Very Low OG

[BigFishBrewing]

I have been brewing with my buddy for about 1 1/2 years now. Our beers are always great and we almost always hit the og/fg. We brew 10 gallons and split into two kegs.

The 3 times that I have brewed myself (5 gallons) I am never even close to the og/fg. For example, today I brewed Sip of Sunshine where the og should have been 1.076 - mine was 1.054.

We do continuous (fly) sparging and lauter at 1 litre per minute and that takes about one hour to reach our boil amount.

When I brew myself at that rate it takes about 30 minutes. Is this the problem? Should I double the amount of time it takes to lauter?

It is the only thing that is different in the process between the 10 gallon batches and the 5 gallon batch.

Please help. My buddy is out of town and I can't stand the thought of him thinking that he is the difference!

 

[bracconiere]

without more info, couldn't help you. but here's a joke for ya!



edit: and info....how much water do you use per pound of grain? strike water temp? what kinda mash tun do you use? etc....(not sure if i missed in another of your posts)

 

[Andre3000]

How were you designing your recipe when you brewed with your friend? You need to use a brewing efficiency calculator to make sure you're hitting your numbers. You need to know what efficiency you're getting with your process. I use this:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

Efficiency issues can almost always be traced back to grain crush. What's different about the crush of the grain? Did he do it last time and now you're doing it?

 

[RM-MN]

When you fly sparge it is pretty easy to get channeling of the water through the grain. Slower draining can minimize that. So can batch sparging and it is easier and faster. Try it.

 

[BigFishBrewing]

Thanks for the responses. I got the recipe here https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/lawsons-sip-sunshine-ipa-clone/
I plugged the recipe into Beersmith and scaled it to my equipment profile for 21 litres.
I followed our process exactly, eg.

Mash In (make wort)

• 1 hour @ 67 degrees C
• 1 litre water / pound of mash
• Let rest in mashtun (steep for one hour)

Lauter (wort from mashtun to brew kettle)

• Figure flow rate using a jug (I litre / minute). Let chunks of grain settle out. Recirculate wort back in to mashtun using jug.
• 1 hour process.
• Sparge at 77 degrees C.

The only difference in the process:

• with 10 minutes left before the lauter I added 6.6 litres of water @ 77˚ as per the Beersmith steps.
• lautering took only about 30 minutes
  
• I kept the "hat" on the beer kettle for the one hour of boil and I guess there was much less loss due to evaporation

 

[cswant88]

I would take a good look at your equipment profile. Double check and be sure all of your numbers are accurate, dead space, boil off, etc.

Channeling and uneven rinsing of the grain is a possibility with fly sparging if done improperly. Your Lauter Tun design can influence the results if not optimized for fly sparging. I would start with the equipment profile then look at your fly sparge process.

Personally I prefer batch sparging. A proper fly sparge can yield better efficiencies, but my opinion is that it’s not worth the extra time and effort. I opt for spending and extra dollar or two on grain.