deadcactus
Well-Known Member
I tried my first mini-mash yesterday. I did the mashing in two gallons of water on the stove sparged with 1.625 quarts of water. Then all that went into a large kettle on an outdoor burner with another three gallons of water. Brought to a boil and added the LME then proceeded as normal.
Once I put the wort into the primary, I had a little under 4 gallons left. Between boil-off and leaving some in the kettle with the trub, that number made sense to me. But then I checked the OG and I was spot on at 1.050 (target given by the recipe was 1.052). The recipe was for 5.25 gallons though, so the OG should have been higher with a need for some watering down. I measured twice, so I don't think it was a bad reading.
The only thing I can think is that I didn't get as much sugar out of the mash/sparge as I should have. My mash temperature dropped bellow 150F at one point before I got the heat adjusted properly. I'm thinking I lost some efficiency due to a period of too low of a temperature. Also, when I was sparging, the size of my strainer relative to my grains left me with a more spherical shape so maybe I didn't get a good wash out of sugars on the sparge?
Any ideas?
Once I put the wort into the primary, I had a little under 4 gallons left. Between boil-off and leaving some in the kettle with the trub, that number made sense to me. But then I checked the OG and I was spot on at 1.050 (target given by the recipe was 1.052). The recipe was for 5.25 gallons though, so the OG should have been higher with a need for some watering down. I measured twice, so I don't think it was a bad reading.
The only thing I can think is that I didn't get as much sugar out of the mash/sparge as I should have. My mash temperature dropped bellow 150F at one point before I got the heat adjusted properly. I'm thinking I lost some efficiency due to a period of too low of a temperature. Also, when I was sparging, the size of my strainer relative to my grains left me with a more spherical shape so maybe I didn't get a good wash out of sugars on the sparge?
Any ideas?