what the hell happend :(

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The safest bet, is to measure your thermometer against another high quality one. Water doesn't always boil at 100c as a rule absolutely everywhere. At sea level where the atmospheric pressure is 1 atm (Earths atmospheric pressure @ sea level) it boils true at 100c. Atmospheric pressure changes it's actual boiling point, so dependant on where you are on the globe you can have fluctuations.
 
Few things:

1. Boiloff/volume... while it isn't and indication of mash/sparge efficiency, it obviously screws your beer a bit. The difference could be 2-5 points (easily 3). That's one factor.

2. What were your other brews? With Brisbane water and something that pale you might struggle with mash conversion, so you would probably benefit from 90min or adding some acid malt - I always chuck in a bit with pale beers, or a combination of acid malt + gypsum if it's going to be a more 'robust' pale beer.

3. Dough balls? They will kill your efficiency big-time. Sure you didn't have any in the corners or any dead spots in the mash/sparge? This is pretty common with a single infusion mash (something in the 60's) and you need to make sure you break them all up.

4. Crush/grist - sure you didn't have a kilo of flour in the bottom of your bag that didn't make it in? Sure the shop didn't do an adjustment on you and you didn't end up with some uncracked grains? A look at the spent grains can give you an idea.

5. How are you measuring temperature in your mash? You may be losing more than you think, and lower temperatures (low 60's) will take longer to convert than pushing up into the high 60's. I won't mention fermentables/step mashes at this point...
 
I checked my height above sea level and barometric pressure and it should boil at .008 under 100 so pretty much 100c, I am using a mad Millie cheese making thermometer and was told by the brew shop they were good. I think I will check it at freezing temp this arvo and see how I go.
 
Break up dough balls? Add a touch of sour malt (2-3% won't have an effect on flavour) and a touch of gypsum, longer (90min) mash?

Have you had a look at your spent grain?
 
did you do any water ph adjustments? At that low a temperature you are relying on the barley beta amylase enzyme for most of the conversion. Ph optimal for that enzyme is about 5.3 and activity drops drastically above 5.6.
 
Hey adr_0 there were definitely no dough balls, I mixed it really well to be sure. I had a look at the spent grain and it all looks pretty cracked to me but I think you might be onto something with the 90 min mash. Unfortunately I have no idea about ph yet so might have to look into it. Or how much of what should I add?
 
That question can't be answered because it completely depends on your existing water and your malt bill.
 
verysupple said:
Oh yeah, should have read it properly.

If the mash temp was OK, and the LHBS crushed the grain so there's unlikely to be a problem there, I'm struggling to think of any one thing that would cause such poor efficiency. Things like mash pH, mash water mineral content, liquor-to-grist ratio, etc. have such small affects on efficiency that even if they all added together the efficiency shouldn't be too bad.

The only thing I can suggest is mashing for longer. 65C is on the low end and conversion can take a little longer because the enzymes are slightly less active at that temp. Maybe try a 90 min mash and see if that helps.
verysupple was onto it first.

Get this:
braukaiser.com/documents/Kaiser_water_calculator.xls

I basically only use acidulated malt and/or calcium sulphate and have a pretty simple approach. Skip the next bit if you want, but it's where the basis of my info comes from - a combination of available and measured Brisbane water data - and it's what I plug into my calculator:

GH - 130ppm, measured
SO4 40-75ppm (guessed from Urban Utilities, other sources - search on this forum
Alkalinity - 95ppm (measured)
Chloride - 100ppm (somebody else measured)

I typically add, for a 90%-correct starting point:
2-3% acidulated malt to wheats and lagers;
1% acidulated malt for roasty dark beers, maybe 1g/kg calcium sulphate but don't overdo it;
1-2% acidulated malt and 1.5-2g/kg calcium sulphate for APA's, English bitters; and
nothing for amber-red beers with a heap of crystal or Munich in them.

Hope that helps...
 
manticle said:
That question can't be answered because it completely depends on your existing water and your malt bill.
Mickcr250 said:
Hey adr_0 there were definitely no dough balls, I mixed it really well to be sure. I had a look at the spent grain and it all looks pretty cracked to me but I think you might be onto something with the 90 min mash. Unfortunately I have no idea about ph yet so might have to look into it. Or how much of what should I add?

manticle said:
That question can't be answered because it completely depends on your existing water and your malt bill.
Bingo.

Remember that Brisbane water is pretty good to start with, so err on the conservative side. You don't need MgSO4 and you arguably don't need CaCl.

Without adjustments, a 90min mash will help a lot - but some little water tweaks will make a big difference to certain beers.
 
Thanks for the help guys, I think I will try brew the same recipe again on Friday hopefully with 120g acidulated malt if my lhbs has some and will try get some test strips and gypsum too. Will also mash for 90 minutes and was thinking of upping the temp to 66 as that is what my previous brews have been mashed at. And I will mix well and leave my sparge water for 10 minutes before running off.

Anything elsei should try ?
 
Yes, one more thing:

Once you've got your final pre-boil volume, give the kettle a good stir and draw off a small sample. Once it's cooled a bit, measure the gravity of this sample (and correct for temperature - very important). If you plug this into your brewing software with your pre-boil volume, you should get an idea of your mash efficiency so that you can compensate with hops etc BEFORE it's too late. This will also tell you if your pre-boil volume is a touch high and you need to turn on more juice to get a slightly higher boiloff.

Should be right. :)
 
I just took my pre-boil sample and i got 76% mash efficiency :) and the only thing i changed was I did a 90 minute mash,left the sparge water for 10 minutes and the lhbs double crushed my grain for me. I was going to try the acid malt but couldn't get hold of any though it doesn't look like that was the issue. thanks for the help everyone i will let you know tomorrow what the post boil comes out at :)
 
My efficiency increased when I started stirring the mash on regular intervals.
 
Mickcr250 said:
I just took my pre-boil sample and i got 76% mash efficiency :) and the only thing i changed was I did a 90 minute mash,left the sparge water for 10 minutes and the lhbs double crushed my grain for me. I was going to try the acid malt but couldn't get hold of any though it doesn't look like that was the issue. thanks for the help everyone i will let you know tomorrow what the post boil comes out at :)
Nice job! That's the way. What was your grain bill this time?
 
I took my gravity before pitching and it turned out being about 65% efficiency for some reason but I'm pretty happy anyway that is about what I had been getting before. The grain bill was exactly the same as last time as I couldn't get any acid malt
 

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