how do i reach origanl gravity?

[drobinson64w]

Hello fellow brewers,
I just brewed a ESB and the o.g. called for 1.063 and i boiled for 90 min.
and i had a reading of 1.040
What am i doing wrong?
1) am i boiling with to much water?
2) am i sparging with to much water?

Please let me know
Cheers David

 

[jeffpn]

Too much water or not enough grain/extract.

 

[jmcnamara]

Do you have the strike, sparge, and boil volumes used? How about the amount of grain?

That should help us to pinpoint if it's your efficiency or water amounts. Both of which should be easy to fix with some simple math, so rdwhahb

 

[drobinson64w]

Thank you for your response,. The grain bill was 10.75 lbs.
This is what the recipe called for . Mashed out at 168 F.
Thank you , may not have let the grains rest long enough.

 

[jmcnamara]

Ok, assuming 1.25 qt/lb mash thickness, you should have started with about 3.3 gallons (13.5 qts) of strike water. Does that sound close to what your mash was?
With grain absorption, you're looking at about .5 qt of water to be retained per lb of grain. So, roughly 5.5 qts will be left behind after you gather first runnings, which should be about 8 qts or so.
Depending on the size of the batch you want and the limit of your boil kettle, you would calculate the sparge water from there.
What size batch are you brewing?
What was your boil size?
Also, is this biab or do you use a dedicated mash tun?

 

[Thurston Brewer]

168 °F is way too high for mashing. You'll get much better extraction efficiency at 150 °F.

 

[Mark D Pirate]

how big is the mash tun ?
how were the grains milled ?
did you make sure to stir in the mash to break up any dough balls ?