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Low Original Gravity in Mac&Jack's Clone
I followed bruguru's M&J's clone for 5 gallons, the boil took 90 minutes, and at the end I didn't have much wort left. I started with about 3 gallons water in a 4 gallon stock pot. By the end of the boil, I had less than 2 gallons of liquid. (I let the grain bags drip without squeezing them.) I've added about 2 1/2 gallons of water - the volume in my primary is about 4 gallons. I took a reading and got 1.010 before pitching yeast. The o.g. should be 1.060! Help! What can I do? It's sitting right now waiting for me!
Only thing I can think of would be to add some dme or lme.
If you added water to top up to 5 gallons then the wort probably wasn't mixed well enough. Chances are the OG is right where you want it.
Was it an extract batch?
It's well mixed, and it's all grain. It's at the 4 gallon mark in primary.
Also, this is my second batch with low o.g. What am I doing wrong?
Most importantly, do I toss this batch? What happens if I pitch yeast and wait a month?
Hello? Anyone?
1.010 is so low I still think its plausible that your wort isn't mixed enough. To end with 4 gallons at 1.010 using the recipe in the M&J sticky you would have had to get 10% efficiency.
I'm kind of confused by this part here...
I started with about 3 gallons water in a 4 gallon stock pot. By the end of the boil, I had less than 2 gallons of liquid. (I let the grain bags drip without squeezing them.) I've added about 2 1/2 gallons of water - the volume in my primary is about 4 gallons.
Do you mean you ended up with 3 gallons of wort in a 4 gallon pot after mashing?
What grain bags did you let drip after boiling? Did you boil your grains?
Describe your mashing process because something doesn't sound right here.
I'm guessing somthing went wrong with the mashing process, and most importantly, how did you mash, Ie: what temp did you mash at, and how much grain did you use. There is absolutly no way you only ending up with that og mashing 10lbs of grain. It almost sounds like you only mashed the specialty grains, please tell me this is not what you did.
you can always add more dme, but you should be sure you need it. What does it taste like? it should smell and taste like strong Iced tea. Are you reading the Hydrometer correctly, some of them are triple readers, make sure your reading the correct side. Make sure it's not hitting the sides of the glass, it needs to float.
it's fixable i'm sure, don't sweat it. you can add Lme, or Dme, and know what you did the next time
FirePitBrew wrote:
Describe your mashing process because something doesn't sound right here.
This.
In the March 5, 2010 M&J recipe, bruguru posted an all-grain version which I cut in half for a 5 gallon batch. I boiled the Marris Otter, 9 lb., at 155 degrees for 60 min. I didn't understand what "collect enough wort" meant, but I boiled 1 lb. Munich and 1/2 lb. crystal 80 for 90 min. after removing the M.Otter. I added 1 oz. Centennial with 60 min. left in the boil and orange peel with 30 minutes left, and 1 oz Cascade in the last two minutes. Removed the grain bags and orange peel and cooled. Put into fermenting bucket, added 2 1/2 gallons spring water, and although I only had 4 gallons total liquid in a 5 gallon bucket, I took a reading. In the middle of the bucket, not touching the sides, the 3 sided hydrometer read 1.010, nowhere close to the 1.060 I expected to see. It smelled good, but it's been several years since I visited Seattle, and I can't remember exactly what the M&J smelled like (but I drank a lot of it while I was there). It was getting late here in Kentucky and I just pitched the yeast, Safeale 04, and called it a night. I've been brewing "kit" beers which are mostly extract-type and adding my own twist, for a decade. I recently joined this site and got excited about buying each ingredient and trying all-grain for the first time. I'm very disappointed. So, 1. Should I discard this batch? 2. What did I do wrong? Please explain in detail.
Thanks in advance.
Oh jeez, did you have any of your grains in the brew pot when the water was actually boiling (212 degrees)? That would extract alot of off flavors from the grain but shouldn't affect your gravity.
Looks like you used a gallon and a half of water to mash 10.5 pounds of grain? That's your problem. You should use ~ 1.5 quarts per pound, so . . . . about 4 gallons of water. After mashing, you should rinse your grain bag with as much 168 degree water to get to ~ 6 gallons of water or whatever your desired boil volume is.
