First all grain

[Alto]

Hello Guys, i am wondering about the result quantity. How much liter should be my infusion if i want a 23L batch. I started to boil and i had 25 liters after 90 min (followed recipe) i had 19L left. According to my recipe i should have gotten a 1.070 OG but i got a 1.055, does this is a result because i evaporated to much water (boil to intense) also this was my first electric brewing.

Thanks for your input.

P.S. My grain were grinded by the grain supplier. So i guess the grind was good.

 

[beernutz]

The more liquid you boil off, the higher your OG.

You will have to provide more info about your equipment, process and, ingredients if you want help diagnosing your less than expected starting gravity.

 

[Alto]

I did a West coast IPA my grain build is as follow

American Two Row 14.5 pounds
Cara-Pils 1.3 pounds
Crystal 40 1.3 pounds
Munich 0.5 pounds

hops:
during boil i used 2oz of chinook and 2.25 oz of simco.

I did a 23L at 68*C (1 hour) infusion and a 4L sparge at 72*C (maybe was too hot?).

When i started the boil i was around 26L. (When i cleaned my equipment there was not much liquid left in the mash tank about .5L to 1L)

I used a temp controler (with PID) with an SSR at 100.4*C (i have 5500W element)

 

[RM-MN]

Hello Guys, i am wondering about the result quantity. How much liter should be my infusion if i want a 23L batch. I started to boil and i had 25 liters after 90 min (followed recipe) i had 19L left. According to my recipe i should have gotten a 1.070 OG but i got a 1.055, does this is a result because i evaporated to much water (boil to intense) also this was my first electric brewing.

Thanks for your input.

P.S. My grain were grinded by the grain supplier. So i guess the grind was good.

With your amount of grain and the OG you reported I'd come to the conclusion that the grind was not so good. I'd suggest you consider buying your own mill. Reasons for this are improved mash efficiency, consistency of the crush with nobody else adjusting the mill between batches, and the possibility of saving money by purchasing grain in bulk at a discount.

Mills for grain can range from the cheap Corona mill to the fancier 3 roller mills. I use the cheap Corona mill, do my mash in a bag (BIAB) so I can use a finer crush without a stuck mash or sparge, and would expect an OG much higher than you report with that amount of grain.

Yes you boiled off too much water. No, that didn't get you a low OG. Set your controller to 100C and see if your water boils. Since at sea level water boils at 100C, setting your controller at 100.4C means that your element was full on all the time. You want it to switch on and off.

 

[hottpeper13]

Welcome to my obsession, looks like you are at 50% efficiency, most likley from the LHBS mill. To solve that you can either mill twice,this will help some, or buy a mill. As for the amount at the end,you need to consider grain absorption, whats left in the tun(dead space), boil off and anything you leave in the kettle. Add all this up and then add the amount to what you want in your fermenter. Keep good volume records and always do the same procedure(at least until you have a handle on everything) and after 3 or 4 brews you should be nailing it. I didn't mention buying twice as much grain because I'm cheap, I mean frugal.

 

[myndflyte]

Many factors could be contributing to the low OG. As others have said, boiling off too much water should increase your OG. And again, the grind itself may not have been that great.

Everyone's setup can produce different efficiencies so it'll take a few brews and tinkering to figure out what your normal efficiency is. With that, you can either adjust your grain bill to compensate for your efficiency or just take a pre-boil gravity reading and based on the current volume and the volume you'll end up with after the boil, you can calculate how much malt extract to add to compensate.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There can be all sorts of reasons for low efficiency, but it's normal for it to be low on your first time. Given that it's your first all-grain brew, I'd assume it's you rather than the fault of the grind.

One obvious place to look is how you're sparging - is this in a bag or what? Even just gently squeezing the bag can make a significant difference.

Did you measure the pH of the mash? That has a big effect on enzyme activity.

Did you make sure the malt was well-mixed with the water, with no dry lumps?

 

[Alto]

Thanks for all the inputs, i used pre grinded becaus they offer it at no cost and it's a supplier for brewpub here in town. I bought a mill but i have a hard time keeping the adjustment.

I did take many notes and will improve my process. I did have some problems adjusting my controler but i will run several test with water to improve that. I thought i was good but seams like wort does not react the same.

 

[Vandulus]

Thanks for all the inputs, i used pre grinded becaus they offer it at no cost and it's a supplier for brewpub here in town. I bought a mill but i have a hard time keeping the adjustment.

I did take many notes and will improve my process. I did have some problems adjusting my controler but i will run several test with water to improve that. I thought i was good but seams like wort does not react the same.

One thing that may help adjusting your mill is to get an inexpensive feeder gauge which allows to to measure the gap. I've got my mill set to a .39 gap and get on average 70-75% efficiency. When checking or adjusting your mill, check the gap between the rollers in the middle and at both ends to make sure they're all the same.

Another trick is to measure your wort OG (cooled to room temp) before sparging. If the OG is low you can then either cut back on the amount of water for your sparge, or boil longer. The downside with a longer boil, other than the additional time, is that your wort color may be darker than expected.