Steeping Grains Suppose To Add Gravity Points?

[williewtb]

Recently made a recipe that calls for 300g 120L crystal & 200g caraAroma, I have it them keyed into Ian's sheet together with my malt extract and it shows 1.045 SG. Before pitching my yeast I took a reading and it was 1.039. Strange I thought, but my other brew I also used 200g 120L crystal and 300g caraAroma, Ian's sheet shows 1.064, but my hydro shows 1.054.
I'm pretty sure it's not too much water as I've been pretty consistent with my SG and Ian's sheet. At the most it would be +- 1 or 2 points dofference. I also tried to take out the grains in Ian's sheet and it did went from 1.045 to 1.039 so now it's making my think grains do not add on to SG?

 

[yum beer]

What method are you using to steep your grains.

 

[Crusty]

Recently made a recipe that calls for 300g 120L crystal & 200g caraAroma, I have it them keyed into Ian's sheet together with my malt extract and it shows 1.045 SG. Before pitching my yeast I took a reading and it was 1.039. Strange I thought, but my other brew I also used 200g 120L crystal and 300g caraAroma, Ian's sheet shows 1.064, but my hydro shows 1.054.
I'm pretty sure it's not too much water as I've been pretty consistent with my SG and Ian's sheet. At the most it would be +- 1 or 2 points dofference. I also tried to take out the grains in Ian's sheet and it did went from 1.045 to 1.039 so now it's making my think grains do not add on to SG?

You need to mill the grain if you want to extract that sugar, ie: up your SG.
This would probably get you from the 1.039 to 1.045 that you were expecting.
What temp were you steeping at?

 

[williewtb]

I have my lhbs crush them, then steep them in a muslin bag for 30mins at about 65 to 70C water.. Is that right? My pot has about 3L water.

 

[MHB]

I wish people would give the really important bits of information so we can actually answerer their questions, wort gravity questions are all about Mass in Litres you need to give the volume you are making up to, but here goes...

Let's assume you are making a 23L wort, you are adding the extract from 500g of dark crystal malts, their potential is roughly 75%, soaking in a bag is pretty problematic, if you have the grain packed in tight it can really screw with your extraction and you won't get much out of the malt, but let's say you weren't putting it in a bag at all, just soaking it in the 3L then straining it off, I would expect you to get about 80% of the potential.

500g x 75% x 80% is 300g of extract.

Plato (^oP) is W/V% so in 23L (0.3Kg in 23Kg or 300g in 23,000g have to use same units) 300/23,000 X 100 = 1.3^oP

To get from ^oP to SG, SG = (4*^oP)/1000, (4*1.3)/1000 = 0.00521

So at best (and probably a bit less) your grain is going to be adding 0.005 to the total gravity half of the 0.01 that you think you are missing

If you are doing a crap job of getting the extract out it could be part of the answer to part of your problem, but I suspect it's a shortage of other beer making ingredients or you are adding just a bit too much water.

Next time do the soak the day before, let the extract cool (re-boil the next day before use) and measure your gravity, if you think it through you can run the equation above in reverse and work out exactly how much you are getting and that will tell you for sure how good a job you are doing.

Mark

 

[williewtb]

Wow, MHB.. those formulas, gonna need sometime to understand them. Sorry for not providing enough info, my recipe is:

2.4kg Light DME
0.3kg Crystal Malt 120L (Steep)
0.2kg CaraAroma (Steep)
EK Goldings 50g 60mins

Boil Voume 10L
Batch volume 23L

Well ian's spreadsheet shows OG at 1.045 for my recipe. But im getting 1.039, so im wondering if it was my steeping causing the figures to be different. Its my first try out at steeping grains.

You say soak the day before as in soak in room temperature water?

 

[yum beer]

Have you callibrated your hydro.
ie: what does it read in room temp water.

 

[MHB]

No you still want to steep the grain in hot water, I was just suggesting that by measuring the gravity of the steeping water you can measure how well you are extracting from the grain.
What YB said about calibrating your hydrometer is right, it's worth doing but I doubt it will be out by 0.01.

Using the same calculation as previously, DME is pretty much 100% solids (well 97-98%) so it adds nearly its own weight, normally you do the calculation for each ingredient but we have already done the grain and if you were getting the 300g your total addition is 2.4Kg x 97% = 2.328Kg, plus the 0.3 from the malt gives 2.628Kg

2.628/23*100 (all in Kg) gives 11.43^oP convert to SG 1.0457 with no losses.

You need to check
Your hydrometer
How accurately you are measuring your DME
How accurately you are measuring your total volume
How good a job of extracting from the malt
Mark

 

[Screwtop]

No you still want to steep the grain in hot water, I was just suggesting that by measuring the gravity of the steeping water you can measure how well you are extracting from the grain.
What YB said about calibrating your hydrometer is right, it's worth doing but I doubt it will be out by 0.01.

Using the same calculation as previously, DME is pretty much 100% solids (well 97-98%) so it adds nearly its own weight, normally you do the calculation for each ingredient but we have already done the grain and if you were getting the 300g your total addition is 2.4Kg x 97% = 2.328Kg, plus the 0.3 from the malt gives 2.628Kg

2.628/23*100 (all in Kg) gives 11.43^oP convert to SG 1.0457 with no losses.

You need to check
Your hydrometer
How accurately you are measuring your DME
How accurately you are measuring your total volume
How good a job of extracting from the malt
Mark

See.........Piece a Cake this Brewing Game Eh!

:lol:

Screwy

 

[RobboMC]

And check how well you are mixing things up before checking the gravity.

Dissolved extract and water can be remarkably reluctant to mix evenly.
During fermentation the bubbling CO2 does the work for us so the end result is always
well mixed. Getting a representative sample to measure the OG can be problematical.
I've fallen for it more than once, getting a really low OG from the last added water at
the top of the mix.