plagued with overshooting your expected OG until you adjust recipes. It will be a chore to have to drink the 7% beers when you expected 5.5%.

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

Lol! It sounds like a terrible chore! ���� We live by the if alittle is good then a lot must be better! Haha!

 

[jameslg2169]

Not sure if anyone else asked. How are you taking your reading? Hydrometer or refractometer?

 

[johnnytaco]

I would also check your pH. If you’re around 7 then it would take much longer to convert. Try throwing in 6 oz of acidulated malt and see if that helps.

 

[Smellyglove]

I just did a Hefe where I forgot my water adjustments, didn't measure, as I got lazy after it checked out several times in different brews. The calculated pH with no adjustments was 5.78. No change in OG comparing the the same recipe I made two days later with targeted 5.3 pH, (where I didn't forget to add the adjustments). Both were right on their mark.

Haven't measured FG on the "proper one", but I expect it to land where it always does, the one without adjustments landed where it should, but the taste is pretty bad.

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

We are taking gravity reading with a refractometer and doing temp adjustments. Ph is aroubd 6ish so we're going to mash longer and do iodine testing along the way to get an idea on conversion time. Really don't have the stuff to do water treatments but it'll probably be in the near future. Each time we brew we try to creat stuff to keep consistency and consistent water will help us. Thanks!

 

[BeerEngineer15]

On thing about rice hulls, if you are using them (I always use them on my wheat beers) make sure that you pre-wet them with hot water. If you don't the rice hulls will adsorb your wort, reducing your overall efficiency. I like to throw mine in a bucket of hot (150F-ish) water for half hour or so while I'm milling my grain. Take them out of the bucket by hand to let them drip dry a quick minute and then add them to the mash.

 

[foxchainman]

This part is bad advice. pH test strips are not accurate enough for brewing, and you are trying to interpret shades of brown in a brown liquid. If you want to actually measure pH, get a good pH meter, and learn how to calibrate and use it properly. The good news is you don't have to actually measure pH to know that it is "good enough." If you can get a water report that tells you the alkalinity and the Ca, Mg, Chloride (not chlorine), Sulfate, Na, and K ion concentrations, or just use RO water, you can use a program like BrunWater to figure out what to add to get your mash pH where it needs to be.

The pH 5.2 buffer will definitely NOT give you perfect mash pH with any water. The consensus around here (including a couple of water chemistry experts) is that the 5.2 buffer is essentially useless.

Brew on

5.2 stabilizer works. Maybe not with every source water but I use RO water. pH test strips I use work fine. I am an Analytical Chemist for Big Pharma for 25 plus years and use pH meter calibrated every twelve hours per United States Pharmacopeia. Using two buffers bracketing the pH range you want to measure with pH Buffers traceable to National Institute of Standards and Technology. Then run a check standard to test the accuracy of the calibration curve just saved by the pH meter. Also make sure the slope of the calibration curve is 95% to 105% of theoretical. Also need to know if the the calibration curve created by the NIST traceable buffers don't have a offset of plus or minus 30 mV of the theoretical pH calibration curve. The average homebrewers armed with a pH meter is only going to generate error filled data with a pH meter. Will the average hombrewer calibrated the pH meter with properly and freshly prepare buffers daily? Will they take this measurement at 25 degrees C plus or minus 0.5 degrees C. Will they cool there Mash pH sample to room temperature? Will they own a pH meter that is capable accurate measurements. Will they store the electrode properly to insure accurate measurement? Taking accurate pH measurements are not as easy as buying a $100 piece of **** pH meter and be missed guided by it results. I would trust pH 5.2 pH stabilizer and RO water and pH paper. Any home brewer can pull this off. A home brewer learning how to be an Analytical Chemist, Buy a $500 to a $1000 pH meter, and figure how to run it accurately, buy calibration buffers for daily, etc. is bad advice.

 

[doug293cz]

5.2 stabilizer works. Maybe not with every source water but I use RO water. pH test strips I use work fine. I am an Analytical Chemist for Big Pharma for 25 plus years and use pH meter calibrated every twelve hours per United States Pharmacopeia. Using two buffers bracketing the pH range you want to measure with pH Buffers traceable to National Institute of Standards and Technology. Then run a check standard to test the accuracy of the calibration curve just saved by the pH meter. Also make sure the slope of the calibration curve is 95% to 105% of theoretical. Also need to know if the the calibration curve created by the NIST traceable buffers don't have a offset of plus or minus 30 mV of the theoretical pH calibration curve. The average homebrewers armed with a pH meter is only going to generate error filled data with a pH meter. Will the average hombrewer calibrated the pH meter with properly and freshly prepare buffers daily? Will they take this measurement at 25 degrees C plus or minus 0.5 degrees C. Will they cool there Mash pH sample to room temperature? Will they own a pH meter that is capable accurate measurements. Will they store the electrode properly to insure accurate measurement? Taking accurate pH measurements are not as easy as buying a $100 piece of **** pH meter and be missed guided by it results. I would trust pH 5.2 pH stabilizer and RO water and pH paper. Any home brewer can pull this off. A home brewer learning how to be an Analytical Chemist, Buy a $500 to a $1000 pH meter, and figure how to run it accurately, buy calibration buffers for daily, etc. is bad advice.

In your previous post you wrote: "pH 5.2 buffer from 5 star(the makers of star San and PBW) one table spoon per 5 gallons will insure your pH is perfect regardless of the source water..." That's quite different than saying it works with RO water.

Which pH strips do you recommend?

Brew on

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

Figured I'd give an update. We did the same recipe but just used US-05 for the yeast. We got a starting gravity of 1.055! We got our own 3 roller grain mill and a calibrated lab thermometer. Beer is in the fermenter and ready for kegging in a couple days. With the grain mill and thermometer our efficiency went from 70-73% up to a consistent 80-82%!

 

[Dirty-Thumb-Brewery]

Forgot to say. The ph of the water we are brewing with is in the mid 6's. For what we are doing right now that's fine. The beer has never been better!

 

[RM-MN]

Figured I'd give an update. We did the same recipe but just used US-05 for the yeast. We got a starting gravity of 1.055! We got our own 3 roller grain mill and a calibrated lab thermometer. Beer is in the fermenter and ready for kegging in a couple days. With the grain mill and thermometer our efficiency went from 70-73% up to a consistent 80-82%!

Now you know why I recommend that a brewer has his/her own mill. The milling of the grain is the biggest cause of a low OG.