Having moved to a new house recently, I am still trying to get a handle on the new appliances, mainly the range (happens to be electric and all I've ever used previously is gas). I was brewing a Scottish Ale recipe that had a target OG at 1.096. The range doesn't seem to have the capacity to bring a full 5+ gallons in my 40 qt pot to boil in a reasonable amount of time, so I split my grain between the 40 qt and a 20qt pot and mashed at about 165 for an hour. As I took the smaller pot up to boil, I would periodically transfer some of the wort from the larger pot into the smaller as the mass of the larger pot is prohibitive in getting even 3 gallons to boil. I eventually got 3.5 gallons in the small pot to rolling and got the ramaining 1.5 or so in the large pot going and started to rebalance from the small to larger pot (larger one seems to keep boiling once I get it there) to have all the wort in one spot when I went to place the last of my hops and immersion chiller. I was down to a little under 4 gallons and after cooling the wort to 75 degrees added some pre-boiled and cooled water back in to get to 5 gallons. I then took my gravity reading and checked the color and not only was the color off of it's target SRM - 24 HCU/13 SRM - it looked more like a 9 or 10 SRM, but the gravity was down at around 1.042. I did a sampling and tasted a lot hoppier than I was expecting as well. Where could I have gone wrong? Also, of note that I erred when picking up my supplies and I forgot the one pound of Belgian candi sugar, so I was minus that in my session. The only other variable I can think of was that I had milled the 10 lbs of British Pale malt, one pound of Cara Pils 6 row and one pound of Munich malt two weeks prior to the session, but grain was kept temperate and dry, enclosed in plastic bags. Fermentation commenced and looks to be complete in about 30 hours in my basement which is a constant 69 degrees. Is there anything I can do to compensate for the low gravity at this point, or rather should I? I realize of course that I really need to invest in a gas or propane burner so I can take some of the guesswork out of dealing with an electric stovetop, but I'd like to try and resurrect the legitimacy of what I intended to bew.
Maybe I'm missing something, and I'm not really a veteran on brewing all grain, but that grain bill would be no where near close enough to getting 96 points from. 12 pounds of grain, and you mashed at 165... I think there is the problem. I don't think it's your stove top, other than not having enough power to keep it all in one pot, but what was your grain bill? Missing out on the sugar definitely didn't help the gravity at all, and the beer will suffer from it slightly, but I can't see where that bill would get you even close to the OG you were shooting for.. Like I said.. I don't know the complete grain bill unless you left some out, but that doesn't add up as far as I can think.
I have used pre-crushed grains months later with no ill effect on the mash... 165F for a mash seems quite high. Did you test for conversion?
With 72% efficiency, I calculate an OG of 1.065 for this grist. 100% efficiency would be 1.090. Your goal of 1.096 was never within your reach. But maybe you meant to say an expected OG of 1.069 (you transposed the 6 and 9)? In that case, it was within your reach. It is possible that you did not mix well after diluting and that you are closer to 1.069 than your measurement indicated? This would similarly impact SRM, although I never made any attempt to accurately estimate SRM and am not sure how likely it is that you would see the difference. The crush on the grains can also be an issue, with poorly crushed grains resulting in lower than anticipated efficiency. However, I don't think the duration between crush and mash matters much. Certainly not in a couple weeks. I have mashed grains 6 months after crushing and been satisfied with every aspect of the resulting beer. Keep crushed grains dry and enclosed, as you have done, and they will have considerable longevity.
I checked the recipe, and it did in fact have a OG of 1.096. The recipe also had the following grain bill: 12 lb. British pale 2 lb. American Munich 1 lb. American crystal 60L 1 lb. Dextrine malt 8 oz. Flaked wheat And I forgot that I did add the the flaked wheat in my first post. I backed off two lbs of the British Pale and did not add the pound of Crystal (didn't want quite such a big bite as a lot of my brews lately have been coming out a bit too mallty), so I was down about 3 lbs of total grain verus the recipe. It is possible that I didn't mix well after diluting, but in this order, I 1) chilled, 2) transferred to my settling bucket (which is where i could clearly see I was down a galllon plus) 2) tranferred to the primary, 3) diluted up to 5 gallons, 4) took a sample for measurement and then 5)pitched the yeast. Is there anything I might want to try at this point to adjust or just try to live with it? Adding some DME boiled with some water back in when I transfer (or even before) to secondary? Or some maltodextrine if I want to add a little body to it?
You didn't have nearly enough grains to hit 1.096 in 5 gallons, even with the additional grains in your revised post, less the 3 lbs. You should have got a lot more than 1.042 though. But if you really mashed at 165, I'd guess you don't really need to look any further.
Well, I think you actually did pretty good getting that OG from the looks of the grain bill, and the chances you omitted. That grain bill won't get you that gravity, even if you had put everything in there. You also made it worse, backing off 3 lbs of grain too, and leaving out the # of candi sugar as well. I don't think it's really the issue of your stove, but the fact that you butchered the recipe really bad, and the recipe was wrong to get that high of a gravity with that grain bill. That bill is like 37 point just plugging the grain into the beersmith program real fast here without changing ay variables, couple that with a 165 mash, I think there was the problem.
I'd expect a lot more than 1.037 from 13.5 lbs of grain in 5 gallons, even without plugging it in. Are you plugging it into 10 gallons by any chance?
You reduced the grain bill by nearly 20%, left out a pound of sugar, mashed at 165, and are wondering why you missed your OG? I hate to kick a guy when he's down, but what made you think this was going to work?
Your OG is in a good range for a typical Scottish Ale recipe, if that makes you feel any better. It's just not going to be a strong ale/wee heavy.
No harm, no foul. I'm not down about it, just wasn't what I was expecting. I'm really just starting to learn about the science behind brewing, so I'm not afraid to make mistakes, but want to learn how to adjust when, and if, I can. I think I also got a little trigger shy on going back to all-grain after doing a partial mash on the new(er) appliances a couple months ago and having my normally 3-hour session turn into about 6+ hours because of the wattage on the circa 1960's range. I really didn't realize how that was going to cramp my style when I decided to buy the house. Eventually plan to get a gas line run and replace the range, but in the meantime, I think I am really going to consider something like a Blichmann burner or something similar and at least eliminate some of the headache of trying to split up the recipe (or just stick to partials).
For what it's worth, when it's done, you're still gonna end up with beer. And that's really what it's all about! Every batch is a learning experience.
You won't regret a good burner, and if you do eventually run gas to the house, you can run off of that instead of the propane. That's good all around.
I was on my work computer in my office, and pulled it up. It was set to 10 gallons, in a generic profile.
Get on amazon, order a SP-10 for $50 bucks, go to homebrewfinds.com and find a deal on a pot that you think will fit your needs for brewing, you can get 11g pots easy for under $90 in SS, and that'll do all the 5 gallons batches you want. I've seen some large pots for less. You'll be set for outdoor brewing for under $150 easy.
Thanks for the info on the burners. Anyone have any thoughts on whether I can add any body/sweetness to what I have (seemed awfully hoppy, and I tend to favor malty beers) post-fermentation? Adding some DME boiled in water would probably kick start another round of fermentation and dry it out too much. How about malto or lactose?
