DIPA gravity too low.

[resin]

Hi guys, did my first all grain with some friends on the weekend and of course made a few mistakes

The OG we were aiming for was 1.082 and the post boil gravity (forgot to take readings before that) came in at 1.051. We used a grainfather and were careful to get all the mash and sparge temps and timings right, felt like we did a good job of that bit but the efficiency wasn't good enough in the end.

Currently got 22.7L sitting in the fermenter and by my calculations we will need to add 1.92kg of DME to the fermenter to get it back in line.

Asked a couple of home brewer friends and they both said that sounds like a tonne of DME to add. Some options on the table


1. Add the 2kg of DME
2. Add 1kg and chalk it up to experience
3. Add more water and call it an IPA or XPA

or any other thoughts or ideas? what would be the downside of adding the 2kg of DME?

recipe below, any advice would be greatly appreciated
thank you!
-Dan




----------------
Style: DIPA
Type: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 28.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 25.50 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 21.00 l
Bottling Volume: 19.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.082 SG
Estimated Color: 14.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 103.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5.02 kg Pale Ale Malt (Bairds) (4.9 EBC) Grain 1 67.5 %
0.74 kg Munich, Light (Joe White) (17.7 EBC) Grain 2 10.0 %
0.74 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 Grain 3 10.0 %
0.37 kg Amber Malt (Joe White) (45.3 EBC) Grain 4 5.0 %
30.00 g Chinook [11.40 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 31.9 IBUs
30.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [13.40 %] - Boil 60. Hop 6 37.5 IBUs
0.56 kg Dextrose (Briess) [Boil for 5 min](2.0 E Sugar 7 7.5 %
50.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool Hop 8 11.2 IBUs
50.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [13.40 %] - Steep/Wh Hop 9 15.1 IBUs
50.00 g Willamette [7.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 1 Hop 10 7.9 IBUs
2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 11 -
50.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 6.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
50.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Dry Hop Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
50.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
50.00 g Summer (Summer Saaz) [5.50 %] - Dry Hop Hop 15 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 7.43 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 18.94 l of water at 74.0 C 65.6 C 75 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 16.95 l water at 75.6 C
Notes:
------

 

[Dan Pratt]

At that gravity and ibu she will be bitter. Id take option 2 at least, throw some DME at it and see where it gets to.

The thing you need to address is the massive loss of efficiency. Id like to say the reason this happened is you went to big to early, first AG with a DIPA, bound to have issues.

You will need to address a few things:

Milled grain, may of been to fine

pH may of been to high

Late sugar addition not giving you 1037

Sparge water to much, quite possible you were right when you pulled the pipe.

One thing for sure is you need to do a preboil gravity, do this before you add sparge water. Pull the pipe and wait 10mins and take a uniform reading of the gravity.

And....now you have shown the boys how it's done, make a smash beer keep it simple and enjoy the beer.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Are you sure your numbers are correct? If you subtract the glucose addition to the boil your efficiency is around 40%. Unless you had a major spill it's hard to understand how it got that low.

 

[Bridgey23]

Where did you get your mash and sparge amounts from?
My grainfather calc for a grain bill of 7.43kg says 23.6l mash 10.4l sparge.
I take my Pre boil gravity reading after I have sparged. Give it a good stir to mix the sparge water through and take a sample and let cool to 20c for your gravity reading.
Agree with above it's a big beer to take on first up and there are some efficiency problems you need to suss out e.g grain crush, mash pH.
A bit of reading on this site and you'll nut it out.
Happy brewing [emoji482]

 

[indica86]

Interesting brew for a first go!

Slow down bud, make some pales and get shit dialled/

 

[resin]

Thanks for the replies guy, really appreciate it. Yeah it was ambitious for sure but happy to fail at things, its a good way to learn. Originally the plan was for an APA or IPA but it got upgraded when i remembered the massive amounts of hops i had sitting in my freezer that needed using up. An experienced friend helped us put the recipe together.

@Pratty1
The grain:
We bought it and had it crushed and mixed from 'hop and grain' in sydney, i imagine they know what they are doing more than we would.

