Poor efficiency with too many hops?

saintzymurgy · Mar 8, 2015

Hey guys just did my first all grain. Did Golden Promise / Amarillo SMASH and unfortunately only hit 50%.

I don't want to give up on the batch but I'm concerned that the hop character is going to be over powering.

All hops were 8.2 AA w/ additions @ 60 (0.5oz) - 15 (1oz) - 5 (1oz).

With an OG of 1034 are these hops going to be too much?

McKnuckle · Mar 9, 2015

Is that a 5 gallon batch with about 10 lbs of grain? And 40 IBU thereabouts? (Making some guesses)

What temp did you mash at?

stratslinger · Mar 9, 2015

The good thing there is that you've got a relatively small bittering addition and mostly flavor/aroma additions. While it _could_ be a little on the bitter side, I don't think it'd be too far over the top. As for the late additions, the flavor and aroma they add tends to fade with a little time. So if you find they're too overpowering for you, just put the beers away to age for a couple weeks, then repeat until they hit a sweet spot for you.

saintzymurgy · Mar 9, 2015

McKnuckle said:
Is that a 5 gallon batch with about 10 lbs of grain? And 40 IBU thereabouts? (Making some guesses)

What temp did you mash at?

I mashed at 152 and lost 1 degree in 1 hour.

Trial and error will be grain crush, I did once through at LHBS

WayFrae · Mar 9, 2015

saintzymurgy said:
I mashed at 152 and lost 1 degree in 1 hour.

Trial and error will be grain crush, I did once through at LHBS

I suspect you may have had the sparge water channeling through the grain bed causing the low efficiency.

Did you fly sparge or batch sparge?

Did you stir the mash at any point?

saintzymurgy · Mar 10, 2015

WayFrae said:
I suspect you may have had the sparge water channeling through the grain bed causing the low efficiency.

Did you fly sparge or batch sparge?

Did you stir the mash at any point?

Batch sparge.

I did stir but only at the beginning. I read the thread on here about better efficiency with batch sparge and noticed a few things I could have done better.

Maybe I'll work on technique first.

WayFrae · Mar 10, 2015

I always stir the mash at least twice during the mash and then when I dump my sparge water in I stir again. I don't know if this is considered the "proper" way but I get about 75% efficiency.