Emergency Help! WAAAY low pre-boil gravity

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psymonkey

psymonkey

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HI All

I just completed my mash. Nailed the dough-in, lost one degree over the hour. Mashed out, fly sparged trickle-speed with my false-bottom in a 10G beverage cooler. I don't know what happened, or what to do. My pre-boil should have been 1.079, and I'm at 1.048.

Should I dump it all back in the grain and do an emergency batch sparge? I'm at a loss! My efficiency is usually withing 2-3 of the pre-boil gravity.
 
psymonkey said:
HI All

I just completed my mash. Nailed the dough-in, lost one degree over the hour. Mashed out, fly sparged trickle-speed with my false-bottom in a 10G beverage cooler. I don't know what happened, or what to do. My pre-boil should have been 1.079, and I'm at 1.048.

Should I dump it all back in the grain and do an emergency batch sparge? I'm at a loss! My efficiency is usually withing 2-3 of the pre-boil gravity.
Click to expand...

How's your volume? Maybe you can dump two gallons of water (fresh and new) into the grains and do a quick batch sparge, and check the runnings to see if there is sugar in there.
 
Hey Yooper! Volume was right at 6.5 gallons as stated in the recipe. I noticed that Beersmith was adding the 2lbs of corn sugar to the pre-boil gravity, even though it isn't added until five minutes. Still, that only brings me up 18 points.

I panicked and dumped it all back in the cooler, stirred and drained...doh! I'm guessing I'll get some lovely off-flavors and tannins, but it's getting late ;)
 
psymonkey said:
Hey Yooper! Volume was right at 6.5 gallons as stated in the recipe. I noticed that Beersmith was adding the 2lbs of corn sugar to the pre-boil gravity, even though it isn't added until five minutes. Still, that only brings me up 18 points.

I panicked and dumped it all back in the cooler, stirred and drained...doh! I'm guessing I'll get some lovely off-flavors and tannins, but it's getting late ;)
Click to expand...

You won't get off flavor and tannins- but adding sugary wort to the grain may REDUCE the OG, instead of raising it. Water has a lower osmotic pressure, so it helps to "pull" the sugars out vs wort (ie the principle of diffusion).

Not much you can do about it now, though.
 
Well that's good to hear. Thanks so much for your help as always! The gravity ended up going up by one point - I'm starting to wonder if NB didn't short me grain or something on accident. The mash seemed thin, and it just doesn't make sense to be off by that much, especially when I felt like this was one of my smoothest mashes yet. This order was riddled with issues, so I wouldn't be surprised, although this has been my first poor experience with them.
 
I've had some issues with bigger bodied beers where just running off the specified amount of wort doesn't get nearly all the sugars out of the grain. When doing a higher gravity beer now, I will actually run off a gallon or two more than specified and boil it down to my target pre boil volume. At that point - I start hop additions and proceed with my normal boil. I batch sparge, and there is simply just more sugars to be extracted than the specified amount of sparge water is capable of. By doing a triple or sometimes quadruple batch sparge, I can get all of the sugars necessary for my batch into the boil kettle.

I usually have to be doing a batch over 1.065-1.070 for this to become a consideration.
 
Interesting westo2..I think that's what Yooper touched on as well - I'll have to keep this in the bag of tricks. My next beer is also over 1.070, though this was the first time I'd encountered any issues like this and I've done bigger beers before. One thing, after a 2.5 gallon mash-out, the recipe only called for 1 gallon of sparge water. It was 4.98, 2.5, .98, so not much rinsing going on with the fly sparge I suppose.
 
psymonkey said:
Interesting westo2..I think that's what Yooper touched on as well - I'll have to keep this in the bag of tricks. My next beer is also over 1.070, though this was the first time I'd encountered any issues like this and I've done bigger beers before. One thing, after a 2.5 gallon mash-out, the recipe only called for 1 gallon of sparge water. It was 4.98, 2.5, .98, so not much rinsing going on with the fly sparge I suppose.
Click to expand...

Exactly - with bigger grain bills - you need more strike water to get your mash thickness, leaving less sparge water to extract the converted sugars. During the mash, an equilibrium will be reached where the strike water can only absorb so much sugar. You then need to get the extra sugars into solution in your wort by flushing additional sparge water through your grainbed.

This is why my normal 4 hour brew day quickly becomes 7-8 if I'm doing a high gravity beer.
 
westo2 said:
I've had some issues with bigger bodied beers where just running off the specified amount of wort doesn't get nearly all the sugars out of the grain. When doing a higher gravity beer now, I will actually run off a gallon or two more than specified and boil it down to my target pre boil volume. At that point - I start hop additions and proceed with my normal boil. I batch sparge, and there is simply just more sugars to be extracted than the specified amount of sparge water is capable of. By doing a triple or sometimes quadruple batch sparge, I can get all of the sugars necessary for my batch into the boil kettle.

I usually have to be doing a batch over 1.065-1.070 for this to become a consideration.
Click to expand...

