Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Ordered two all grain kits from NB, Bock and Jamil's Evil Twin. Both are supposed to be OG of 1.064. When I plug the grains into my spreadsheet I only get 1.052 as predicted OG. Instead of adding DME does anyone have 5lbs of base malt they would be willing to sell me? I will take 2 row, 6 row, pilsner, pale ale, even Marris Otter. I have all of today off and will be available most of this weekend. I'm hoping to brew next tuesday. Thanks all!

I have plenty of 2 row that I would be happy to part with, but It's quite a drive for you.

John,
What overall efficiency are you typically getting with your setup? I think the NB kits are set up to assume around 68% efficiency. When I plug the recipe into Beersmith at 68% efficiency I get 1.064. If your system is getting better efficiency (I would expect so, as I get get 70-72% and I'm just doing a one-round batch sparge).

I personally would go with the first kit recipe as is. You can always adjust the second one if you feel you need to.

On Tuesday 27 September 2011 7:49:21 am you wrote:

Ordered two all grain kits from NB, Bock and Jamil's Evil Twin. Both are
supposed to be OG of 1.064. When I plug the grains into my spreadsheet I
only get 1.052 as predicted OG. Instead of adding DME does anyone have
5lbs of base malt they would be willing to sell me? I will take 2 row, 6
row, pilsner, pale ale, even Marris Otter. I have all of today off and
will be available most of this weekend. I'm hoping to brew next tuesday.
Thanks all!

------------------------
John Eikenberry

Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com)

carrisr wrote:John,
What overall efficiency are you typically getting with your setup? I think the NB kits are set up to assume around 68% efficiency. When I plug the recipe into Beersmith at 68% efficiency I get 1.064. If your system is getting better efficiency (I would expect so, as I get get 70-72% and I'm just doing a one-round batch sparge).

I personally would go with the first kit recipe as is. You can always adjust the second one if you feel you need to.

I agree with this. Check your efficiency in your spreadsheet. It is probably set to low.

I agree with you Randy that my effeciency should be higher but I'm barely able to get 60% with my current set-up. I'm not sure why but I'm trying to improve with my runoff and sparge. I guess I may try as-is again for the bock then work on adjustment for Evil Twin.

If you efficiency is really that low, I would add base malt or extract. I will be at the tech meeting tonight, and I have 2-row, if you need some. Otherwise, you can stop at my house, and get some.

So I re-visited batch sparging and I think I know where I'm going wrong. I wasn't sparging with the same amount of water as my mash run-off. I'm going to make that correction for the Bock and I'll let you all know. Denny Conn's page on Home Brew Digest has great info on sparging if interested.

johnnyik wrote:So I re-visited batch sparging and I think I know where I'm going wrong. I wasn't sparging with the same amount of water as my mash run-off. I'm going to make that correction for the Bock and I'll let you all know. Denny Conn's page on Home Brew Digest has great info on sparging if interested.

My advice is to split your sparge water in half, so you get a double rinse. For instance, I usually mash in about 1.2 quarts per pound of grain (on a typical gravity beer). Then I do a mashout with just enough boiling water to bring to sparge temps (this is usually just over a gallon). Drain the mash tun, and usually I will have 4 gallons of sparge water. So I do two sparges, 2 gallons each. A double rinse will go a long way to increasing your efficiency in batch sparging.

If you are going to do all grain, I cannot recommend enough that you get brewing software. I like beersmith, and it has batch sparging built in as a mash style.