Raspberry Wheat

[Jbpiv]

This is my second all grain brew so I'm still learning. I took a reading upon putting in my primary and came out low. Should have been between 1.042 and 1.046. I was around 1.032. What did I do wrong and should I be concerned? Just took another reading this morning and I'm around 1.028 2 days into it. FG should be around 1.012-1.017. I'm still new to everything all together so any help would be appreciated. Should I be concerned?

 

[chickypad]

Without having a lot to go on here I'd look first toward your crush. Was this your first time using wheat? It's smaller than barley grain. You may want to crush it separately and either run it through twice or tighten your gap (never personally tried the double crush but I've seen some folks recommend it).

 

[Jbpiv]

That's a possibility. I ordered the kit from Midwest and had them crush the grains. I'd imagine its probably not perfect. I just don't have the equipment to do it myself yet. I guess there's nothing I can do to change that now, but should
I worry about the final outcome of the brew?

 

[chickypad]

Well, it will be lower in alcohol content for one. Might just have a nice session beer. Besides crush, did you hit your volumes? That would also be a common cause for missing your gravity significantly.

 

[dkm11b]

generally with all grain brewing the three main concerns with hitting your SG/FG is 1)grain crush (i double crush mine for this very reason)
2)pre and post boil volumes (diluting your beer with water will lower the gravity)
3)during sparge, stir the grain like crazy (if batch sparging), seriously it might take 3-5 minutes of stirring to get all the grain properly soaked with water, and all those wonderful sugars out of them.

if any one of those steps is not done, just make sure you do the other 2 precisely. if the grain crush isn't as fine as you would like it, make sure your volumes are as close to perfect as possible, and make sure you stir up the grain, and sparge correctly.

enjoy the brew though, it sounds like a good summer time beer.