Low OG

[Jag75]

I'm normally pretty close to my projected OG . Sometimes I may be just over or just under . So close I dont even worry about it . The last 2 times I've brewed this particular beer ive been under . This time I was way under . Grain bill is 8# 2 row & 3.5# white wheat. My predicted OG is 1.063 and I hit 1.049.

The crush was fine on it so I dont think that is it . My sparge ran a little faster then norm but not so fast that it was channeling. So I'm just going nuts trying to figure this out . This was the lowest I ever hit . Even when I first started out .

I added some honey approximately 1.75 cups . Didnt bring the gravity up much . Then I added 1.5 cups of sugar . Boiled it for about 5 min then added and rechecked. It only got me to 1.054

Apparently I didnt look good enough because I had DME hiding in my stuff ... I'm brewing this beer for someone else and its kicking my butt lol.

 

[VikeMan]

I know you say your crush was fine, but wheat malt generally needs a narrower mill gap, or a double crush, to get a similar mash efficiency to, say, 2-row. Also, mash pH may be a factor.

 

[Jag75]

Mash temp was 149 for 60 min. My mash ph was 5.4 I'm thinking of adding more 2 row or maybe some vienna or Munich. He wants about a 7% beer . This is a co pitch sour which I've made countless times but I've never been under this bad . I'm thinking you might be correct on the white wheat milling. Looking back at my previous brews I was using 7# 2row , and 3 # white wheat and getting almost the same OG . So either double crush or add extra 2 row or a different grain to bump . I just pitched last night , I may just run and grab more DME and bump this up or just tell him next time I'll be sure to get the abv up

 

[Jag75]

@VikeMan - have you ever used amylase? It sounds like using this would convert the starches to sugars .

 

[VikeMan]

@VikeMan - have you ever used amylase? It sounds like using this would convert the starches to sugars .

No. I think that various add-in enzymes are appropriate for certain things, e.g. making a bone dry brut IPA, or dealing with low/no DP grains, as in gluten free brewing.

In your case, if crush was a problem, adding more enzymes probably wouldn't really help much. When the problem is that starches locked into large pieces of malt are not participating, it wouldn't really matter how many extra enzymes are waiting for those starches that will never show up.

 

[doug293cz]

If you want to diagnose efficiency issues, you really need to measure your conversion efficiency and lauter efficiency separately, as what causes low conversion efficiency is different than what causes low lauter efficiency. Mash efficiency equals conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency.

Conversion efficiency is measured using the method here. Then use your brewing software to get your mash efficiency, and calculate lauter efficiency as mash efficiency divided by conversion efficiency.

If you had an end of mash SG reading we would know for sure whether your conversion efficiency was low (as suspected) or not. Conversion efficiency is almost always due to failure to completely gelatinize the starch. Smaller grits gelatinize faster, which is why finer crushes are the standard fix for low conversion efficiency. Extending mash time can also get more starch to gelatinize and thus improve conversion efficiency.

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

Apparently I didnt look good enough

the beer doesn't care if you're good looking or not! lol, my random thoughts are included as random text below.......

i mill at 0.028" and haven't had a problem with wheat....


exactly what is a fast sparge for you? (stratifcation is a thing, doesn't matter if there was channeling, need time to equalize like carbing a keg, i think anyway)

damn, i just punched in to beersmith, how many gallons was this? that's only 57% effec. for 5 gallons?

@VikeMan - have you ever used amylase? It sounds like using this would convert the starches to sugars .

i have, with my whole grain white rice brews, always got good conversion even with whole long grain rice....(damn was it a ***** to sparge though) just remember it could give you the squirts without gluco too, dextrins work like liquid fiber, and amylayse makes for a high FG....


but with 8 pounds of 2-row you should have enough diastatic power with out it....

 

[hottpeper13]

The beers I make that I want dry I mash at 148* for 2 hrs stirring every 15 min.

