No fermentation again and again

[55x11]

Chickypad, I'm sorry but it looks increasingly like my problems relate to mis-use of the refractometer. What I thought was 1.080/1.060 when I enter in the brewersfriend Brix calculator comes out as 1.037/1.011... so another case of inadequate OG.

original gravity should have been correct using refractometer.
posting recipe will help figure out what your efficiency is.
It could be something in your process or it could be that you simply didn't add enough grain.

 

[wajohnst]

I have a simple hand-held digital thermometer.
To hold around 150% I put the kettle in the oven set at the lowest temperature.
I test the temperature every 15 minutes and adjust accordingly. I stir well each time.
I do test with iodine to ensure 100% conversion.
I don't leave anything in the kettle. I lose some liquid during sparging but not a lot.

 

[Biscuits]

I'm thinking there are a few things happening here. This is assuming all of your measuring equipment is calibrated and being used correctly.

It looks like your recipe (I am assuming 2.25 lbs. of grain since we never got a specific type or amount of specialty grains for your recipe) is alright for a 1 gallon batch. However, I am not sure how you are sparging, which could be the reason your OG is not what you expected. 2.25 lbs. of MO has the potential to give you a preboil SG of 1.036 - 1.037 when mash/sparging with 2 gallons. After boiling off about a gallon of that you should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.045 - 1.050 OG. So, I am thinking that you may not be getting the best mash conversion and/or sparge efficiency is low. If your brew kettle is large enough, I would consider doing a full volume mash. This not only simplifies your brew process but it should allow for better mash conversion efficiency.

 

[55x11]

So my last batch was as follows:
two pounds of pale maris otter plus a few specialty grains
started with one gallon of water at 150 F
sparged with a gallon and a half of water at 170 F
ended up with one gallon of beer

specialty grains:
63g of caramel/crystal 10 Breiss
14g of Munich dark 30L Gambrinus
63g of Munich 10L Gambrinus

your efficiency is about 53%, assuming your measurements are exactly spot on. With efficiency of 70%, you should be expecting about 1.058 OG, and maybe closer to 6.0% ABV.

You can try to figure out why your efficiency is low (but double-check your calculations, you can easily have 5-10% uncertainty in most measurements, and 1G batches are often "lossy" due to small volume loss here and there), or you can add more base grain next time.

 

[Yooper]

I have a simple hand-held digital thermometer.
To hold around 150% I put the kettle in the oven set at the lowest temperature.
I test the temperature every 15 minutes and adjust accordingly. I stir well each time.
I do test with iodine to ensure 100% conversion.
I don't leave anything in the kettle. I lose some liquid during sparging but not a lot.

What do you mean that you lose some liquid during sparging?

How much water do you start with, and how much wort do you end up with? The grain should absorb about .125 gallons/pound of grain, so probably about 1/2 a gallon, but you won't lose any liquid during the sparge since the grain is saturated.

For your technique, do you use 1-2 quarts of water per pound of grain in the mash? And then pour hot water over that for the sparge? Or something else?

 

[bernardsmith]

I guess I would want to know what is the SG of the beer in the bottle. Do you still have your hydrometer? Could you pour out a measure of beer and allow all the CO2 to gas out and then take a reading. You might find that - all other things being equal - the beer is as fermented as it should be and if the problem has to do with efficiency then the issue has nothing to do with what is happening after you pitch the yeast...

 

[wajohnst]

Biscuits,

Thanks.
To confirm:
two pounds of pale maris otter plus a few specialty grains
specialty grains:
63g of caramel/crystal 10 Breiss
14g of Munich dark 30L Gambrinus
63g of Munich 10L Gambrinus

A bit more about sparging and boil.
I sparge with 1.5 gallons of water at 170 F.
I sparge four times going from kettle to bucket, back and forth.
There is some spillage each time so that accounts for a small amount of lost wort.
I boil for one hour and that generally reduces the wort from 1.5 gallons down to one gallon.
Maybe a bigger kettle would help?

 

[KepowOb]

Edit: didn't notice the last two pages when I posted, please ignore this, hah.

 

[Biscuits]

Biscuits,

Thanks.
To confirm:
two pounds of pale maris otter plus a few specialty grains
specialty grains:
63g of caramel/crystal 10 Breiss
14g of Munich dark 30L Gambrinus
63g of Munich 10L Gambrinus

A bit more about sparging and boil.
I sparge with 1.5 gallons of water at 170 F.
I sparge four times going from kettle to bucket, back and forth.
There is some spillage each time so that accounts for a small amount of lost wort.
I boil for one hour and that generally reduces the wort from 1.5 gallons down to one gallon.
Maybe a bigger kettle would help?

