OG too low

[rkehlet]

Hi All
I been brewing for 3 months - 12 brews so far. I recently purchased a Grainfather 30 l. I quickly ditched BeerSmith - no reliable profile and using my own calculation and Beer Calc.

I have a fundamental problem - I can not at all predict the OG of my brews.
Today i did the following "stout clone" recipe:

Maris Otter 4,9 kg
Cara Hel 0,4 kg
Cara Munic 0,9 kg
Flaked Oats 0,4 kg
Chokolate malt 0,4 kg
Carafa II 0,40 kg

Grain bill total = 7,40 kg.

Mash info:
Mash water = 24 liter
Sparge = 4 liters
Preboil = 23 liter



According to Beercalc:
Estimated Pre Boil OG =1.073

I get the reading 1.060 (corrected for temperature)
Final OG i get to = 1.062.

I'm confused

 

[Subdivisions]

On your 'corrected for temperature' reading are you measuring the wort when it's pretty hot and with a hydrometer? (Over 50 C).

I like to cool the sample to at least 27 C then use the temperature correction calculator to get a more accurate reading. If you measure too hot the correction doesn't correspond very well.

 

[rkehlet]

Hi Many thanks for the advice.
Yes i too also got suspicious about the corrections for temperature, did some cross reference readings on hot vs cooled wort yesterday and found +/- .006 in dev. From now on i will cool it definitely

 

[pablosbrewing]

Any system can be dialed in with BeerSmith (or any other tool). Just make adjustments based on your results and you will get dialed in. There is no "reliable profile" for any calculator that works for everyone right away.

Efficiency -Grain crush, mash pH, mash temp, mash time
Boil off rate per hour - affects post boil volume in any system

 

[rkehlet]

Hi Pablo
Thanks for reply on this topic.
Regarding the GF for Beersmith I havent yet seen any profile that works.
Try a search on Google and you will find out that I am not the only person with this problem.
The main problem lies with the sparge water calculation, I cannot adjust this calculation even under advanced options. Using the profile provided by Beer Smith leaves you with 50% or so excessive sparge water than needed.
haven't seen anyone, even Mr. Brad Beersmith able to solve this issue
Best
Rasmus

 

[pablosbrewing]

Hi Pablo
Thanks for reply on this topic.
Regarding the GF for Beersmith I havent yet seen any profile that works.
Try a search on Google and you will find out that I am not the only person with this problem.
The main problem lies with the sparge water calculation, I cannot adjust this calculation even under advanced options. Using the profile provided by Beer Smith leaves you with 50% or so excessive sparge water than needed.
haven't seen anyone, even Mr. Brad Beersmith able to solve this issue
Best
Rasmus

I tried some things in BS2 and I see now why it doesn't work - the "lauter deadspace" of 3.5L is not actually lost, and BS2 isn't set up to account for that.

 

[rkehlet]

Hi Pablo
Ok tanks for this, il see if I can correct

 

[Brewing_CSU_Ram_Fan]

How did you sparge? It took me 5 brews with the GF to get over doing the sparge the way I would with my gravity keggle mash tun. I was pulling up the basket and starting to sparge almost immediately using my sparge arm. That was wrong in this case.

To effectively sparge you have to let most of the water drain first, adjust the top plate down to the settled grain bed, and then slowly pour the water over the top plate a little at a time. Enough to keep a few cm over the top plate until end of sparge. Just this little change in the sparge made a huge difference in efficiency.

I have a 10 gallon gravity system but I have found that I really like the GF. I have been happy with the purchase. I can brew with it inside being the key. Plus, the simplicity and short time for cleaning has been a big plus. Lastly, a home made hop spider or a purchased one is worth the few dollars invested. I have yet to clog the filter up.

Lastly... in the flow of this thread. I use Beersmith for my recipes (with modifications of my brewing profile) and use the water calculator from GF for my water profile.

 

[rkehlet]

Hi
Great reply and highly usable. I just did two batches and kind of did what you suggest with good results. No doubt I will benefit from more attention to the sparging and I did not, as you suggest, wait until the water had drained. This will be implemented next week. Concerning hop spider I used socks and more recently just poured hops directly in the tank resulting in a clogged filter. might invest in one now. Lastly I'm interested in the beersmith profile. Do you use it for calculating IBU, alcohol etc.? Is it reliable despite the error in water calc? I use beercalc for this and kinda gave up on Beeesmith.

 

[Brewing_CSU_Ram_Fan]

I still don't know if you let the grain fully drain or enough until the grainbed has settled to adjust the top plate. Everything suggests to let it almost drain completely before sparging... If you figure it out (or if anyone else has figured it out) please post it.

I have about 50 brews with my Home Depot Cooler and Keggle mash tuns. I have learned SO MUCH from this forum also. So I have a good knowledge of what I am doing and a few recipes dialed in on BeerSmith that are pretty darned good. So that was my main reason for keeping BeerSmith. But those recipes are dialed in for gravity brewing.

In a different forum on the web I found a post where one guy set up a profile in BeerSmith for his grainfather. You can easily Google it. I basically set my profile up exactly like that. Then I started tweaking a little here and there... like grain absorption etc. Problem is that without sparging correctly I can't say whether my tweaking is good or not. So right now I am still developing my recipes in Beersmith to adjust my IBU's, color, and alcohol levels. But I am not using the water calculations (which have been off by about 1/2 gallon compared to GF's calculator). I also have the efficiency set in at 70% right now until I get a true feel what things really are.

Hope that helps. I will watch to see if you post your results on the next brew regarding your target OG. If I brew first I will post my latest on here to see if draining the sparge technique is consistent to my brewing profile.

There is a good thread on here somewhere that tells how to build a homemade hop spider with a pvc pipe and bolts... it cost me about $6 overall without the mesh. Google homemade hop spider. The PVC never touches the wort. Then you can buy a reusable mesh from your LHBS to use. I have two that I use to double screen the hops and after every brew I clean them out, rinse them good, and then wash them with some old towels that I use to wipe up around the brew day.

Lastly... one thing that I have learned off of this forum...take detailed notes of your entire brew day until you nail your brewing down.