ViperMan
Well-Known Member
I'll try to keep this short...
I brewed a Black IPA this past weekend. I went with a 2-gallon BIAB approach because I knew I'd be losing a lot of beer to trub through dry-hopping.
Last time I did BIAB I hit about 75%. I presumed I'd do the same but then didn't do a separate hot-liqour pot to "sparge" in because insead I did a separate hot-liqour pot for steeping the dark grains. So as a result I hit 70%. I know this because I had a temp-adjusted hydrometer reading of 1.050 prior to the boil instead of 1.06 as Beersmith expected. I adjusted my brewhouse efficiency number on the "Design" screen of Beersmith to the new number of 70%, then added DME to the recipe until I got back to the OG (into the fermenter) that I had originally. It only required 4 oz of DME.
I added the DME, ran my boil, added all my hop additions - everything went fine. I cooled, dumped into a fermenting bucket, and started taking final measurements. I had WAAAAAY more boil-off than I was expecting - from 2.54 gallons down to 1.45 or so. It was only a 60-minute boil. I wrung the crap out of my kettle hops, too... OG was 1.078 instead of the 1.07 I was expecting. So I added my fermenter volume and my OG readings into Beersmith, and suddenly it tells me my measured efficiency was 56%?! Now, this is with the DME added to the recipe. If I take out the DME, it goes up to 62%. Why isn't it still around 70%?? It seems to me like I've literally lost sugar in the boil... But that makes no sense... (I checked, and the wort temp was 68 degrees.)
I did add about 22 ounces of water to bring my OG back to the planned 1.07, added the dry-hops and tossed a lid on. My fermenter volume is only 1.7 gallons or so instead of 2. I'm still waiting for my starter to finish (turning one WhiteLabs vial into enough yeast for several small batches) so I'll pitch tonight.
The recipe I made is posted here. Anyone have any idea what either happened or what I'm putting into Beersmith wrong?...
I brewed a Black IPA this past weekend. I went with a 2-gallon BIAB approach because I knew I'd be losing a lot of beer to trub through dry-hopping.
Last time I did BIAB I hit about 75%. I presumed I'd do the same but then didn't do a separate hot-liqour pot to "sparge" in because insead I did a separate hot-liqour pot for steeping the dark grains. So as a result I hit 70%. I know this because I had a temp-adjusted hydrometer reading of 1.050 prior to the boil instead of 1.06 as Beersmith expected. I adjusted my brewhouse efficiency number on the "Design" screen of Beersmith to the new number of 70%, then added DME to the recipe until I got back to the OG (into the fermenter) that I had originally. It only required 4 oz of DME.
I added the DME, ran my boil, added all my hop additions - everything went fine. I cooled, dumped into a fermenting bucket, and started taking final measurements. I had WAAAAAY more boil-off than I was expecting - from 2.54 gallons down to 1.45 or so. It was only a 60-minute boil. I wrung the crap out of my kettle hops, too... OG was 1.078 instead of the 1.07 I was expecting. So I added my fermenter volume and my OG readings into Beersmith, and suddenly it tells me my measured efficiency was 56%?! Now, this is with the DME added to the recipe. If I take out the DME, it goes up to 62%. Why isn't it still around 70%?? It seems to me like I've literally lost sugar in the boil... But that makes no sense... (I checked, and the wort temp was 68 degrees.)
I did add about 22 ounces of water to bring my OG back to the planned 1.07, added the dry-hops and tossed a lid on. My fermenter volume is only 1.7 gallons or so instead of 2. I'm still waiting for my starter to finish (turning one WhiteLabs vial into enough yeast for several small batches) so I'll pitch tonight.
The recipe I made is posted here. Anyone have any idea what either happened or what I'm putting into Beersmith wrong?...
