O.G. .014 too low...

[ConiferAles]

Not worried, but curious.

just carboy'd a batch of euro style dark porter (partial mash) that was supposed to have an OG of 1.064, and I ended up with 1.050 (taken at 75 deg.). I can't remember the calculation for temperature error with a hydrometer, but I know it's not enough in this case to make that kind of disparity. (something like - .002 for every 10 deg. over 60, right?)

Anyways, what I'm thinking might be the suspect is that, rather than boiling 3 + gallons and sparging the rest of the water, I just boiled the whole 5 gallons and soaked the grain, then only sparged with about half a gallon. Could this account for that much loss in gravity? (the recipe included 6.5 lbs. of malt extract too.) It's been a while since I've brewed, and this is only my 10th batch or so, so I'm still pretty new to the whole thing. Any insight is appreciated.

thanks.

 

[COLObrewer]

Are you talking about specialty grains? They typically aren't used for very much of the fermentables in the wort, What were the specialty grains?

 

[jmo88]

6.5 lbs DME yields about a 1.050 OG for a 5.5gl batch. How much grains and what type were you sparging? If you were sparging base malt by doing a partial mash than you may insufficiently sparged those grains. I think the anticipated OG may have been calculated too highly though.

 

[ConiferAles]

One thing for clarification, and keep in mind I haven't too much experience here, I thought DME = dry malt extract? like for bottling.

anyways, 3.5 lbs. of grain were used, and I can't read the names off half of them:

2# Maris otter, and 1.5#'s of specialty grains I can't read.

But these grains are for flavoring, color and body, not for their sugar contribution, right?

I suppose OG could have been calculated too highly, this guy that wrote the recipe down tends to know what he's doing, but he could still be off...

 

[android]

so did you actually perform a mash with the grain or did you just steep it? i'm a little confused on your process. you mashed/steeped in 5 gallons of water? give us more details with temperatures and how long you mashed/steeped and we might be able to figure out what went wrong.

 

[jmo88]

That Maris Otter IS for sugar contribution and possibly for the conversion of starches in the remaining 1.5 lbs of specialty grains. You might not have even converted that Maris Otter. You need to mash that for an hour somewhere between 148F-160F in order to convert the starches. And DME is to replace base malt in extract recipe, DME basically is a concentrated form of that Maris Otter in which all the starches have been 'pre-converted'. Yes, DME can be used for bottling but its main purpose it to replace base malt like 2-row/maris otter for extract brewers that do not have the equipment necessary to do a mash.

 

[ConiferAles]

Ok, sorry for the lack of info here.

My recipe called for the grains pre-specified to be soaked at 155 for 45 mins, which I did in 5 gallons of water. What the recipe called to do however, was to soak the grains in 3 gallons of wa-wa (at 155) and then sparge with ~2 gallons to make the 5 gallons.

I didn't follow that, hadn't even read it in fact (I was kinda rushing a little) and so I sparged with maybe a 1/2 gallon of water instead just to get some sparging in, and I'm wondering if I could have lost that much sugar by not sparging enough.

I hope that's clear enough, thanks for the help so far...

 

[jmo88]

Well now I think its a combination of the mash and the sparge.

As for the mash: You mashed about 1.5 gallons of water per pound of grain. For good conversion you should mash at about 1 -1.5 qts per pound grain. So you may have gotten really bad conversion because of this.

As said before, 1/2 gallon sparge probably did not rinse the sugars (assuming there were sugars in the grain from conversion) well enough from the grain.

 

[ConiferAles]

so I mashed with too much water, and sparged with too little?

 

[COLObrewer]

so I mashed with too much water, and sparged with too little?

Correct sir, not to worry, it will make beer.

 

[ConiferAles]

thanks e'rybody!