Problem with gravity in my all grain

[zam216]

I just brewed my first pumpkin all grain beer and the gravity did not come anywhere close to what it was estimated at on beersmith. My mash tun is a 10 gallon cooler with a false bottom. I use beer smith to get my estimates and water amounts and follow them pretty closely. My recipe is:

2 large cans of libbys pumpkin meat baked at 350 for 40 minutes sprinkled with brown sugar.
8 pounds of pale malt 2 row
4 pounds of vienna malt
2 pounds of munich malt
1.2 pounds crystal malt 60L
.8 pounds of caramunich

I mashed in with 25.28 qts of water at 168 degrees. My desired temp was supposed to be 152 but I only got to 150. I let it sit for an hour and tested the starch content with iodine which did not have any purple in the liquid. My preboil gravity was 1.046 and was supposed to be 1.073. My post boil gravity was only 1.052 and was supposed to be 1.086. Im not sure what could have caused this lack of efficiency but I would like to fix it for next time. My previous all grain attempt at a sam adams summer clone was fine so I don't think it was my system. Does the 2 degree difference I had cause that big of a difference?

 

[hophop]

Where your volumes correct?


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[zam216]

I went off all the volumes on Beersmith to the t. So assuming those were right then yes. I also forgot I batch sparged with 3.33 gallons at 168 degrees.

 

[Cyclman]

Have you calibrated your thermometer? If not, it could be your water.

 

[zam216]

i use a kitchen thermometer that has a probe on a wire that i keep in the mash the entire time so I can constantly read it. there is no way to physically calibrate but I have compared it to my glass thermometer and its exactly the same. Could it possibly of been to quick of a sparge? i want to say it took maybe 15-20 minutes to do my initial lautering and then another 15 for the sparge. should it take longer? I had my tap open to a slow consistent pour should it be a trickle?

 

[Smellyglove]

Do you know how efficient your system is? Brewed enough on it to know? Did you set the brew house efficiency in beersmith to the efficiency you have on your system? If the recipe is made on a higher efficiency system you need to scale.

 

[zam216]

I don't know how to find the efficiency I've brewed all grain only 2 times but I have all my info from both times, beer smith has it at 72 and the last batch went higher than the estimate beerSmith gave mee

 

[NC_Drewbrew]

I had a lot of similar issues when i first started brewing all grain. The first thing I did was to make sure that my mash set up was calibrates in beersmith correctly, meaning dead loss, and volumes. Use the equipment wizard if you have not am make sure that everything is accurate.

Second, i mill my own grain, my crush was too coarse, i had to shrink the gap on the mill. If you are letting your lhbs mill could be the same issue, they normally pick a gap that is universal, thus not ideal for each grain milled.

3rd i would say your mash time might be extended, and sparge time as well. It should be a slow trickle with fly sparging it should take a min of 1 hr to lauter and sparge the full volume. If you are batch sparging, lauter for 30 min or so, then apply second run of water, rest for 15 min or so and 30 min lauter.

I Mash for about 90 min and lauter/sparge for ~90 min also. Since making the changes above i avg 79%
efficiency and hit my numbers consistently.

A big part of all grain is learning your system. It took me about 5 brews to start to dial it in.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

A


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[NC_Drewbrew]

The 72% efficiency is and assumed amount by beersmith, to find your actual click on the mash tab to the right of the design tab, insert your pre boil volume and gravity after lautering is and sparaging are complete, enter the final gravity and volume after boiling is complete and it will tell you what your actual efficiency is.


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[peterj]

Usually the higher gravity you are going for, the worse your efficiency will be. Maybe that combined with the pumpkin in the mash brought your efficiency down. Did you put the pumpkin into the recipe expecting it to contribute fermentables? I've heard pumpkin doesn't contribute very much. The 2 degrees shouldn't change your efficiency, but it will probably make your wort more fermentable and you may end up with a lower FG than you would have.

Since your batch sparging, you don't need to worry about resting the sparge addition or draining the tun slowly at all. Just drain your first runnings (however fast you want), mix in your sparge water (make sure you stir very well and let the water get to every bit and clump of grain), vourlaf, and drain it as fast as you want without getting a stuck sparge. All your doing with the batch sparge is rinsing sugars off, so there's no need to let it rest. And since your putting all of the water in there at once, there's no point in draining slowly because all of the runnings are mixed together and will all have the same gravity.

 

[catalanotte]

I am still pretty new at all grain and don't use Beersmith, but believe that your issue could be a combination of things. Assuming you ended up with 5.5 gallons of cooled wort, the brewhouse efficiency you describe is about 55%, you should be able to get at or above 70%. If you produced extra volume to allow for transfer losses but designed the recipe for 5 gallons, you will have a "diluted" OG. I use 5.75 gallons as my target volume, cooled in the kettle, to allow for transfer losses through bottling or kegging. Try using a thicker mash to save more water for sparge, 1.25-1.33 qt/lb works well. For larger grain bill batches, its ok to over sparge by a few quarts and boil back down to your target volume. These will all help the predictability of your efficiency. Lastly, I would drop the planned efficiency from around 75% down to about 70% for batches over about 12 pounds of grain (5 gal). I have been hitting OG numbers within +/- .002 with these methods.