Mash issues

[killergoat117]

Hey everybody i just made the switch from extract to all grain...i did extract for about a year and half. My first all grain batch went perfectly. i hit my temps i hit my gravities and volumes. I did a pilsner. beersmith 2 calculated my efficency at 76%...i was really happy about that. Today I did an IPA and it was a different story. I am batch sparging as of now (i do 2 runnings). I missed my preboil volume and pre boil gravity and because of that missed my post boil volume and gravity. required pre boil volume was 6.62gal and i only managed 6.1gal for some reason. My estimated preboil gravity was 1058 and i only hit 1048. I imagine i missed my OG because i missed my pre boil volume. Here is what i did (per beersmith)

13lb 2 row pale
8oz amber
shooting for 1 hour at 152 F

mash in:
18.88qt @ 166 F

i overshot this by 2 degrees added requried water (per beersmith) to dial in the temp.

sparge 1:
.46gal @ 168 F
(only got 3gallons of wort)

sparge 2:
3.56gal @ 168 F
(only got 3.25gallons of wort)

assuming i didnt miss measure my water additions what could cause this? beersmith estimated 1.62gal for grain obsorbtion. I already accounted for the deadspace of my cooler. I did take the SS ball valve apart to see if the rubber seal didn't seal, but i didn't find any wort in the walls of my cooler....the only thing i can think of is grain crush...could that have something to do with it?

thanks!

[BDawg]

Welcome-

Seems weird to me too. Was your first AG batch sparged too?

I can understand missing OG low (especially if this was your first batch sparge), but if you measured water volume accurately, and no strange things like your cooler walls filled up, then you should have gotten the proper volume out.

Did you add whole hops in the form of a mash hop that maybe Beersmith didn't know about?
Whole hops soak up a lot of wort. Otherwise, the only thing I can tell you is that you need to gain experience with your system to figure and become used to the ins and outs of it. Some things only come with practice on THAT system as every system is different.

[killergoat117]

I batch sparged the same way when I did my pilsner, but obviously the grain bill was quite a bit different. I am not sure where the water went either. Because the gravity came out much lower than anticipated I decided to decrease the amount of hops in hopes that the beer wouldn't be a total hop bomb...not sure if this was the right thing to do, but i would rather have something that was a little more balanced. The beer is fermenting away in my basement at 66 with american ale...the only thing i can do now is relax and have a homebrew...and wait to see what its like when its done...when draining the wort from the mash tun (in batch sparging) does speed matter at all?

[spiderwrangler]

when draining the wort from the mash tun (in batch sparging) does speed matter at all?

If everything is well mixed, speed won't affect efficiency (unless you plug it) as it's all the same gravity.

[brewinhard]

Are you accounting for any "dead" space that your wort may collect in? This can lead to leftover precious wort behind in your mash tun.

[killergoat117]

Yes I already figured out what my deadspace is for my mash tun. From my mash tun i drip into my old fermentation bucket so I dont lose any in any tubing, pumps, etc. I then can figure out from that what my volume is for each sparge. I went down to my basement and found some sticky wort on the table where i left my mash tun last night. I suspect some of my first runnings got soaked up in the foam. I guess it just took a while to come on out. I suspect this is where i lost my volume and gravity. Luckily i have another old cooler that i think will work better. The area where i tighten the ball valve is more stiff and wont flex as much. I dont even want to mess with the old sticky cooler now I currently use just a bazooka tube just for simplicity sake...are copper manifolds all that much better if im just batch sparging?

[Ozwald]

By my math, you're not missing anything. Not counting the dead space factor, I came up with 6.06515g post boil.

[santamarina]

Crush can DEFINITELY affect efficiency. If the grain for this second batch was not milled the same that would account for the low OG. I use a no-sparge, continuous recirc mash set up, so if my gravity is low I just keep mashing until I get there. On well milled grain I always hit my numbers in less than an hour. Twice I bought grain from a different LHBS (that shall remain nameless) that poorly milled the grain and I had to mash for over THREE HOURS to hit my numbers.

Always look at the grain, and if there are still a lot of whole pieces run it through a second time.