Ph:
was not tested, will be something to research and factor for next time

Late sugar addition not giving you 1037:
Not sure what this means, but are you talking about the dextrose 5 mins before end of boil? we actually forgot to put it in at that time and put it in even later, when the mixture had cooled to about 75c :\

@Lyrebird_Cycles, @Bridgey23
Yeah we were surprised too, the person that put the recipe together got the efficiency from BeerSmith2 which set it at 75% which he then dialed down to 70% to be safe. Shouldnt a larger sparge volume have extracted more sugar? The gravity was measure with a refractometer and from all we can tell it is correct.

 

[Mardoo]

Get yourself some quality LME (Liquid Malt Extract), either Briess or Weyermann. Choose something that will match your grain bill and use a couple cans of that. But yeah, as Lyrebird points out, your figures are a bit confusing. Like, did you forget to grind the grain? Are you sure you measured correctly?

Edit: your response got in at the same time as mine.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Lyrebird_Cycles

Yeah we were surprised too, the person that put the recipe together got the efficiency from BeerSmith2 which set it at 75% which he then dialed down to 70% to be safe. Shouldnt a larger sparge volume have extracted more sugar? The gravity was measure with a refractometer and from all we can tell it is correct.

If the sparge is run properly, the tailings have very little sugar* so a longer sparge won't affect efficiency much. If the sparge is not run properly, you aren't reaching all the grain so doing the same thing for longer won't affect efficiency much.

If the 1051 is a refractometer reading your actual gravity is even worse, likely about 1049 (refractometers read about 4% high on a standard wort, for the reasons why see here (hope you like maths)).



* With an efficient sparge end runnings are usually around 2 oP on a standard grainbill .

 

[Lodan]

How did you take the gravity reading and at what temperature?

 

[kaiserben]

What equipment profile have you used in Beersmith 2?

You've got your batch size at 21L for some reason? It should be at 23L into fermenter.

And getting away from Beersmith for a moment:

When using the Grainfather mash/sparge water calculator (ie on their website) for a 21L batch using 7.43kg of grain your water volumes should be: 23.56L mash and 8.38L sparge. Quite a bit different to what is listed in your recipe. And for a 23L batch you're mash volume should be 23.56L and your sparge volume is 10.38L.

So it looks like you've had a way thicker mash than recommended, a bigger overall volume (by about 2L for a 23L batch, or 4L for a 21L batch) as well as an initial recipe probably set up to be a 21L batch (ie less grain than for a 23L batch).

And also, perhaps 70% efficiency for a 1.082 OG beer is too high. Personally I would have dropped it to 60-65%. Others may disagree but this reflects my experiences with a Grainfather and big beers.

 

[resin]

What equipment profile have you used in Beersmith 2?

You've got your batch size at 21L for some reason? It should be at 23L into fermenter.

And getting away from Beersmith for a moment:

When using the Grainfather mash/sparge water calculator (ie on their website) for a 21L batch using 7.43kg of grain your water volumes should be: 23.56L mash and 8.38L sparge. Quite a bit different to what is listed in your recipe. And for a 23L batch you're mash volume should be 23.56L and your sparge volume is 10.38L.
So it looks like you've had a way thicker mash than recommended, a bigger overall volume (by about 2L for a 23L batch, or 4L for a 21L batch) as well as an initial recipe probably set up to be a 21L batch (ie less grain than for a 23L batch).

And also, perhaps 70% efficiency for a 1.082 OG beer is too high. Personally I would have dropped it to 60-65%. Others may disagree but this reflects my experiences with a Grainfather and big beers.

Thanks mate this is all very helpful advice, will definately keep all this in mind when re-attempting.

out of interest, what would you do to fix it and get a drinkable brew considering where it currently is at?

cheers
-Dan

 

[kaiserben]

I'd probably do the 1.92kg Light Dried Malt Extract (LDME), but first I'd put it in some water to make a high gravity solution and boil for at least 10 minutes, before then cooling and adding to your main wort. I wouldn't just plonk the dried malt into your fermenter. I'd definitely boil it and cool it first.

Doing it this way will add extra volume and thus through your calculation out a bit, but it's the best way to go IMO.

You could do 2.1kg LDME in, say, a volume of water that you'll boil down to 1L. Cool to ambient and add it to your main wort and that'd get your theoretical starting gravity up to about 1.081.

 

[indica86]

, but it's the best way to go IMO.

Any reason? When making kits I never boiled enhancers, dme or any of that. What does boiling it help with?

 

[kaiserben]

Probably mostly because that's what I read when I originally went looking for answers about it. And I just took that as gospel.

