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Efficiancy question
Did a Barleywine today wanted something between a BW and a Belgian Trippel. Pre-boil gravity was 20 points low and I was wondering how that happened. Here's the rec and would love some comments.
5 Gal batch
15 lb Bel Pils
1 lb Rye
12 oz Cara-pils
8oz aromatic
1oz Magnum @ 60min
1 oz Hallertauer @20 min
1.5 oz Styrian Goldings @ 15
.5 oz Saaz @ 15
1.5 oz Saaz @ Flameout
.5 Styrian Goldings @ Flameout
4 Lb corn sugar Later once the fermentation is starting to slow
I mashed at 144 for 90 minutes
Batch sparged (I think twice) With 180 degree water untill a pre boil volume of 6 1/2 gallons was reached.
Here's where I hit a problem and I'm not sure I did the right thing to try and fix it. I measured the gravity (refractometer) and it was only 1.056! Per beersmith it should have been closer to 1.093. AARRG. So I sparged again, fortunately i hadn't cleaned out my mash tun yet, until I had a volume of 8 gallons and boiled down to 6 gallons before starting my 1 hour boil.
Post boil I still only have a gravity of 1.075, with a volume of only about 4 1/2 gallons.
I still have all that corn sugar to add which will bring up the gravity by about 35 points but at this point I am not so much worried about this beer, as much as I am my process so this doesn't happen again.
The beer turned out much darker than I wanted because of the super long boil. Also other than color what will the effect of a long boil be on fermentability? I am assuming that it will be much less so because all those sugars caramelized and are now non fermentable.
On to the gravity...... Did it come out so low because I mashed so low? If I mash that low should I step the temp up half way through? I was trying to have a super fermentable wort that would dry out nicely. Should I have just gone with a mash of 150 or so and just relied on the corn sugar to dry out the beer?
AARRG another frustrating day. I just have to tell myself that I had a bad day yes but think of all that experience i gained today.
Thanks for the insight
ID
Gonna grab a beer sit on the couch and watch a movie. Hopefully I can't screw that up.
That sucks, we have all been there.
Irondavy wrote:
Gonna grab a beer sit on the couch and watch a movie. Hopefully I can't screw that up.
unless you grab the movie, sit on the beer and watch the couch....
With a mash temp of 144 it wouldn't take much thermometer error to be out of conversion range. Also, at that temperature I would have definitely done an iodine test to be sure conversion was compleat.
You might have accidentally created a great beer, so just play it out and see what you end up with.
Bob
The more grain you add to your mash tun the less efficient the extraction becomes and I would assume that this is compounded by the batch sparge technique, which is less efficient than fly sparge anyway. The decrease in efficiency is going to be different for each mash tun setup. It's crazy and I'm not really sure I have a good explanation other than issues of sugar solubility and extraction efficiencies in a relatively smaller volume of water. I've gone from around 80% extraction efficiencies for a 1.045 gravity beer all the way down to 65% extraction efficiency for a beer upwards of 1.095 gravity. By the numbers you gave, your extraction efficiency for this beer is around 60%, so if you were to brew this again in the future, I would compensate for this by adding more grain to your mash. It seems like a waste, but there's not much that can be done for this unfortunate phenomenon. Cheers!
Wow I thought that batch sparging was more efficient given the time the water has to extract sugars. I have the pumps I might as well fly sparge I was just under the impression batch was the way to go. Also I had no idea that efficiency would go down as the gravity goes up. I will account for that in future batches.
Any thoughts on the mash temp effecting the gravity? I didn't ever do an iodine test but I am assuming with such a large grain bill and low temp that I didn't achieve full conversion and that was another cause of the low gravity.
Thanks 1n1m3g
ID
I disagree about fly and batch efficiencies differing so much. I am a batch sparger and can get 80% efficiency.
I do agree about losses in efficiencies when the gravity of the beer you are making gets big. The break point is sort of equipment specific.
Is batch V Fly sparging like Ford V Chevy? to each their own, or like Brewchez says is it more equipment/ brewer specific? My system seems to work best when batch sparging but I could go back to fly at any time just to see if it works better.
After doing some reading and some talking to more experienced brewers than I, I have come up with what I think happened. There were probably some cold spots in the mash that never go up to the 144-46 mark that I was looking for and even with the 90 minute mash that I did the mash never fully converted. I am thinking that next time I will mash for an hour a 145 ish then raise up to 152 until conversion is complete. any thoughts on this plan? I'll just mow the lawn or something while the mash is going.
Thanks again for the help
ID
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