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Author Topic: Watered Down Wort.  (Read 2108 times)

Offline hang5lngbd

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Watered Down Wort.
« on: November 06, 2013, 08:52:59 am »
Beersmith tells me that I will need 9.25 gallons of water. I follow the instructions on the Northern Brewer DVD about how much water to use, and the numbers are the same. I make a 5 gallon batch of beer and I end up with 8 gallons of 1.034 OG wort. I put it in my carboy and throw the rest away. The program says the grain absorption is 1.2 Gal. That leaves me with 8 gallons of wort from my simple math. What am I doing wrong and what am I supposed to do with all this extra water?

Please help,
Uncle Gaffer

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 08:58:42 am »
Beersmith tells me that I will need 9.25 gallons of water. I follow the instructions on the Northern Brewer DVD about how much water to use, and the numbers are the same. I make a 5 gallon batch of beer and I end up with 8 gallons of 1.034 OG wort. I put it in my carboy and throw the rest away. The program says the grain absorption is 1.2 Gal. That leaves me with 8 gallons of wort from my simple math. What am I doing wrong and what am I supposed to do with all this extra water?

Please help,
Uncle Gaffer

First check your equipment settings. I would guess your boil rate is way high, or your mash tun dead space is way high, or your kettle loss is way high.

next, you don't actually mention boiling it. that should take care of at least another gallon, if not two.
"Creativity is the residue of wasted time"
-A Einstein

"errors are [...] the portals of discovery"
- J Joyce

Offline bierkieser

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2013, 09:04:17 am »
As was noted, make sure you have your equipment dialed in.  Lots of great info and help on doing this here...
http://beersmith.com/equipment-setup/

My most typical beer will start with 7.5 gallons in the brew kettle and end up with 5.5 in the carboy after boil off and leaving the dregs in the kettle.

Offline hang5lngbd

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2013, 09:46:57 am »
I got everything set up in Beersmith now thanks to your link to those excellent videos.

I think my other mistake is that I was using the Boil Kettle lid so I didn't get any boil off.

What about the mash out? Beersmith makes no mention of this, yet I am told to mash out after the sanctification rest on the Northern Brewers video with 1.5Gal of 175F water. Would I subtract this number from the Sparge water volume?

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2013, 09:57:52 am »
I got everything set up in Beersmith now thanks to your link to those excellent videos.

I think my other mistake is that I was using the Boil Kettle lid so I didn't get any boil off.

What about the mash out? Beersmith makes no mention of this, yet I am told to mash out after the sanctification rest on the Northern Brewers video with 1.5Gal of 175F water. Would I subtract this number from the Sparge water volume?

mashout is an optional step. it would likely take more than 1.5 gallons at 175 to get you there as well.

It's okay to have the kettle covered as it comes up to a boil but for sure remove it once it's boiling.

I would recommend 'How to Brew' by John Palmer among many other excellent reads on brewing to get a handle on what you are trying to accomplish with each step of the brewing process.

The sach rest is converting starch to sugar. This is accomplished via enzymatic action and those enzymes will denature and stop working above a certain temp. Mashout is an attempt to raise the whole mash above this temp (~168 or so I believe) to stop the action and 'lock in' the sugar profile of the wort.
"Creativity is the residue of wasted time"
-A Einstein

"errors are [...] the portals of discovery"
- J Joyce

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2013, 10:42:29 am »
Beersmith tells me that I will need 9.25 gallons of water. I follow the instructions on the Northern Brewer DVD about how much water to use, and the numbers are the same. I make a 5 gallon batch of beer and I end up with 8 gallons of 1.034 OG wort. I put it in my carboy and throw the rest away.

This last sentence caught my eye. What about your boil?

1.2 gallons of absorption for me would indicate that I used about 11 lbs of grain. In my system I'd use about 9 gallons of mash and sparge water for 11 lbs. I'd sparge until I had about 6 gallons in the boil kettle. Maybe 7 if it's pilsner grain because I boil pils for 90 min. Depending on the humidity I loose x amount to evaporation. I almost always get five gallons in the fermentor.

You said OG was 1.034. What was the target? If you OG was low it could be from a number of things, you need to give is more info to help with that.

Jim

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Watered Down Wort.
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2013, 10:44:47 am »
And then I read further.... glad you got it figured out.