OG Fail?!?!?!?

[Jaxmickey]

I just brewed an AG Belgium Wit batch with the following:

4.5# Bel 2 row
4.5# flaked wheat
1oz east kent @ 60'
.75oz coriander @ 5'
.75oz bitter orange peel @ 5'

Mash:
60' @ 154
10' @ 168

60' boil. chilled back to 60

Calibrated my hydrometer
came back at 1.024.....recipe called for 1.036

Would someone please tell me where I went wrong?????

 

[IslandLizard]

Low efficiency?

Possible causes:

• Grist too coarse
• Low DP (old malt)
• Insufficient sparging

Large amounts of wheat flakes turn your mash gummy, making it difficult to lauter. 8oz of rice hulls help to loosen it up so it can drain.

Do you still have the mash?

 

[Jaxmickey]

I had .75# rice hulls.

fly sparged to get 7g wart for boil. got down to 5.5 (fermenting 5.2)

I did only have 3g water at the beginning. I added 1.5g at the mashout.

would stirring the mash have any impact? I went overtemp a few times, and stirred to release the heat. (have a aluminum mash tun with a burner to regulate the heat).

 

[Jaxmickey]

no, mash is gone.

 

[lolcats]

Just low efficiency

To avoid this, you should always take a pre-boil gravity reading. Then adjust with either top off water or extra boil time to reach desired OG.

 

[IslandLizard]

Just low efficiency

To avoid this, you should always take a pre-boil gravity reading. Then adjust with either top off water or extra boil time to reach desired OG.

^ Yes, but at that point it's too late to do anything about it.

Actually it's better to make it a habit to take a reading of your first runnings (and 2nd runnings too). You'd know if something is wrong, so you can remediate, mash longer, stir more, etc.

It's very possible that the fly sparge was not effective in the gummy mash, although to be that much short it points to something in the mash too. I do batch sparges, so it gets stirred, vorlaufed and drained. Twice.

Did you mill those flakes? I do, and pretty fine too at a .022" gap, same for (the small) wheat and rye kernels.

I have the feeling it was a combination of factors. If you still had the mash, you could have stirred well and taken a gravity reading and see how much sugar was left behind.

 

[Jaxmickey]

Got it! Thanks! More lessons learned in brewing the hard way!