 

[VikeMan]

The beers I make that I want dry I mash at 148* for 2 hrs stirring every 15 min.

Great strategy. A long mash time definitely increases attenuability. Interestingly, Kai Troester did some trials that suggest that the sweet spot in attenuation curve for temperature is about 151F. And Greg Doss did something similar and found the sweet spot to be slightly higher than that. Below the sweet spot, the downward curve is rather gentle, but above it, it falls pretty precipitously. I have become convinced that the old rule of thumb of "mash low for high attenuation, and high for low attenuation" (which implies a more straight-ish curve rather than a curve with a peak in the middle) is a result of the curve dropping off the cliff just a bit above the sweet s[pot.

 

[Jag75]

Dang a 2 hr mash ! I'll pass lol. I'll just tell them to double crush my white wheat or I'll add some 2 row to get it to the abv requested.

 

[Jag75]

On a side note I use white wheat , flaked wheat , flaked oats quite a bit and this is the only brew that gives me a run for my money .

 

[Jag75]

@bracconiere - my sparge normally takes 30 to 40 min . This time it was probably closer to 20

Yeah not good efficiency at all . I'm normally in the 80's

 

[IslandLizard]

On a side note I use white wheat , flaked wheat , flaked oats quite a bit and this is the only brew that gives me a run for my money .

In this brew did you use white wheat malt? That's a whole different scenario compared to using flaked/rolled (raw) wheat. If you use wheat malt (not flaked/rolled), since your LHBS crushed it, there's your likely culprit. LHBS' wide mill gaps don't crush small kernel grain very well, such as wheat and rye. I've seen what comes out my LHBS mill. They don't want to do anything about it, and they can keep it.

my sparge normally takes 30 to 40 min . This time it was probably closer to 20

That's probably another reason, compounding on the lack of conversion. Why not batch sparge?

 

[Jag75]

In this brew did you use white wheat malt? That's a whole different scenario compared to using flaked/rolled (raw) wheat. If you use wheat malt (not flaked/rolled), since your LHBS crushed it, there's your likely culprit. LHBS' wide mill gaps don't crush small kernel grain very well, such as wheat and rye. I've seen what comes out my LHBS mill. They don't want to do anything about it, and they can keep it.

That's probably another reason, compounding on the lack of conversion. Why not batch sparge?

My LHBS always mills my grain and can say the crush has been good. I'm always in the 80s efficiency wise . I do batch sparge .

 

[IslandLizard]

I do batch sparge .

Sorry, what you said before made me think you were fly sparging:

My sparge ran a little faster then norm but not so fast that it was channeling.

In batch sparging you can run off wort as fast as you can or want. Especially when the bed has settled after carefully returning the vorlauf.
Channeling is a non-issue there, as you're not adding water while lautering.
Basically you're only draining the tun.

Now, good stirring is important in batch sparging!

 

[IslandLizard]

My LHBS always mills my grain and can say the crush has been good. I'm always in the 80s efficiency wise

Also when using 25% wheat malt?
Those wheat malt kernels are hard and fairly small. When the gap maybe OK for barley, it can be much too wide for wheat and rye malt that tends to drop between the rollers mostly uncrushed. I've seen it. This is even worse with oat malt, which has even smaller, narrower, needle-like kernels.

 

[Jag75]

Sorry, what you said before made me think you were fly sparging:

In batch sparging you can run off wort as fast as you can or want. Especially when the bed has settled after carefully returning the vorlauf.
Channeling is a non-issue there, as you're not adding water while lautering.
Basically you're only draining the tun.

Now, good stirring is important in batch sparging!

I use the Grainfather. Once I pull the basket up and the wort drains I start to sparge . At this time the temp is rising towards boiling temps . With the Grainfather there is a top screen . Once you pull the basket up the top screen is pushed down a bit to compact the grain bed . This has been learned over multiple brews by people like David Heath . It's very possible I compated the mash a little too much idk . I do the same process everytime with great results .

