First AG brew - Where did I go wrong?

[tacks]

Hi everyone,

I did my first AG batch yesterday, and all went well procedure-wise for my brew, but I clearly screwed up a couple of things and am looking for answers. I was trying to do this recipe (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/ ), thinking it would be a good first AG brew. First things first - I tried mashing in with not hot enough strike water. I heated up more water and got it to 151F, then waited the hour to allow for enzymatic activity. I did the Vorlauf step and waited for the wort to run clear, and gently poured the Vorlauf runnings back into my tun. At this point I already had too much water but didn't want to leave any extra sugar behind so I did my batch sparge (168F for 20 minutes) anyhow. After that, I had roughly 10 Gallons of wort and I boiled off down to 6.5. Even after this, I ended up with a measly OG of 1.030 (should have been around 1.038-1.040). I know I really screwed up the water volumes, and I certainly expected a low efficiency on my first batch, but is there something I am missing? Should I be taking pH readings or using a stabilizer? I know some people swear by them and others say they are bunk. I just want to know what (other than proper water additions) I should be doing to up my efficiency and not leave all those sugars in the grain! Thanks in advance!

 

[Toga]

Had you boiled down to 5 gallons you would have hit your numbers dead on. You simply miscalculated how much water to use. Heck many of us still do from time to time

 

[tacks]

But if I had only put the amount of water through that I should have, there would've been 3 or 4 gallons less of wort put through the grain and my numbers would have been low too then, yes? I know the first batch or two are pretty much lessons in what goes wrong and damage control, but I feel like I just did a really poor job with efficiency. Thanks for pointing out that I actually got out enough sugar, I just need to figure out how to get that amount out in 2/3 of the water.

 

[frazier]

Getting the temps right takes some trial and error - so you've got a good start on that!

I like the TastyBrew calculator for infusion mashing. You put in the amount of grains, the water-to-grain ratio, and the desired mash temp, and it tells you how hot the strike water should be. It's important to pre-heat your tun (cooler), but I found that if I ran hot tap water into it while the strike water was heating, I could then dump the heating water and then mash in. The mash temp usually came out very close.

Cheers!

 

[ScottG58]

You can use a program like Beersmith to figure water volume and temperature. I did it with pen and paper using the formula in How to Brew last week to satisfy my inner nerd. I figure 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain for the mash.

One thing that I have done recently that should help me is that I calibrated my brew pot. I bought a dowel at Lowes and marked it at half gallon intervals. When I get to pre-boil volume, I stop sparging and boil. If I boil off too much, I add water when I can still have it boil with the wort for ten minutes.

On the bright side, you've got beer. I would drink a 1.030 session beer. It will likely be dry because of your mash temps. An iodine test will calm your worries about conversion.

 

[dstranger99]

You can add some DME to get that gravity up..........

 

[tacks]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, Frazier, I actually did use that tastybrew calc for temp, but I think it was that I forgot to heat the mash tun so I ended up about 5 degrees short, and then had to add more volume (another gallon and a half) of even hotter water to get to mash temp. I guess we'll see next time. ScottG58 - can you either explain the iodine test, or is there a thread I could check out to be more educated?

Again, thanks everyone!