help me improve my Original Gravity

[kuips]

What am I doing wrong? I am newer to AG brewing and my last 4 brew days I have been about 7-10 points low of the expected OG. For example, today I brewed up a Deception Cream Stout and ended with an OG of 1.045, which is over 10 points too low. If this ferments out to the expected FG of 1.020 I will only be left with only 3.3% ABV. All my beers have turned out fantastic, but all about 1% shy of the correct ABV. I would like to correct this. Am I just not boiling off enough?

I batch sparge with a 10gal drink cooler/steelbraid and usually get over 70% efficiency - today I only got 65%.

Thanks

 

[jiggs_casey]

Damnit! This thread reminds me that I forgot to take my OG before I pitched today...

 

[Yooper]

You got 65%, but usually get 70%? That's not too much of a difference.

You mentioned that your last four OGs were low, though. That means your efficiency is not what your recipe is designed for. The easy fix (while working on fixing any efficiency issues) is just to plan for an efficiency of say, 68%, and increase your grainbill.

There are many causes of poor efficiency. The first place to look is your crush. How are you crushing? Second is conversion- are you using iodine to test for conversion before sparging? I assume you're batch sparging because you have a braid. How do you go about the sparge? What's your water to grain ratio during the mash, and how much do you boil off in an hour?

Other things, like water chemistry, play a huge part as well. What's your water, tap or bottled?

 

[kuips]

You got 65%, but usually get 70%? That's not too much of a difference.

You mentioned that your last four OGs were low, though. That means your efficiency is not what your recipe is designed for. The easy fix (while working on fixing any efficiency issues) is just to plan for an efficiency of say, 68%, and increase your grainbill.

There are many causes of poor efficiency. The first place to look is your crush. How are you crushing? Second is conversion- are you using iodine to test for conversion before sparging? I assume you're batch sparging because you have a braid. How do you go about the sparge? What's your water to grain ratio during the mash, and how much do you boil off in an hour?

Other things, like water chemistry, play a huge part as well. What's your water, tap or bottled?

Yooper, Thanks for the response.

First question, when adjusting the grain bill for efficiency do I just increase base malts or everything?

Now to answer your questions:

My homebrew store crushes my grain, many people use them and they make great beer so I trust that their mill is set right. I am not using Iodine strips, but it sounds like i should start...

Yes, I batch sparge, with an average mash ratio of 1.25. I boil off about 1.5 gal over an hour. I use Portland, Or tap water and add some 5.2 stabilizer.

Also, today my mash temps were low and I was only able to bring it up to 150 for my 60 min mash.

Thanks

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, Thanks for the response.

First question, when adjusting the grain bill for efficiency do I just increase base malts or everything?

Now to answer your questions:

My homebrew store crushes my grain, many people use them and they make great beer so I trust that their mill is set right. I am not using Iodine strips, but it sounds like i should start...

Yes, I batch sparge, with an average mash ratio of 1.25. I boil off about 1.5 gal over an hour. I use Portland, Or tap water and add some 5.2 stabilizer.

Also, today my mash temps were low and I was only able to bring it up to 150 for my 60 min mash.

Thanks

When you adjust the recipe, you increase everything. Say my efficiency is 75%, but you're doing one of my recipes and YOURS is 68%. You just increase all the ingredients using that ratio. I'll admit that it's easier with some brewing software. If you look at each ingredient, and scale by %, that's the easiest and most accurate.

For example:
Pale ale 85%
crystal malt 10%
aromatic malt 5%

That's easy, and you can simply adjust the amounts in Beersmith (or other software) to get the same % and then YOUR efficiency to get the OG. Check the SG/IBU ratio, too, but the hops should remain about the same.

I bought some Iodophor a few years ago. I used some for sanitizing and some for testing conversion. It's easy. Just take out a spoonful of the mash, using the liquid, and put it on a white plate. Add some iodine- I use a toothpick. If it turns black, it's not converted. If it doesn't change, it's converted. That will help you find out where you're "losing" efficiency. If you're using 1.25 quarts per pound, and the mash is converting fine, then it might be with lautering, for example.

I personally think the 5.2 stabilizer is junk (I'll be giving away a full jar in the "Pay it Forward" thread) so I'd skip that unless you have a specific reason to use it. Your water is soft, but probably within range and you can add some cacl2 to it if you feel you have to do something. There is a "water chemistry primer" that is invaluable in the "brew science" forum by ajdelange that will help.

When you batch sparge, do you stir your heart out? Do you get to 168 (grain bed temperature)?

 

[kuips]

I think my biggest problem is that I have not been adjusting my recipes for my efficiency or my batch size (I try for 5.5gal into the primary). I will certainly fix this.

I just recalculated my grain bill for what I brewed today based on 68% and 5.5gal and I should have have another 1.5lbs of grain.

I will look into getting some brewing software (I use a Mac) and will pick up some Iodine next time I am at the homebrew store.

When you batch sparge, do you stir your heart out? Do you get to 168 (grain bed temperature)?

I wouldn't say "I stir my heart out" I just give it a good mix. Also, at this point I have never read my sparge grain bed temp, I just usually add ~170 water and figured it was good...

Looks like I still have lots to learn about AG brewing, I truly enjoy it and love my beer, but I want to be more accurate and consistent.

 

[joety]

I got 68% today and usually get 75-77%. I am wondering if it's the new Briess Organic Malt I broke open this morning.

 

[kuips]

How much does low sparge temp effect efficiency? Today I had efficiency in the low 60s and the only thing I noticed was off was that my sparge water cooled down to 162 by the time I was done stirring...

Otherwise I hit my mash temp perfectly at 153 and did an Iodine test to confirm conversion, so I am at a loss.

 

[joety]

How much does low sparge temp effect efficiency? Today I had efficiency in the low 60s and the only thing I noticed was off was that my sparge water cooled down to 162 by the time I was done stirring...

Otherwise I hit my mash temp perfectly at 153 and did an Iodine test to confirm conversion, so I am at a loss.

Some have experimented with cooler sparge water on here with no impact to efficiency. The only drawback they found is a longer time to get to boil.

 

[ajf]

How much does low sparge temp effect efficiency? Today I had efficiency in the low 60s and the only thing I noticed was off was that my sparge water cooled down to 162 by the time I was done stirring...

Otherwise I hit my mash temp perfectly at 153 and did an Iodine test to confirm conversion, so I am at a loss.

I fly sparge, and used to get 75% efficiency consistently.
Then I tried doing a mash out, and my efficiency immediately jumped to 85% (This was also consistent.)
The obvious difference was that my grain bed temperature during the sparge increased from the mid 150's to the upper 160's, and I thought that temperature difference was responsible for the efficiency increase.
Now, I think that the higher temperature makes a very small difference. It reduces the viscosity of the runnings and makes the sugars more soluble, so you can sparge a bit faster without losing efficiency, or sparge at the same rate, gaining a small amount of efficiency.
About a year ago, I forgot to heat up the mash out water early enough. By the time the mash had finished, it was about 150F, and I didn't want to prolong the brew day so I mashed out with 150 water instead of waiting it to come to a boil. This resulted in a very cool sparge (it never got above 155),
but my efficiency didn't suffer.
I now think that what improves the efficiency is stirring in the mash out water which dissolves a large proportion of the sugars before starting the sparge, thus leaving fewer sugars to be rinsed out by the sparge water.

-a.