I am confused because earlier you said you mashed with 1 gallon and sparged with 1 gallon and now you're saying you sparge with 1.5 gallons. So, total volume of water you use is 2.5 gallons, but during the process you spill some and some is absorbed by grain (1 gal.) which contributes to your losses and results in a preboil volume of 1.5 gal.?? I don't know where to start because you keep changing your story. It's perfectly okay if you're not sure of your volumes...I will be the first to admit that I am not measuring exact volumes after my mash is complete...but so far you have given me variations of .5 gallons depending on which post I go by, which on a 5 gallon or larger batch isn't a big deal...but on a 1 gallon batch it means the world. Take some time to think it through and post a thorough recount of your brew day, otherwise everything is speculation and we cannot help you.

 

[wajohnst]

Sorry for the confusion, Biscuits. The recipe instructions advise to sparge with one gallon and target an end result of 1.5 gallons. That's what I do. It was an error to say that I sparged with 1.5 gallons. Sorry.

 

[singybrue]

Another thing to check is the accuracy of your thermometer. If that's off, it can affect your beer.

 

[wajohnst]

Good point, singybrue. Given the importance of temperature I think investing in a better (and quicker) thermometer would be worthwhile.

 

[jddevinn]

Biscuits,

A bit more about sparging and boil.
I sparge with 1.5 gallons of water at 170 F.
I sparge four times going from kettle to bucket, back and forth.
There is some spillage each time so that accounts for a small amount of lost wort.
I boil for one hour and that generally reduces the wort from 1.5 gallons down to one gallon.
Maybe a bigger kettle would help?

You take the wort out of the boil kettle after the initial runnings and first sparge and put it back into the MTL to re-sparge four times?!?! You shouldn't be doing that and are getting an efficiency loss.

 

[wajohnst]

jddevinn, can you please clarify?
I'll be a bit more specific about what I'm doing.
After mashing I do an iodine test.
Then I put my bucket in the sink with a strainer over it.
I pour from the kettle into the strainer to catch the grains.
The wort is then in my bucket.
I pour my sparge water over the grains.
I move the strainer on top of the kettle and pour the wort through the grain a second time with the wort now back in the kettle.
Then the whole thing is repeated.
Are you saying I shouldn't be doing that?
What should I be doing instead?

 

[Yooper]

Biscuits,

Thanks.
To confirm:
two pounds of pale maris otter plus a few specialty grains
specialty grains:
63g of caramel/crystal 10 Breiss
14g of Munich dark 30L Gambrinus
63g of Munich 10L Gambrinus

A bit more about sparging and boil.
I sparge with 1.5 gallons of water at 170 F.
I sparge four times going from kettle to bucket, back and forth.
There is some spillage each time so that accounts for a small amount of lost wort.
I boil for one hour and that generally reduces the wort from 1.5 gallons down to one gallon.
Maybe a bigger kettle would help?

More questions from me! What do you mean by "sparge four times going from kettle bo bucket, back and forth" It sounds like you mean you're pouring wort back and forth.

When you sparge, you want to use water (only clear water), to "rinse" the sugars from the grains. You want to NEVER pour the wort over the grains, except to strain the first little bit (called vorlaufing). Running wort back through the grains, instead of sparge water, would definitely reduce the efficiency. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

It's easiest if you put your grains in a strainer above the pot and just pour the water thoroughly over them until you reach your boil volume.

Thinking of a washing machine. If you just rinsed the clothes with the same water you used in the wash, it would not get all of the soap out. In the same way, that's like mashing, lautering, and sparging. You mash to get the grains and water all mixed up, using 1.5 (ish) quarts of water per pound of grain. Stir the heck out of it, like your washing machine agitates the clothes. After the mash, you can drain that wort and put it in the pot. Then, either add your sparge water to the grains and stir it up again like it owes you money and drain that, OR put the grains in the strainer over the pot and pour clear water over that. Either way is ok.

But 'rinsing' with wort means that those sticky sugars will stick back to the grain and not come out, since the whole principle here is diffusion. You want to rinse your grains (sparge) only with water.