I had to to the same on my last IPA. I was planing on doing a 90 min boil for an 8 gal batch and ended up doing a 120 on 8.5 gal.
 
The other option in a pinch is to substitute with some DME. I keep at least 3 lbs on hand at any given time for starters, but I also have it as an insurance policy against a low efficiency mash. Hasn't happened yet, but when I'm brewing on a Sunday and the LHBS won't be open until Tuesday - I'd rather have the insurance than a screwed up batch.
 
westo2 said:
The other option in a pinch is to substitute with some DME. I keep at least 3 lbs on hand at any given time for starters, but I also have it as an insurance policy against a low efficiency mash. Hasn't happened yet, but when I'm brewing on a Sunday and the LHBS won't be open until Tuesday - I'd rather have the insurance than a screwed up batch.
Click to expand...


Just so happens I picked some up yesterday to replenish my starter-stock - DME to the rescue :) Should be a nice fit as well.
 
Just wanted to thank you all for your replies on this thread! HBT is the bomb! I'll post back what I end up with in terms of gravity. I did end up adding 3lbs of Extra-light DME. At this point, it's a free-for all so I'm anxious to see how this all pans out. I'll report back on that in a few months ;)
 
westo2 said:
The other option in a pinch is to substitute with some DME. I keep at least 3 lbs on hand at any given time for starters, but I also have it as an insurance policy against a low efficiency mash. Hasn't happened yet, but when I'm brewing on a Sunday and the LHBS won't be open until Tuesday - I'd rather have the insurance than a screwed up batch.
Click to expand...

Quoted because this is very wise. My efficiency isn't reliable yet, and generally I'm off by a small enough amount that I can get my desired gravity by boiling longer... but I keep a few pounds of light DME in the shed so I have some options.
 
1.095 at flameout - not sure what my volume is yet, but thanks to the help of you fine folks, it's within .003 of the target. Steeping a couple of oz of hops at the moment, and hope to be in bed by 1am :)
 
On another note regarding pre-boil gravity readings, what are you all using to take these measurements. I tried to cool a sample down to use my hydrometer within the calibrated range of 60F but that is time consuming. Thus far I have had good luck with my mashing procedure and after the boil my volume and OG readings are acceptable. Do most of you use a refractometer or is there a cheaper way such as a hydrometer for use at higher temperatures?
 
crzepilot said:
On another note regarding pre-boil gravity readings, what are you all using to take these measurements. I tried to cool a sample down to use my hydrometer within the calibrated range of 60F but that is time consuming. Thus far I have had good luck with my mashing procedure and after the boil my volume and OG readings are acceptable. Do most of you use a refractometer or is there a cheaper way such as a hydrometer for use at higher temperatures?
Click to expand...

I pull off a sample and put in a glass measuring cup that I then float in an ice water bath until it is at the desired temp. It is usually cooled enough to check before the wort comes to a boil.
 
I normally use my refrectometer, which I thought was on the fritz so I double-checked with my hydrometer. I definitely think a refractometer is worth the investment for AG. I bought mine on Amazon for like $30, and then 1000 pipettes for $5 - sample away ;)

On a side note, the refractometer doesn't necessarily work for fermented wort, which is unfortunate, so you end up with a hydrometer anyway in the end...that and tasty samples!
 
chickypad said:
If you check the "add after boil" box on the sugar it will correct your pre-boil gravity.
Click to expand...

Good to know! i figured setting a time, five minutes before flameout in this case would imply that it was after the mash...will check that out tomorrow -thanks!
 
Kerin said:
Or you could do the sane thing and adjust your reading from your ordinary hydrometer. :)

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html
Click to expand...

While they have conversion adjustments for higher temperatures, they aren't really at all accurate if the wort is over about 90 degrees.

You still should cool the sample to under 100 degrees, then take the reading and use the conversion software. Over 100 degrees, the readings are notoriously inaccurate even with the conversion. They are so inaccurate as to be useless, in my experience.
 
chickypad said:
If you check the "add after boil" box on the sugar it will correct your pre-boil gravity.
Click to expand...

I used this feature today after another moment of brief panic. My recipe has two lbs of soft brown candi sugar, and a lb of corn sugar. Needless to say, the estimated gravity was pretty far off my reading. Checked the box on these two items and Voila! I was over by .001, damn near perfect :)

This should be renamed, not sure what but it sounds like you're preparing the recipe as if this was being added at flame out. There should be a box, perhaps Add after Mash that makes more sense. I'm probably telling the wrong person ;)

Thanks again!
 
Just kegged this IIPA. Ended up with 4.75 gallons in the keg, @ 1.020. Not too bad considering the necessity to add three lbs of DME. I'd hoped it would finish a bit lower, but can't complain - it tastes wonderful.

Dry-hopped in the keg, will give it a few weeks and have a taste.
 
Final comment on this thread.. Perhaps. I just consumed my first pint and I'm floored. Smooth & Suburb! And I'm damn near drunk off of one. Certainly a strong buzz. Drinks like a session, which is frightening.
 

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