Maybe I'm being overly cautious about being clean & sanitary, because it's just like making wort for yeast starters.

And also, I reckon plonking 2kg of powdered malt into your fermenter, it's going to take a bit to stir it in (I'd rather not introduce oxygen if it's at or past high krausen) and some of it will likely end up undissolved and stuck to the fermenter walls, and in clumps.

 

[damoninja]

Was wondering this myself. With my first AG I still managed to get 75% just using an esky / bag and dunking the grain in a big thing of hot water. Paid far less attention to actual volumes other than final.

h34r: h34r:

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

I'd probably do the 1.92kg Light Dried Malt Extract (LDME), but first I'd put it in some water to make a high gravity solution and boil for at least 10 minutes, before then cooling and adding to your main wort. I wouldn't just plonk the dried malt into your fermenter. I'd definitely boil it and cool it first.

Doing it this way will add extra volume and thus through your calculation out a bit, but it's the best way to go IMO.

You could do 2.1kg LDME in, say, a volume of water that you'll boil down to 1L. Cool to ambient and add it to your main wort and that'd get your theoretical starting gravity up to about 1.081.

You could draw off a couple of liters of the wort and boil this and add DME to it, cool and return to fermenter to keep same volume.

 

[klangers]

Boiling extract will darken it. Unlikely to have sanitary issues by just dropping it in if it's a freshly opened can/packet.

 

[resin]

Thanks for the further replies guys, really appreciated. Still a little confused on how to add this sugar to the brew as ive heard differing advice.

Ive got 2kg of LDME, its been fermenting since sunday arvo, so 2.5 days.

1. Ive heard adding LDME to hot water will cause it to clump together, so do i mix the LDME with cold water first and then bring it to a boil before letting it cool?
2. not sure how much water to add, and how much to reduce it, am i aiming for something that looks like the sticky malt that comes out of an extract kit?
3. If i just dump it in dry, wont it clump in the fermenter?
4. Do i need to mix it in the fermenter well or just let it sink to the bottom? should i worry about introducing oxygen during this process?

thanks so much in advance
-Dan

 

[Killer Brew]

At minimum I would try to dissolve the LDME in some hot water to stop it clumping when you add to FV (more likely to clump in cold water). Obviously not too much water or you will negate the impact you are trying to achieve.

This calculator will give you the OG of your LDME solution.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/extract-ogfg/

This calculator will help you predict your new gravity or assist to work out the required OG of the wort you need to introduce
http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

 

[kaiserben]

Thanks for the further replies guys, really appreciated. Still a little confused on how to add this sugar to the brew as ive heard differing advice.

Ive got 2kg of LDME, its been fermenting since sunday arvo, so 2.5 days.

1. Ive heard adding LDME to hot water will cause it to clump together, so do i mix the LDME with cold water first and then bring it to a boil before letting it cool?
2. not sure how much water to add, and how much to reduce it, am i aiming for something that looks like the sticky malt that comes out of an extract kit?
3. If i just dump it in dry, wont it clump in the fermenter?
4. Do i need to mix it in the fermenter well or just let it sink to the bottom? should i worry about introducing oxygen during this process?

thanks so much in advance
-Dan

You could do exactly what I suggested above-

"You could do 2.1kg LDME in, say, a volume of water that you'll boil down to 1L. Cool to ambient and add it to your main wort and that'd get your theoretical starting gravity up to about 1.081. "

Even though you've only got 2kg it'll be close enough IMO.

So heat up approx. 1.1L of water (accounting for some boil off). When the water is just about to boil start spooning in the LDME (first bit will go crazy foamy, so start slowly and mix with your spoon). I then spoon in a couple of spoonfuls at a time, stirring as I go. Keep doing that till there's not much left in my measuring bowl and then just dump the rest in and stir it. Then I let it come up to the boil. I usually dial back the stovetop a bit so it's not boiling so violently that it splashes on to the stovetop. I then let it boil for at least 10 mins and then keep boiling till it's the volume I want. I then chill down to room temp as quickly as possible (by sitting the pot in a sink of cold tap water, and measuring the temp using a thermometer which I sanitised by dunking in no-rinse for a few minutes). Once it's chilled to room temp just pour it in (don't deliberately try to splash it, but don't stress about oxidation).

EDIT: Cover the pot while it's cooling. I'd use aluminium foil rather than the pot lid.