Less than expected SG with a Fat Yak clone

[brewbris]

3 kg Light Munich grain
1 kg Wheat grain
250g CaraMunich grain

To Infuse grain use
12 litres 75C water (strike temp). 40 mins @ 65° C
4 litres 85C water (strike temp). 20 mins @ 76° C

The recipe states I should have a SG of 1.045 and I got 1.027

How can I get more sugars out of the grains or am I doing something wrong, or is the recipe incorrect.

 

[slcmorro]

What is the batch size overall? Did you sparge the grains?

 

[slcmorro]

Are the grains milled?

 

[brewbris]

The overall batch size is 23 litres
Yes the grains where milled
Looking at some YouTube videos, maybe I did not sparge enough and after the boil I added filtered water to bring to 23 litres and I am guessing this lowered the sugar content.

Should I sparge more to get a bigger boil quantity and then reducing the amount of water added to the fermenter to bring up to 23 litres.

Let me know if I didn't explain correctly.

 

[spryzie]

How many litres before boil commenced?

 

[DeGarre]

Every time I use a lot of wheat malt my ME% dips. Normal around 88%, hefeweizens below 70...

 

[brewbris]

It was around 12 litres post boil. I am guessing that's not enough sparge water yes?
My way of thinking is, more sparge water which contains more sugars, which will increase my boil volume and less water I need to add at the end. Is this what I should be doing?

 

[spryzie]

I think you're missing something. Are you using a mush tun/sparge setup or a BIAB?

How big is your pot? Is it a Big W job and is that why you're not doing a full boil?

Your first strike temperature is high to me as well, should be more like 70 degrees to hit 65. Did you use a calculator for this?

 

[brewbris]

Yes I am using a mash tun, insulated cooler type

The pot is 40 litre and no, not Big W

The strike temp was in the recipe so that could be incorrect.

I think I end to sparge more and accumulate a full boil. This will also increase my SG

Suggestions ??.?.?.?

 

[doon]

Did you actually sparge? From your original post it just looks like intial infusion followed by a mashout but no sparge?

 

[GuyQLD]

For a 23 Litre batch your preboil needs to be somewhere around the 27L mark (more/less depending on boil off). Since your post boil was 12L I'm guessing this wasn't the case. In fact with a post boil of 12L, I can't see how you managed to sparge at all unless you're achieving boil off rates in the 20+%.

Ideally you don't want to be adding water at the end (unless it's a litre or two because you've over boiled, but generally you'll notice your O.G. is too high in this scenario)

 

[brewbris]

Great thanks for the advice. I will do another brew soon and let you all know how I go