curtw
Well-Known Member
So here's the deal: I brewed my second all-grain BIAB brew the other day, and I forgot to take a gravity reading before I pitched. Oh well, no worries, I just won't know what the ABV is of the final beer.
(I understand that taking a gravity reading of the wort+yeast is just going to give inaccurate results, so I didn't bother. Esp. since I used a 1-liter starter.)
So I figure I'd take a gravity reading after 24 hours, see what's happening. Well -- my hydrometer says 1.010 or so: about what I was hoping the FG would be...
My question is: Am I screwed; did I just have the worst efficiency possible? Or has the yeast fermentation caused some sort of differential in the wort/beer, such that all the sugars are at the bottom of my bucket (I took a sample from about the halfway point between top and bottom of my bucket).
Data:
- American Hefe recipe from https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/american-wheat-75279/
- Total grain bill: 5.5lb (2.6lb wheat malt; 2.0lb pale ale malt; 0.3lb Munich; 0.6lb flaked wheat)
- Scaled down to a 3.25-gal post-boil batch
- WPL320 yeast, 1-liter starter (should be fine, from yeastcalc.com)
- 5.0 gal water for mashing; 4.3 gal pre-boil; 3.25 gal post-boil
- Mash temp: starting temp 152F; it got down to ~148F after 25min, added some heat, back to 152F for the rest of the mash time
- 60 min mash
- No sparge; just let the grains drain for ~10min into BK.
- No idea about my mash water pH
Any advice or explanations welcome, thanks!
(I understand that taking a gravity reading of the wort+yeast is just going to give inaccurate results, so I didn't bother. Esp. since I used a 1-liter starter.)
So I figure I'd take a gravity reading after 24 hours, see what's happening. Well -- my hydrometer says 1.010 or so: about what I was hoping the FG would be...
My question is: Am I screwed; did I just have the worst efficiency possible? Or has the yeast fermentation caused some sort of differential in the wort/beer, such that all the sugars are at the bottom of my bucket (I took a sample from about the halfway point between top and bottom of my bucket).
Data:
- American Hefe recipe from https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/american-wheat-75279/
- Total grain bill: 5.5lb (2.6lb wheat malt; 2.0lb pale ale malt; 0.3lb Munich; 0.6lb flaked wheat)
- Scaled down to a 3.25-gal post-boil batch
- WPL320 yeast, 1-liter starter (should be fine, from yeastcalc.com)
- 5.0 gal water for mashing; 4.3 gal pre-boil; 3.25 gal post-boil
- Mash temp: starting temp 152F; it got down to ~148F after 25min, added some heat, back to 152F for the rest of the mash time
- 60 min mash
- No sparge; just let the grains drain for ~10min into BK.
- No idea about my mash water pH
Any advice or explanations welcome, thanks!