Experimental Wit - Bad OG

[dttk0009]

Hi everyone,

I took about a 4 year hiatus from brewing due to having to move countries, but I finally got around to getting everything set up.

To cut to the chase, I thought I'd try something a bit experimental and brew somewhat of a hybrid witbier. I wrote up a recipe for a 5 liter (1.3 gallon) batch and used the following grains:

Pale malt (2 row): 300g - 33.3%
Flaked wheat: 300 g - 33.3%
Dark what malt: 200g - 22.2%
Caramunich Malt - 11.1%

The OG estimate was set to be around 1.049. I measured before pitching the yeast and I had hit 1.040 at around 3.5 L. At that point I didn't want to top up to 5 as it would just dilute it more.

On top of that, the mash temperature got a bit hot at one point for about 5-10 minutes (167F). For this batch I just did a mash and sparge, mashing at 3L/kg.

Could the sub-par efficiency have anything to do with my choice of grains? Any additional steps I should have taken with this grain bill? Was it the slightly hot mash period?

I brewed a bigger pale ale batch previous to this one and it turned out really great, so I'm a bit disappointed this one didn't turn out so good.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[IslandLizard]

Welcome back to brewing!

Aside from the accidentally high mash temp, which could have denatured a significant portion of the saccharification enzymes, how was your grist milled? Wheat malt has small kernels. Were they crushed fine enough?

How did you sparge? With 55% wheat it must have been a sticky mash, hard to lauter. BIAB?

 

[dttk0009]

Welcome back to brewing!

Aside from the accidentally high mash temp, which could have denatured a significant portion of the saccharification enzymes, how was your grist milled? Wheat malt has small kernels. Were they crushed fine enough?

How did you sparge? With 55% wheat it must have been a sticky mash, hard to lauter. BIAB?

Thanks!

I have my hand-cranked mill set up to crush pale ale malt into nice, small pieces. This is what is usually looks like (not mine, but same size):

I didn't change any settings for the wheat malt, but it didn't look to me like they were coming out whole the other end.

For my set-up I have two digital cookers, this model to be specific:

In one of them I installed a grain filter along the bottom (the one I mash in). The other I boil in. Once the mash is done, I transfer the initial wort into a temporary bucket and dump the sparge water that I heated in the other cooker (75C) into the mash cooker, make sure to stir it around, then drain back into the other cooker along with the initial wort. From there I get it going to a boil. They're pretty handy in that they have built in thermometers, but I had the setting wrong today and it heated up during the mash (doh!). I added cold water to compensate and got it back to 67C.

I use BeerSmith to calculate the mash water and sparge water (2.35L and 4.27L respectively). The default brewhouse efficiency is set to 95%, and I'm not really sure what mine is, so I just set it to 90%. Is that realistic for a home set-up?

Anything that could be improved?

 

[dmtaylor]

Not many people are successful getting 90-95% efficiency. Next time assume 75% efficiency and you'll be in better shape.

You might have killed your enzymes from the high temperature, but it looks to me maybe more like you assumed too high of efficiency for this batch. Or maybe a bit of both. Better luck next time. For this batch you could brew up another one to add to it, or else add some extract to make up the missing sugars, if you want. Or not. You'll still make beer either way!

 

[IslandLizard]

+1^

90% is a bit too optimistic, even with a BIAB system (ultra fine crush) that may be pushing it. So that throws off your estimated OG calculation. With good conversion and sparging, you should be able to attain 80-85% mash efficiency. The overshoot on the mash temp surely didn't help.

Next time split the sparge up into 2 sparges of equal volume (there is a check box in BS for that). After a good stir vorlauf and lauter. Also keep an eye on the deadspace in the bottom of your mash cooker. If a lot of wort stays under the false bottom your efficiency tanks. Tip it forward toward the end of the lauter. Or use a diptube that almost touches the bottom.

Take a good look at your crush next time, especially when crushing wheat or rye. On a roller mill they may not get broken enough (pass through the gap).

Do you boil off enough to concentrate your wort? How long do you boil?

As Dave said, correct the gravity with some boiled up DME or let her ride as is.

 

[IslandLizard]

I really like those 2 cookers you've got there. Great for small batches! I'd be brewing back to back, mashing while the other is boiling wort. What's their boil volume?

If you don't mind me asking, what country are you in?

 

[dttk0009]

Thanks guys, I figure you're right. I'll adjust my settings for the next batch and split up the sparge as suggested. I can also order the grain pre-crushed from my lhbs next time, might make things easier, but I like to do things from A-Z which is why I opted for crushing it myself.

I boiled for an hour and already pitched the yeast after cooling the wort. It's gonna be a fairly weak beer I think but I'm still curious to see how it'll turn out.

Cheers!

 

[dttk0009]

I really like those 2 cookers you've got there. Great for small batches! I'd be brewing back to back, mashing while the other is boiling wort. What's their boil volume?

If you don't mind me asking, what country are you in?

Yup, they're pretty handy! They can hold up to 27 liters each, so about 7 gallons.

I live in Germany now, but I used to live in Thailand, where I did biab on a stovetop, so it's a pretty significant upgrade. Was a bit sad to sell my brew stuff when I left (too bulky to take along), but building it is half the fun anyway. With spring/summer coming up I'm going to need fermentation temp control anyway.

 

[IslandLizard]

Wow! They look so much smaller than 7 gallons. They're not just for small batches then.

I'd say brew-wise you made a significant improvement. And not just with those dandy kettles.

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks guys, I figure you're right. I'll adjust my settings for the next batch and split up the sparge as suggested. I can also order the grain pre-crushed from my lhbs next time, might make things easier, but I like to do things from A-Z which is why I opted for crushing it myself.

I boiled for an hour and already pitched the yeast after cooling the wort. It's gonna be a fairly weak beer I think but I'm still curious to see how it'll turn out.

Cheers!

If I were you, I keep milling my own. Most LHBS crush is the pits. And definitely when it comes to rye and wheat. They're not tightening that gap for you, as you would do yourself. And milling twice is never a substitute for crushing once, correctly.

You could add some boiled and cooled DME to that fermentor to bridge those missing points. No shame in that.

 

[dttk0009]

If I were you, I keep milling my own. Most LHBS crush is the pits. And definitely when it comes to rye and wheat. They're not tightening that gap for you, as you would do yourself. And milling twice is never a substitute for crushing once, correctly.

You could add some boiled and cooled DME to that fermentor to bridge those missing points. No shame in that.

Gotcha, I'll keep that in mind. The lhbs does have DME, I'll pick some up next time around.

Thanks again for all the feedback!