What did I do wrong?

[mdarby]

Hello all; this is my first post...

This batch of Hefeweizen was my first AG brew. I think I may have done something wrong, but can't figure it out and hope someone can give me a pointer.

I brewed last Saturday. It was 5lb 2-row base, 5lb wheat, 1.5oz of Hallertau hops and WLP300 strain of yeast.

I mashed and sparged according to BrewPal (iPhone app), and took gravity measurements that seemed right on target all the way through.

I cooled the wort with an immersion chiller, and let it down to 68 before pitching. I only used on vial of the yeast and didn't create a starter (I think this might be the problem, but I've never needed a starter before).

Cut to today and the wort never really seemed to ferment. The krausen looks kind of think and scummy, and is only about 1.5" tall. There are no bubbles, nor flocculation.

I took a reading last night and it reported 1.005 and 1% ABV which seems really crazy low to me. The wort has always been between 64 and 75 degrees.

Any thoughts?

 

[mdarby]

Forgot to mention them, but here are my readings:

Strike: 1.048
Sparges: 1.026, 1.016
OG: 1.027

 

[Pappers_]

Your OG is low by quite a bit. Yeast is not your problem, it did it's job.

 

[schweaty]

Was your grain crushed at the local homebrew store or at home?
How long was your mash and what temp?
What was your water/grain ratio?

Something is up with your mash

 

[david_42]

10 lbs of grain, you should have been closer to 1.060. What kind of wheat did you use? Malt, flaked, ...?

 

[mdarby]

I crushed the grain at home with a malt mill, I've crushed like this before in a previous batch with no issues.

I mashed for 60 minutes at 147 degrees. My strike was 3.8G and the sparge was 4.2G.

I used wheat malt.

I have some photos of the crushed grain/carboy here if interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattdarby/sets/72157623350084824/


Thanks for your help guys...

 

[permo]

Forgot to mention them, but here are my readings:

Strike: 1.048
Sparges: 1.026, 1.016
OG: 1.027

if OG = 1.027 and FG = 1.005 you have a roughly 3% ABV brew. the beer is done...

 

[mdarby]

Unfortunately, that seems right now that you say that. What do you guys think I did wrong with the mash? Too cold? Grains not fully crushed?

 

[jezter6]

That grain doesn't even look crushed at all. I see pretty much whole kernels all through that thing.

Look at this crush:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10emy5y&s=5

Compare it to yours, and see the difference.

Wheat is a beyotch sometime to crush, and it appears to me that your gap is set too wide, at least when crushing wheat.

 

[mdarby]

Wow, I guess I was way off on the crush! I had to crush the wheat three times to get it even to that level, and even then it looked like the wheat was cracked in half or in quarter or so. Is that normal / preferred?

 

[jezter6]

Here's a good set of pics of wheat crush near the bottom of the page:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malt_Conditioning


Edit: Actually, it doesn't look like the wheat was the problem, it looks like full husks of the 2-row.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here...

 

[jimmcs06]

It sounds pretty silly, but did you turn the crusher the right way when crushing? Clockwise

 

[OLDBREW]

first off you didn't say what volume your batch was.

What did you do, take samples of the mash then the two batch sparge runnings?
Was the OG listed the cooled wort into the fermenter after aeration?

If you mean by strike as your first runnings drained being 1.048, then you did two more batch sparges of 1.026 and 1.016, and ended up with a total volume 5 gals.into the fermenter of 1.026 wort. Then you had really bad conversion/mash efficiency.
Crush is the first consideration when batch sparging.

What yeast strain are you using? If you still have a head layer on top, you are not done fermenting. Some hefe yeasts will go 10-14 days at lower temps with attenuations over 85%.
You are better off under pitching hefe yeasts to produce more phenols and esters that are appropriate to that style instead of building a starter.

 

[mdarby]

It's a 5G batch. The OG I gave was taken at 140 degrees, but then corrected as per BrewPal's hydrometer calculator.

It does seem to be the crush/efficiency that was wrong (as the strike/sparge process you listed is in fact what I did).

The yeast strain is WLP300.

 

[OLDBREW]

I just saw the pic and like others said; really poor crush. Wheat is smaller kernel so you need to adjust your mill and crush it separately if that is what you are getting with three run troughs
The fermentation isn't done yet if you still have a head on that wort. the 300 is on the lines of the Wyeast 3068 so you should get very good attenuation

Edit:
For future reference your wort should be chilled below 100*F before taking a gravity reading using the conversion chart. Then you want the thermometer and hydrometer in the sample at the same time to get and accurate reading.

 

[noblesquirrel]

It's a 5G batch. The OG I gave was taken at 140 degrees, but then corrected as per BrewPal's hydrometer calculator.

It does seem to be the crush/efficiency that was wrong (as the strike/sparge process you listed is in fact what I did).

The yeast strain is WLP300.

If I had to venture a guess, your reading is all out of whack anyway. 140 degrees is way too warm and you can't really correct accurately for that...

 

[IrregularPulse]

It's a 5G batch. The OG I gave was taken at 140 degrees, but then corrected as per BrewPal's hydrometer calculator.

It does seem to be the crush/efficiency that was wrong (as the strike/sparge process you listed is in fact what I did).

The yeast strain is WLP300.

You can adjust, but I've read over 100°F the corrections are not really going to be very accurate. I don't adjust over 70° The closer you are, the more accurate the adjustment will be.

 

[mdarby]

Yep, I was screwed from the get go
Ran my numbers through the formula and it seems that I did get horrible efficiency. 35% sucks.

Thanks for your help guys, my second AG batch will be much better thanks to you.

 

[ChshreCat]

I took a reading last night and it reported 1.005 and 1% ABV which seems really crazy low to me.

Since nobody else mentioned it, that ABV scale on the hydrometer doesn't work that way. It doesn't tell you how much alcohol is in the sample. It's a "potential" alcohol reading and is mainly used for wine and mead. If you note what it says at the start and then subtract what it says after fermentation, then you can get a ballpark idea of what your ABV is. It wouldn't make since to read it just at the end because the numbers go down as you ferment and not up.

 

[mdarby]

You're right. I remember reading that somewhere before but it got lost in the shuffle. Thanks for the reminder.