Low Original and final gravity

[Steve Russell]

I have gone back to the basics, I previously used a Grainfather G30, doing 5 gallon batches and was kegging my beer. Numbers were very close and beers were excellent! I decided to go smaller scale and less brewing, personal choice. I just use a mash tun with a false bottom and a second boil pot, and only do 2.5 gallon batches. I have done three batches and my original and final gravity have been very low. I have used the calculators to figure out water to grain, but everything continues to come in low. I read that maybe I am not milling my grains enough, I do recirculation (vorlauf) by hand now during the last 15 minutes of my mash. During my last batch I even tried a mash out , increased temps to 168 and did a sparge based on the calculations. I know efficiency is not at good brewing like this but I am missing my gravity's by a big margin. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you

 

[Sandy Feet]

Different boil off rate for the smaller batches?

 

[Josh Hughes]

I get higher efficiency with 2.5 vs my occasional 5. Crush could matter. Mash out never affected my efficiency. Boil off could be it unless your volume is where th3 calculator says. Others know more and will jump in. Good luck and I’ll keep reading.

 

[Minbari]

1) how small is your crush, this will effect it more than anything.

2) how are you determining that the mash is done? maybe you just need more time to allow it to convert?

3) what are you measuring with pre-fermentation and post

I agree, mashout will not effect efficiency. can you post what you mean but WAY off? if your OG is lower your FG will be lower too, the yeast will lower the SG by some amount, doesnt really matter where it started, but it if is low to begin with, it will finish lower too.

just my own system, I hit my gravity everytime, but not always my volume. I would rather have less beer (or more) that is correct than worry about volume. if you have to boil longer to get more OG, better than the OG being too low. I ussualy err on the side of too little water and add more at the end to hit my gravity.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I have gone back to the basics, I previously used a Grainfather G30, doing 5 gallon batches and was kegging my beer. Numbers were very close and beers were excellent! I decided to go smaller scale and less brewing, personal choice. I just use a mash tun with a false bottom and a second boil pot, and only do 2.5 gallon batches. I have done three batches and my original and final gravity have been very low. I have used the calculators to figure out water to grain, but everything continues to come in low. I read that maybe I am not milling my grains enough, I do recirculation (vorlauf) by hand now during the last 15 minutes of my mash. During my last batch I even tried a mash out , increased temps to 168 and did a sparge based on the calculations. I know efficiency is not at good brewing like this but I am missing my gravity's by a big margin. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you

It sounds like your consistently comming in low on your targets.

Well I'd adjust your brewhouse efficiency down 5% or in your last batch (recipe) adjust your brewhouse % down until you hit the OG you actually had on brew day and roll with this number.

 

[Donoroto]

Efficiency does not matter much at our scale.

Put differently: yes, your numbers are lower than before. The answer is to add more grain to the mash. The extra cost is probably small, so problem solved.

That being said, there are probably a few tweaks to your process that can help you gain some efficiency. As others have commented, explore those to see where you can go, but, in the meantime, adjust your brewhouse efficiency in the recipe calculator to some lower number so that you can more accurately judge where your recipe will probably end up.

 

[Steve Russell]

Different boil off rate for the smaller batches?

Yes , my boil off rate was around .75 gallons for the bigger batches and its usually 1.25 for the smaller batches.

 

[Steve Russell]

1) how small is your crush, this will effect it more than anything.

2) how are you determining that the mash is done? maybe you just need more time to allow it to convert?

3) what are you measuring with pre-fermentation and post

I agree, mashout will not effect efficiency. can you post what you mean but WAY off? if your OG is lower your FG will be lower too, the yeast will lower the SG by some amount, doesnt really matter where it started, but it if is low to begin with, it will finish lower too.

just my own system, I hit my gravity everytime, but not always my volume. I would rather have less beer (or more) that is correct than worry about volume. if you have to boil longer to get more OG, better than the OG being too low. I ussualy err on the side of too little water and add more at the end to hit my gravity.

1. Because our local Homebrew store closed I order online from More Beer so not sure of exact size, I can check with them but may not get that answer.
2. I usually do a 60 minute mash, maintaining my temp and usually will do a recirc by hand the last 15 minutes.

3. I use a Hydrometer for measurements. I have a refractometer also but don't use it normally.

The last beer I did Pre boil was 1.46 supposed to be 1.053, OG was 1.063 and was supposed to be 1.073

Thank you for the insight, I will try less water I basically use the 1.5 quarts per lb of grain for strike water. With grain absorption I sometimes do a batch sparge to get my desired level.

 

[Minbari]

Yes , my boil off rate was around .75 gallons for the bigger batches and its usually 1.25 for the smaller batches.

boil off doesnt effect efficiency though. the more you boil off the higher the gravity goes, only water boils off. if your gravity is too high, you can always add more water to hit your target.

1. Because our local Homebrew store closed I order online from More Beer so not sure of exact size, I can check with them but may not get that answer.
2. I usually do a 60 minute mash, maintaining my temp and usually will do a recirc by hand the last 15 minutes.

3. I use a Hydrometer for measurements. I have a refractometer also but don't use it normally.

The last beer I did Pre boil was 1.46 supposed to be 1.053, OG was 1.063 and was supposed to be 1.073

Thank you for the insight, I will try less water I basically use the 1.5 quarts per lb of grain for strike water. With grain absorption I sometimes do a batch sparge to get my desired level.

1) only way to fix that would be to get your own mill. you can work around it, but might have to mash longer.

2) I would suggest a simple iodine test and see if you are fully converting starches to sugar. it cant hurt and is cheap insurance.

3) nothing wrong with a refractometer before fermentation. only takes a drop and they work really well. for your hydrometer, I would check the calibration and just make sure it is accurate. no sense going through all this work if it is off.

gaining 17 or 20pts during boil is allot. you would have to boil off alot more water than your are. I would always do a batch sparge. you would be amazed the amount of sugar you can wash off with a good hot sparge at the end. not sure the solution here, as @Donoroto said. maybe adjust your system efficiency and add more grain to compensate.

 

[Steve Russell]

boil off doesnt effect efficiency though. the more you boil off the higher the gravity goes, only water boils off. if your gravity is too high, you can always add more water to hit your target.




1) only way to fix that would be to get your own mill. you can work around it, but might have to mash longer.

2) I would suggest a simple iodine test and see if you are fully converting starches to sugar. it cant hurt and is cheap insurance.

3) nothing wrong with a refractometer before fermentation. only takes a drop and they work really well. for your hydrometer, I would check the calibration and just make sure it is accurate. no sense going through all this work if it is off.

gaining 17 or 20pts during boil is allot. you would have to boil off alot more water than your are. I would always do a batch sparge. you would be amazed the amount of sugar you can wash off with a good hot sparge at the end. not sure the solution here, as @Donoroto said. maybe adjust your system efficiency and add more grain to compensate.

Thanks for the advice, it was so easy with the grainfather, just plug and play kind of. I will check hydrometer and I didn't know about the iodine test, but just saw a video on it. I may look into my own mill , will ask More Beer if they can run it through twice but not sure if they will even respond to that.

 

[Donoroto]

Thanks for the advice, it was so easy with the grainfather, just plug and play kind of. I will check hydrometer and I didn't know about the iodine test, but just saw a video on it. I may look into my own mill , will ask More Beer if they can run it through twice but not sure if they will even respond to that.

Can't hurt to ask them.