 

[VikeMan]

Channeling is a non-issue there, as you're not adding water while lautering.

I know exactly what you're saying here, i.e. that the concentration of sugars is homogeneous and that therefore it doesn't matter (from an OG perspective) what route the wort takes, as long as it makes it out of the tun.

Just to add to that... I have seen cases where batch lauters "channeled" due to some odd localized grain bed compaction, which also cause pockets of "dead space" blocked by the compacted grains. So I'll just mention that while channeling (in a batch scenario) won't cause low OG, it can impact mash efficiency, by yielding less volume of the same OG.

 

[Jag75]

So what I'm getting out of this is I should mill the white wheat seperate from the 2 row because the white wheat needs the rollers closer due to the grain being smaller ? Makes sense. This recipe has the biggest % of wheat malt I do.

 

[VikeMan]

So what I'm getting out of this is I should mill the white wheat seperate from the 2 row because the white wheat needs the rollers closer due to the grain being smaller ?

Yep. It might not be the only thing that affected efficiency, but if you can eliminate that, you'll have a new and better baseline to work from.

 

[Jag75]

As far as channeling I dont see how it doesnt have any effect of OG . If you do a no sparge your leaving behind some sugar . When people do no sparge its normally because they are BIAB and super fine crush makes up for it . I'm not saying channeling has a massive effect but I think it has some.

 

[VikeMan]

As far as channeling I dont see how it doesnt have any effect of OG .

Hmm. I'm not sure why you're thinking that. To break this down step wise, let's look first at the OG itself. Do you agree that once the batch sparge water has been added, and thoroughly mixed, that all of the wort in the tun has the same OG?

 

[Jag75]

Hmm. I'm not sure why you're thinking that. To break this down step wise, let's look first at the OG itself. Do you agree that once the batch sparge water has been added, and thoroughly mixed, that all of the wort in the tun has the same OG?

Yes i agree that once all the sparge water is added and it finds it's way to the kettle all the wort has the same Og

 

[VikeMan]

Yes i agree that once all the sparge water is added and it finds it's way to the kettle all the wort has the same Og

Ok, so let's say (just made up #s) there are 7 gallons of wort in the tun, at a gravity of 1.040, and that a normal batch lauter will yield 6 gallons at 1.040 into the kettle, with one gallon being absorbed by grains and/or trapped in the mash tun's normal dead space.

Now let's say instead that the lauter had some channeling, but still 6 gallons made it into the kettle. Still at 1.040.

Third scenario... there's some channeling that also creates a dead pocket, so that an additional half gallon of wort is left behind. So now there's 5.5 gallons making it into the kettle, still at 1.040 going in.

So channeling didn't affect the gravity of the lautered wort in any case. In the last case, there's less wort making it to the kettle, so your overall, mixed gravity (including first runnings) will be lower. So mash efficiency is affected, but that's only if the channeling creates a dead pocket(s).

 

[Jag75]

Ok . I have a question though. I dont know if using a 1 vessel system has any difference on that but let's say I pull up my basket . I start dumping my sparge water and the grain breaks away and forms a channel that goes right down to the kettle . If most of the water goes through that channel instead of evenly flowing through the grain bed is it leaving sugars behind that wont be in the wort to be accounted for . Or better yet let's say I pull my basket up let it drain and then set the basket aside and just toss the sparge water in the kettle . I'm not going to hit my numbers it would seem to me.

 

[VikeMan]

Ok . I have a question though. I dont know if using a 1 vessel system has any difference on that but let's say I pull up my basket . I start dumping my sparge water and the grain breaks away and forms a channel that goes right down to the kettle . If most of the water goes through that channel instead of evenly flowing through the grain bed is it leaving sugars behind that wont be in the wort to be accounted for .

I see what you're getting at. But you're not describing a true batch sparge. Your system is actually doing a (very fast) fly sparge. Different rules apply!