 

[wajohnst]

Thanks, Yooper. As per my message above, here is my sparging technique:

After mashing I do an iodine test.
Then I put my bucket in the sink with a strainer over it.
I pour from the kettle into the strainer to catch the grains.
The wort is then in my bucket.
I pour my sparge water over the grains.
I move the strainer on top of the kettle and pour the wort through the grain a second time with the wort now back in the kettle.
Then the whole thing is repeated.
In other words, the wort passes through the grain four times.
Are you saying I shouldn't be doing that?
I should sparge once only?

 

[jddevinn]

• You should mash with your strike water at about 1.25qt of water per pound of grain.
• You should add whatever water (if any) is below your false bottom
• The rest of the water to make your preboil batch size should be your sparge water (heat up more than needed)
• You should know your pre-boil batch size from your finished batch size + the boil off rate (measure with water if needed) * boil time
• Mash
• When you are done with the mash Vorlof, drain and add back to the mash tun, (if needed) ONLY until the grain is clear.
• Drain the mash tun into the boil kettle (or bucket for you) you should do this at a slow pace of ~.2 gallons per minute.
• Assuming you are batch sparging drain the entire mash tun, add your calculated sparge water, stir, wait a minute, then drain into the boil kettle (bucket) slowly until. If calculated right you should reach your pre boil volume.
• If fly sparging add the sparge water gently at the same rate as the wort is drained. Stop when you reach the preboil volume.
  
  You should not be putting the wort BACK into the mash. Sparge water is new water.
  
  Give this a read if you haven't (although it is a bit outdated) http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3/your-first-all-grain-batch/preparation
  
  For this small of a batch I'd consider going no sparge at a slight loss of efficiency (meaning you need more grain) but a big process time improvement.
  

 

[wajohnst]

Thanks, jddevinn!

 

[wajohnst]

Thanks so much, Yooper. I think you may have hit the true source of my problem.

 

[singybrue]

Yes, Yooper is absolutely right. You only rinse once.
You should also bump up your batch size slightly so you have some spare wort for hydrometer readings.
Can your pot handle a 1.5 gallon batch?

 

[brewshki]

More questions from me! What do you mean by "sparge four times going from kettle bo bucket, back and forth" It sounds like you mean you're pouring wort back and forth.

When you sparge, you want to use water (only clear water), to "rinse" the sugars from the grains. You want to NEVER pour the wort over the grains, except to strain the first little bit (called vorlaufing). Running wort back through the grains, instead of sparge water, would definitely reduce the efficiency. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

It's easiest if you put your grains in a strainer above the pot and just pour the water thoroughly over them until you reach your boil volume.

Thinking of a washing machine. If you just rinsed the clothes with the same water you used in the wash, it would not get all of the soap out. In the same way, that's like mashing, lautering, and sparging. You mash to get the grains and water all mixed up, using 1.5 (ish) quarts of water per pound of grain. Stir the heck out of it, like your washing machine agitates the clothes. After the mash, you can drain that wort and put it in the pot. Then, either add your sparge water to the grains and stir it up again like it owes you money and drain that, OR put the grains in the strainer over the pot and pour clear water over that. Either way is ok.

But 'rinsing' with wort means that those sticky sugars will stick back to the grain and not come out, since the whole principle here is diffusion. You want to rinse your grains (sparge) only with water.

on an interesting note, there is a fairly recent brew strong episode where John Blichman guests and talks about multiple mashes. The idea was how big of a beer one could make using a Brew Easy I believe. It sounded as though mashes could be additive meaning that doing one mash and then using the runoff from that mash as the "strike water" in another mash will essentially double the gravity. Obviously, this is not the sparging you are talking about here, but it reminded me of it and it totally blew my mind so I had to share.

 

[Yooper]

on an interesting note, there is a fairly recent brew strong episode where John Blichman guests and talks about multiple mashes. The idea was how big of a beer one could make using a Brew Easy I believe. It sounded as though mashes could be additive meaning that doing one mash and then using the runoff from that mash as the "strike water" in another mash will essentially double the gravity. Obviously, this is not the sparging you are talking about here, but it reminded me of it and it totally blew my mind so I had to share.

While I think there would still be an efficiency hit, using the wort as strike liquor would work- again, it's the process of diffusion so the higher sugars (grain in the mash) would still move to the liquid but not as much as if you were striking with water. But by using the wort from one mash, you are doing a bigger batch and not having to boil a double batch down to a single batch so that's the trade off there. The hit in efficiency would be less than the hit in efficiency undersparging due to the size of the batch, if that makes sense.