OK i understand what you did now and honestly I'd probably dump this batch. But don't worry about it because we'll help you brew good beer. First, I suggest reading up on how to brew all grain. Here's a couple of good sites:
BobbyM"s All Grain Primer
John Palmer - How to Brew, Section 3: Brewing Your First All Grain Beer
You kind of had the right idea by keeping your grains at 155F but next time combine all of the grain to mash for 60 minutes. When brewing all grain there's no need for separating grains that are mashed and steeped. When mashing use a grist ratio (quarts of water to pounds of grain ratio) of 1.25-2 quarts to 1 pound of grain. I use 1.5qt/lb so I'd add 15.75 quarts of water or almost 4 gallons of water to the 10.5 lbs of grain.
Now in this recipe you're shooting for a mash temperature of 155F. You can't add 155F degree water because your grain is at a lower temperature and will absorb some of that heat. I usually shoot for adding water 10-12 degrees hotter than the mash temp I'm shooting for. Then I mix the water and grain, stir like crazy for a couple of minutes so there's no hot or cold spots and take a temperature reading. It should be around your target temp but don't sweat it if its a couple degrees off. Now you're mashing and this will take 60 minutes.
After 60 minutes you want to separate the grain from your wort. Most people build or buy a mash tun and all that is is a container that holds your grain and water that lets you drain out the wort but keep the grain in the vessel. I use a cooler that has a stainless steel braid that's connected to a ball valve. The braid acts as a filter only lettign the wort out of the cooler. Collect your wort into your boil kettle. I usually end up collecting about 3 - 4 gallons depending on the recipe.
While you're mashing you're going to want to heat up water for sparging. Sparging is rinsing the residual sugars from that grain that didn't dissolve into the the wort you just emptied into the kettle. The simplest way to do this is to batch sparge by adding more hot water back into the mash tun, stirring, waiting a short time (maybe 10 minutes) and draining into the kettle. When Bruguru instructed to "collect enough wort" he was saying to sparge with enough water to collect a specific volume of wort that after boiling will result in 5 gallons. Because of the shape of my brew kettle I have a large evaporation rate so I usually need to collect 7.5-8 gallons of wort if I want to end up with 5 gallons after a 90 minute boil.
Once all the wort is collected boil for a half hour and throw in your 60 minute hop addition (1 oz Centennial in this case). Follow the rest of the recipe and you should be in good shape.
Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions but I highly recommend you check out the two websites I linked above.
Just a thought, since it hasn't been mentioned so far.
Did you crush your grains?
My sincere thanks to those who replied, especially FirePitBrew. I use a stock pot that holds l6 qts. max. The 9 lb. of M.Otter in an XL grain bag barely fit in. To paraphrase the character in "Jaws", I'm gonna need a bigger pot.
You are just tossing the loose grain into the water, not in a bag, right? And when bruguru said he "mashes in overnight", what does that mean?
You'll most definitely need a bigger pot if you want to do a 5 gallon batch. I do 6 gallon batches and I use a 10 gallon pot and a propane burner (turkey fryer) for boiling though some people are successful at boiling a large pot on their stove top. I even did my first all grain brew on the stove using 2 different pots and it worked pretty well.
I just toss the grain and water into the cooler - no bag. The link for BobbyM's pdf shows a few pics of his mash tun which is similar to mine. The first one is a picture of the grain being mashed... just water and crushed grain sitting in a cooler. The next couple of pics show the Stainless steel braid and ball valve that I was talking about before.
A usual mash time is 60 minutes and a usual all grain brew day takes about 6 hours. Sometimes this doesn't fit into everyone's schedule so Bruguru will start his mash before going to bed and then drain his mash tun when he wakes up, sparge with more water then start his boil. I've never done this before so I can't really speak too much on it but it works for some people.
Wildcats wrote:
And when bruguru said he "mashes in overnight", what does that mean?
I would plan on doing your mash and boil on the same day, until you get the hang of it. There are a lot of things that can go wrong (and will, from time to time) with a "normal" brew day. With mashing overnight, you have to be careful with the grain temps. or lactobacillus will form and you will get a sour flavor to your beer.
You're on the right track though, don't give up, it will get easier.
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