So I brewed a beer that had an intended OG of 1.055 (calculated by Austin Homebrew and double checked by an online calculator). Post boil, I am sitting on 4 gallons of beer (intended volume 5.5 gallons) that is at 1.064. I am guessing that I didn't sparge enough sugar out of the grain....although wouldn't that leave more alcohol in the beer? Or would that last gallon of wort been so diluted that it would have had a negligible contribution to the sugar content? Recipe: 1 lb flaked oat 4.5 lb Belgian pale malt 3.5 lb white wheat 1 lb agave nectar 4 oz Hallertau @ 60 min Coriander and orange peel @ 15 min WLP400 Belgian wit yeast
The last gallon would have relatively little contribution, but it would have been something. That post-boil gravity, diluted out to 5.5 gallons, would be around 1.047, so it seems like you got about 15% less sugars than you wanted out of that grain bill. Sparging the full volume would have washed more sugars from the grain, plus would have helped dilute any dead space you have in your mash tun.
I would think what happened is you shorted yourself on sparge water and thus did not have the correct boil volume. More concentrated wort and a higher OG.
This has been one of the most difficult parts of adjusting to all grain brewing....I have faith I will get my volumes under control though
Your volumes are driven by your equipment, your process, and your recipes, and they all interract with each other. Are you using any software/calculator/spreadsheet? If not, you'll get your volumes under control faster if you use something with parameters that you can tweak as you dial in.
Did you account for the water absorbed by the grain? is your kettle marked with gallon lines or do you have a way to measure the wort while boiling? I recently made new equipment to brew with and it is a little different from my last set up, so now I have to tweek the volumes of water used during mash and sparge. Also, did you batch sparge of Fly?
I actually do not have a way to measure my volume in the boil kettle. I think my problem is trying to figure out how much waste my system produces (dead space, absorption, etc). My next step is to get a sight glass with gradations on it. My old SS pot had marks, and it was awesome. My Al pot does not. Also, I am batch sparging.
In the meantime, either do this... http://imgur.com/a/dCvS5 Or simply buy a wooden dowel, fill your kettle with a pre-measured exact volume of water (1 gallon, then 2 gallons, etc) and put the dowel into the kettle then notch the dowel where the volume surface level is. At the very least, assume something along the following: 7.25g preboil - 1g boil off in 60 minutes = 6.25g - 4% expansion cooling loss = 6g - 0.5g transfer loss / kettle dead space = 5.5g batch size
You make a good point on shorting the sparge water. 5.5gal @ 1.055 would yield 303pts. 303pts at 4gal is 1.076. So by shorting the sparge water OP lost efficiency as well. That is my guess anyway. Take good notes until you dial your system in. That does not mean stop taking notes once your system is dialed, although I have been guilty of that one.
How reliable is your thermometer? I'm having a similar problem, but I think it's because I don't have a good thermometer. I have one digital with a 3' long cord/probe, that I love, but it differs from my other to dial thermometers. I have no idea which one to trust, or if any of them are correct, so I don't know if I'm getting the right mash temp. That's a problem!!! My efficiency has been about 62-67%, and I'm not pleased. This could all be from false readings due to this. My beer taste great, but I hate not knowing what's right. A good temp instrument is next in order for me! Hope you figure your problem out bud. Cheers, Chris
Mash temp shouldn't effect extraction efficiency as long as you're in a reasonable saccrification range. There's nothing wrong with 65% efficiency, in fact some well known authors would tell you that increasing your efficiency beyond that point would actually decrease the quality of your beers. So what's the issue?
Ha ha, thanks for the insight! I know that certain sugars are extracted at certain temperatures, and I'm not positive what range of temp I'm at, due to the thermometer situation. Me being someone that doesn't know as much as I would like to about the extraction process yet, leads me to believe that I could make a better beer if I knew where I was at. I'm thrilled that the beer has been great so far. It's incredibly satisfying! But... my FG's and OG's don't mach what my brew calculator says it should (Brewmate). That's where the bother comes in. On the other hand, it's great to hear that my efficiency range is close to optimal! Thanks again bud Regards, Chris
You might be confusing conversion efficiency (i.e. the total sugars and unfermentable dextrins converted from starches, regardless of sugar/dextrin types) with fermentability, which is determined by the proportions of sugars/dextrins in the wort.
