eyedoctodd
Well-Known Member
Hi all, tomorrow is going to be my 4th 5-gallon AG batch and I'm still struggling with these numbers. Let me run some numbers by you and see if you can guide me to the answer. I shoot for 5.5G into the fermenter at pitching so I can lose a quart each when racking to secondary and to keg. I guess technically these are 5.5G batches. In the following actual examples I will refer to the max theoretical yield calculated for these grain bills via the calculator at tastybrew.com, and the number beersmith is spitting out for me.
Batch 1 grain bill (a red ale):
7# Maris Otter
1# Crystal 40
8oz. Wheat malt
4oz. Roasted barley
1lb light DME (threw in because preboil was reading 1.036)
Max points= 73.6
Actual volume & gravity 5 gal of 1.051
Gives me 69% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 65%
Batch 2 grain bill (a pilsner):
10# Pilsner malt
Max points= 63.6
Actual volume & gravity 5.5 gal of 1.050
Gives me 79% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 68%
Batch 3 grain bill (Belgian IPA):
4# Munich
4# Pils
1#1oz Torrified Wheat
1#1oz Crystal 60
1# Candi sugar
0.5# Brown sugar
Max points = 66
Actual volume & gravity 6.25 gal of 1.053
Gives me 81% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 70.6%
(Notes about batch 3: I oversparged so all volumes were higher than intended, plus I had a mysteriously low amount of boil-off. Finally the whirlpooling was terrible and so I lost a full gallon in the kettle trying to avoid racking crap to the fermenter. I normally would lose 1/2 gallon to the kettle.)
Can anyone figure out what I'm doing wrong, or at the least, tell me what numbers I should trust? I'm brewing the Bell's 2-hearted clone tomorrow and I want to hop it correctly for the right gravity. I bought 12# of 2-row in addition to the 2# of vienna and 0.5# each of the cara-pils and crystal 20, so I have enough grain in case my efficiency is really that low, but I don't want to just dump it all in and come out too high on OG because of underestimating the efficiency. This grain bill punched into tastybrew gives max points of 97. If I'm at 65% eff, I get OG of 1.063, but if I'm at 81%, I get OG of 1.078. I think you can understand my concern...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Batch 1 grain bill (a red ale):
7# Maris Otter
1# Crystal 40
8oz. Wheat malt
4oz. Roasted barley
1lb light DME (threw in because preboil was reading 1.036)
Max points= 73.6
Actual volume & gravity 5 gal of 1.051
Gives me 69% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 65%
Batch 2 grain bill (a pilsner):
10# Pilsner malt
Max points= 63.6
Actual volume & gravity 5.5 gal of 1.050
Gives me 79% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 68%
Batch 3 grain bill (Belgian IPA):
4# Munich
4# Pils
1#1oz Torrified Wheat
1#1oz Crystal 60
1# Candi sugar
0.5# Brown sugar
Max points = 66
Actual volume & gravity 6.25 gal of 1.053
Gives me 81% via tasty brew
Beersmith gave me 70.6%
(Notes about batch 3: I oversparged so all volumes were higher than intended, plus I had a mysteriously low amount of boil-off. Finally the whirlpooling was terrible and so I lost a full gallon in the kettle trying to avoid racking crap to the fermenter. I normally would lose 1/2 gallon to the kettle.)
Can anyone figure out what I'm doing wrong, or at the least, tell me what numbers I should trust? I'm brewing the Bell's 2-hearted clone tomorrow and I want to hop it correctly for the right gravity. I bought 12# of 2-row in addition to the 2# of vienna and 0.5# each of the cara-pils and crystal 20, so I have enough grain in case my efficiency is really that low, but I don't want to just dump it all in and come out too high on OG because of underestimating the efficiency. This grain bill punched into tastybrew gives max points of 97. If I'm at 65% eff, I get OG of 1.063, but if I'm at 81%, I get OG of 1.078. I think you can understand my concern...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!