 

[wajohnst]

Thanks to all who have offered advice on sparging. I want to share the instructions from the Brew Better Beer book.

"Pour the mashed grains into the strainer. The wort collects in the bucket beneath. Slowly pour the warmed sparge water over the grains, rinsing them evenly, until you have collected 1.5 gallons of wort. Transfer the strainer with the used grains to the kettle. Slowly pour the wort over the grains again. Repeat this step twice more, ending with the wort back in your kettle."

So, what I'm hearing on this forum is that Christenen's book is giving bad advice.

 

[55x11]

What do you mean that you lose some liquid during sparging?

How much water do you start with, and how much wort do you end up with? The grain should absorb about .125 gallons/pound of grain, so probably about 1/2 a gallon, but you won't lose any liquid during the sparge since the grain is saturated.

For your technique, do you use 1-2 quarts of water per pound of grain in the mash? And then pour hot water over that for the sparge? Or something else?

OP should lose about .29 Gallons to grain adsorption (0.125 times (2+0.3)).

Perhaps OP leaves the "missing" 0.7G of 2nd runnings behind which would explain why he ends up with 50% efficiency.

The loss of half of the water is too large for this size of beer. Unless OP ends up with 1.7G and boils 0.7G away but I doubt it.

 

[EJay]

With a 1G batch, and I've done many, I don't think I'd bother with sparging at all. I always did a full-volume BIAB mash (though strainer would work too). I agree that there's no reason to run the collected wort back through the grain...particularly if you're spilling. On a 1G batch, every drop is precious

I agree that Sean Terril's calculator is great, but I'd use a hydrometer until you're confident that the corrected FG readings on the refractometer are consistent. You don't correct the OG readings on the refractometer.

For another view on procedure for 1G batches, Midwest Supplies' 1G kits have their instructions (BIAB) and recipes posted online, and they're pretty good, esp. their Belgian, which is a recipe I liked so much I've scaled it UP.

 

[Yooper]

So, what I'm hearing on this forum is that Christenen's book is giving bad advice.

I don't know that book, but yes, I'd say it's bad advice.

 

[jddevinn]

Thanks to all who have offered advice on sparging. I want to share the instructions from the Brew Better Beer book.

"Pour the mashed grains into the strainer. The wort collects in the bucket beneath. Slowly pour the warmed sparge water over the grains, rinsing them evenly, until you have collected 1.5 gallons of wort. Transfer the strainer with the used grains to the kettle. Slowly pour the wort over the grains again. Repeat this step twice more, ending with the wort back in your kettle."

So, what I'm hearing on this forum is that Christenen's book is giving bad advice.

Yep never read that book but that's wrong.

 

[wajohnst]

reartn, thanks for following up.
I had two previous batches but my first was using extract and the second, my first all grain, I did all kinds of things wrong but I did get good fermentation.
Thanks to the forum I've learned a number of things to improve my brewing and my ABV calculations.
I bought a mash tun that I will use with a single sparging as opposed to the wort recycling I had been doing.
I will up the OG by adding more grain to the 5-gallon recipes that I adapt for one gallon batches.
I will stop mis-using my refractometer and return to using a hydrometer.
Those are the main things. Let's see how the next batch turns out.

 

[Anyhowe]

reartn, thanks for following up.
I had two previous batches but my first was using extract and the second, my first all grain, I did all kinds of things wrong but I did get good fermentation.
Thanks to the forum I've learned a number of things to improve my brewing and my ABV calculations.
I bought a mash tun that I will use with a single sparging as opposed to the wort recycling I had been doing.
I will up the OG by adding more grain to the 5-gallon recipes that I adapt for one gallon batches.
I will stop mis-using my refractometer and return to using a hydrometer.
Those are the main things. Let's see how the next batch turns out.

It will be yummy I expect. Good attitude. Brewing is not like brainsurvey where there is one right answer. It is an evolution of evaluation, taste and technique. Enjoy what is and what will ever be. Que mr Page...

 

[marc1]

Sounds like you are on the right track!

That book gets discussed a bit in this thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=563533
Some of the recipes seem like they are way off, but I'm a little curious how they would come out. Let us know if you make the brown ale that's 5# pale malt, 5# honey malt, and 1.25# c120. Maybe scale it back to 1 or 2 gallons.