Hi everybody,
I just finished my brew day. Made a Belgian Strong Golden Ale extract batch. My problem is, I undershot the OG by a HUGE margin. As in, iBrewMaster expected an OG of 1.073, and I ended up with 1.045. What confuses me is the fact that this was an extract batch -- I could understand coming in low on an AG batch if you don't have a high enough efficiency, but I pretty much just poured sugar into water.
I only have three thoughts:
1) This is my first time using Whirlfloc, and I had a HUGE amount of sediment in the kettle. I left about 1 cm on the bottom of the brew kettle. I am sure I lost sugar in that cm of wort. But I didn't expect it to be that drastic of a drop.
2) I was on autopilot after transferring from the kettle to the primary, and I started filling my hydrometer test jar before I topped off my partial boil volume (I can only boil about 2.5 gallons in my kettle) to the full 5 gallons. Obviously that hydrometer reading would be wrong, and I didn't want to risk contamination, so I threw out about 1/2 test jar of concentrated wort. Again, I know I lost sugar there, but I wouldn't expect that drastic of a drop.
3) As I said, it was my first time using Whirlfloc. I followed instructions I found on the forums for using it -- I added 1/2 of a tablet to the last 15 minutes of my boil. Is that the right thing to do, even considering I'm doing a partial boil at about 2.5 gallons?
Really curious where all my fermentables went. I was hoping to make a Strong Golden Ale in the 7-9% range, but I think I'll probably end up with a Weak Golden Ale in the 3-4% range. Still beer, but not what I was hoping for. I want to figure out what I did wrong so that I can fix it for the next batch. Thanks in advance for any help!
In case it's helpful, here's the recipe I used:
- 4 oz Carapils (steeped 155 for 30 min)
- 4 oz Biscuit malt (steeped 155 for 30 min)
- 7 lbs light DME (added half to the boil immediately, reserved half to the end of the boil ~10 min)
- 2 lbs light candi sugar (added at the end of the boil ~10 min)
- 1/2 tablet Whirlfloc (15 min)
- 2 oz Saaz (60 min)
- 1 oz Saaz (1 min)
I just finished my brew day. Made a Belgian Strong Golden Ale extract batch. My problem is, I undershot the OG by a HUGE margin. As in, iBrewMaster expected an OG of 1.073, and I ended up with 1.045. What confuses me is the fact that this was an extract batch -- I could understand coming in low on an AG batch if you don't have a high enough efficiency, but I pretty much just poured sugar into water.
I only have three thoughts:
1) This is my first time using Whirlfloc, and I had a HUGE amount of sediment in the kettle. I left about 1 cm on the bottom of the brew kettle. I am sure I lost sugar in that cm of wort. But I didn't expect it to be that drastic of a drop.
2) I was on autopilot after transferring from the kettle to the primary, and I started filling my hydrometer test jar before I topped off my partial boil volume (I can only boil about 2.5 gallons in my kettle) to the full 5 gallons. Obviously that hydrometer reading would be wrong, and I didn't want to risk contamination, so I threw out about 1/2 test jar of concentrated wort. Again, I know I lost sugar there, but I wouldn't expect that drastic of a drop.
3) As I said, it was my first time using Whirlfloc. I followed instructions I found on the forums for using it -- I added 1/2 of a tablet to the last 15 minutes of my boil. Is that the right thing to do, even considering I'm doing a partial boil at about 2.5 gallons?
Really curious where all my fermentables went. I was hoping to make a Strong Golden Ale in the 7-9% range, but I think I'll probably end up with a Weak Golden Ale in the 3-4% range. Still beer, but not what I was hoping for. I want to figure out what I did wrong so that I can fix it for the next batch. Thanks in advance for any help!
In case it's helpful, here's the recipe I used:
- 4 oz Carapils (steeped 155 for 30 min)
- 4 oz Biscuit malt (steeped 155 for 30 min)
- 7 lbs light DME (added half to the boil immediately, reserved half to the end of the boil ~10 min)
- 2 lbs light candi sugar (added at the end of the boil ~10 min)
- 1/2 tablet Whirlfloc (15 min)
- 2 oz Saaz (60 min)
- 1 oz Saaz (1 min)