ETA: And yes, this would definitely affect the gravity of the runoff, as well as efficiency (because of fly sparge logistics).

 

[IslandLizard]

So what I'm getting out of this is I should mill the white wheat seperate from the 2 row because the white wheat needs the rollers closer due to the grain being smaller ? Makes sense. This recipe has the biggest % of wheat malt I do.

Exactly!

Anecdote:
A few years ago. It's during a break at the BJCP training course for novices I took, one of the last sessions. Someone had poured a homebrew sample for all of us to judge, while I was browsing the (homebrew) store. Unaware of the origin of the presented beer, just told it was a "Wheat Beer," I judged it as such.

My score: 13...
There was hardly a trace of wheat character (where's the wheat?). It also had low body, low alcohol, and a fair amount of oxidation. At least it was beer and drinkable. That's what the guidelines spell out, it's only fair, right?

So wrong!
As it turned out, the nice couple sitting across from me had brewed it.
Very embarrassing! But they took it in good stride.

They were gonna rebrew it, and at the end of the afternoon were leaving with a new bag of milled grain. I asked to peek inside, they let me. A coarse crush as to be expected from the store's mill and... clearly visible, most of the wheat kernels were still whole and uncrushed.
We talked about it a little, maybe run through the mill a few more times? Or crush with a hammer before brewing? I'm afraid they didn't quite understand.

Yep. It might not be the only thing that affected efficiency, but if you can eliminate that, you'll have a new and better baseline to work from.

That's where I would start.

 

[bracconiere]

damn, low 60's is what i got sparging full bore.....20 minutes seems quick....would there be a way to mod your basket to have something like a flour sifter, like a valve on my cooler? or maybe give a dunk again? like pull the basket, then dunk it in a separate container for the 'sparge'.....but if you're saying you pull 80's most times....if it's the crush on the wheat causing it, could do a cereal mash then let cool, and then add the 2-row, should compensate......

 

[bracconiere]

i'm going to do a test with whole wheat from the feed store....i'm converting your recipe to 10 gallons....15lb's now that i think about it, 2-row, and 7.5lb's whole wheat kernels......just to see what i get in effec. with a 0.028" gap....(measured with spark plug feelers, not a card)


should get a OG of 1.072, we'll see how it goes...no i'm not sure what help it will provide, but it was an idea for a recipe.....the wheat has just been sitting there!

 

[IslandLizard]

i'm going to do a test with whole wheat from the feed store....

That wheat is raw, not rolled, flaked, or malted, it needs to be cereal mashed to get anything out of it.
And uh, add rice hulls if you want to lauter it, instead of baking loaves of bread from it.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I typically mill barley with an .032" roller gap, while I use an .025" gap for wheat.

That said, I always do a test crush on both - run a half pound through then check the crush - because different grains often means different optimal crush gap. As an example, recently I obtained a bag of floor malted pale from a local mill and had to set the gap down to .028" to get a good crush because the kernels average size were appreciably smaller than my typical base malts. I believe had I not done that there'd be a good 10-20% hit on extract efficiency...

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

I pull up my basket . I start dumping my sparge water...

A fly sparge vessel/system needs very carefully designed fluid dynamics to prevent channeling. A basket is never going to do that, as it won't saturate.

Basically you're running a version of BIAB. Brew in a Basket in your case.
A dunk sparge in a wide and large enough vessel to hold the basket and a few gallons of water (its temp is rather immaterial) is probably the best way. Those 2 to 4 gallons of sparge water will form a balance with the water and sugars trapped in the grist inside the basket. Just stir well or dunk a few times. Then pull up and drain thoroughly.
That captured sparge water probably has the 20-30% of sugars you were missing from doing a no-sparge or a sloppy pour over.

