Ag - High Gravity / Low Vol

[Gout]

Guys the pils ended up going well but I only got 15Lt of wort at the end not my 18-19Lt i wanted (add 2Lt starter)

I ended up with 1066 gravity for a pils, should i water it down? add say 2Lt of water to get to total vol of 19Lt or 3Lt water = 20Lt wort


now i think with this recipy if i back the volume on promash to 15Lt and addjust the efficency to get the gravity of 1066 it is at 50% efficency, surely i cant be that bad??

5.75 Pils malt
290g munich
100g cara pils

looks like if i bumb the volume up to 18Lt wort + 2Lt starter (20Lt batch) I'll have a SG of 1055 (leaving it at the 50% efficency)


If it is infact only 50% efficent then i really need to look at why!



smells bloody bute though

 

[Gout]

now while i was typing this and having a panadol for this dam head of mine....

the air stone was working away and ofcourse its spewed all over the freezer.... Now i am even mader than before, to i have high grav,Low efficency to the point where Its crazy (50%) and even lower vol (what a waste) and sticky stuffed up freezer

should i give up yet???

 

[GMK]

Ben

Dont give up yet.........

I would goto 1055 efficiency and add the yeast starter.
What was the temp of the brew when you measured 1055?
This can effect the readings - the higher the temp = the lower the reading.

Hope this helps

 

[Gout]

1064 @9deg (16.5Lt - 500ml lost in foam over the rim)

added 3.5Lt to bring total Vol to 20Lt

I est that to be 10.55 (or very close) it tastes almost good enough to drink from the fermentor (be it sweet)

thanks Ken

 

[Doc]

Don't give up.

At least you stop sparging when the gravity got low so you will still have a nice drinkable beer when it is ready to be consumed.

Sounds like you didn't get full conversion, so hence your efficiency has suffered.

How long did you mash for and what was the crush of your grain like. Finally how long did you sparge for and what method did you use to sparge ?

RDWHAHB,
Doc

 

[Gout]

I crushed grain finer than normal, (on the mark of the barley crusher - as per defultsetting)

i mashed for 90 min, then heated up over say 15min to 75deg, then sparged (fly sparge??) with water at 80deg, but the water sitting on the grain bed wasn't 80 (it lost some temp)

as it was draining slowly (over a hour aprox) into the boiler, i was letting the sparge water come into the mash tun, keeping about 1-2 inch of water above the grain bed.

I stired the grain etc up in the water 3 times during the mash to make sure it was all wet, and every 20 min i took 4-5Lt out throught the bottom of the mash and applied it back on top to try keep temp even. sat at 66 start to about 65end maybe +/- 2deg max