 

[bracconiere]

That wheat is raw, not rolled, flaked, or malted, it needs to be cereal mashed to get anything out of it.
And uh, add rice hulls if you want to lauter it, instead of baking loaves of bread from it.

wheat gel's at the same temp as barley, i used to throw a 5lb bag of flour in my mash to cut costs....got decent effec, and sparged, well slow and had to blow back in the tube a few times, but i sparged it....8lb's homemalt, and 5lb's white flour in the mash.....no pre cooking needed...


same as barley:


https://bakerpedia.com/processes/starch-gelatinization/

(only reason i mentioned a cereal mash to jag, is i was thinking it would help get the starch into solution for the 2-row to convert better, if it wasn't milled fine enough?)

 

[Jag75]

So your saying I'm a BIAB brewer with my Grainfather Lizard ? Lol I never thought about it like that. I guess now that I look at it like that it is. I've brewed for years on this thing and it never even crossed my mind ☺

 

[IslandLizard]

5lb's white flour in the mash

Just keep in mind, flour will hydrate and gelatinize quicker and more thoroughly than granules of milled raw wheat.

 

[VikeMan]

So your saying I'm a BIAB brewer with my Grainfather Lizard ? Lol I never thought about it like that. I guess now that I look at it like that it is. I've brewed for years on this thing and it never even crossed my mind ☺

Pretty much. I have brewed some batches on a "basket" system in a commercial nano brewery. When I first saw it, I was like - BIAB - are you serious? It had its drawbacks (efficiency sucked, which is fine for home brewing, but not great in a comm'l brewery), but in the end, good beer could be made on it.

If you don't want to call it BIAB, you could say that it's a Perforated Surround Elevation Lauter System with Artisan Administered Viscosity Modification Fluid.

 

[bracconiere]

Just keep in mind, flour will hydrate and gelatinize quicker and more thoroughly than granules of milled raw wheat.

i've done this before.....? just not in this ratio....

 

[bracconiere]

well, i'm cooling it now 15lb's 2-row, 7.5 whole raw wheat berries......it was a PITA to mill, had to keep 'jump starting' my free roller on the mill with a knife.....


sparge was fine, and i dropped a hydro in the kettle at 98f, it reads 1.060...so that works out to a corrected 1.066, or 82%, which i'm happy with...i would point out that i really had to acidifify the mash with a good 3 or so light palm fulls of magnesium sulfate to get down to around 5.3.....started at 5.9......


(and on a side note, i found it funny my first wit in a while, and it's the one i remembered to add the whirfloc to!! )

edit: so to stay relevent to the conversation, maybe crush maybe ph? this was done at 0.028" all barley and whole wheat together...i also did a second step mash at 162f for alpha activity.....mashed at 152f for 30 minutes then ramped up.....

edit #2: if it tastes alright with the kilning of the feed wheat, it saved me $10 for a 10 gallon batch, so i might end up tipping my hat to you Jag.....

edit #3 not that i enjoy other peoples misfortune mind you!!

edit #4: damn got it cooled to 85f and whipped out my precision hydro...only read 1.060....so only 79% effec, still not bad though.....

 

[day_trippr]

[...]i would point out that i really had to acidifify the mash with a good 3 or so light palm fulls of magnesium sulfate to get down to around 5.3.....started at 5.9.....

Wait - you playin'? Or is that for real?
It never occurred to me to use Epsom Salt for pH modification. I reckon it'd work, but in the quantities needed it seems likely you'd end up with a laxative posing as beer. I just tried subbing it in BS3 for the phosphoric acid I used for mash and sparge (95% in the mash) for a 22 pound 10 gallon SMASH grain bill I did last week and it says I'd need 72 grams of Epsom Salt instead?

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

i would point out that i really had to acidifify the mash with a good 3 or so light palm fulls of magnesium sulfate to get down to around 5.3.....started at 5.9......

Why using that much Epsom salt? How many grams do you think it was?
Besides deliberate mineral additions, don't we usually add an acid for pH corrections?

Don't you use a mash/sparge water calculator?