New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association
Beer Recipes and Food => All Grain => 15 - German Wheat and Rye Beer => Topic started by: sdixon on March 11, 2013, 02:20:14 AM
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Type: All Grain Date: 13-03-10
Batch Size (fermenter): 18.00 gal Brewer: Stephen
Boil Size: 23.26 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Grimross Pilot Brewery (20 gallon)
End of Boil Volume 19.76 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 16.50 gal Est Mash Efficiency 76.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Ingredients
10.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) 54.0 %
2.50 kg Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) 13.5 %
1.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) 8.1 %
1.00 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) 5.4 %
1.00 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) 5.4 %
1.00 kg Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) 5.4 %
0.40 kg Caraaroma (130.0 SRM) 2.2 %
0.11 kg Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) 0.6 %
1.00 kg Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) 5.4 %
90.00 g Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
90.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min
70.00 g Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min
2.0 pkg Fermentis #T-58
1.0 pkg Fermentis #US-05
Beer Profile
Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.4 %
Bitterness: 58.4 IBUs
Est Color: 15.0 SRM
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I tried brewing this today but scaled down to a 5 gal recipe. I got terrible efficiency and I was looking for some advice for the next time I try it.
1. I got around 40% efficiency. I mashed @ 65C for 60 minutes, should I push it to 90 minutes?
2. I wasn't too sure of when to add the sugar. I used regular table sugar and added it with 15 minutes left in the boil because I read adding it too early can eliminate some of hop flavour.
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From my experience I get better efficiency from very slow lautering. So I only open the valve on the mashtun so it trickles out this requires a great deal of patience. Also quite hot sparge water near boiling. A longer mash time might help. But if you drain the mashtun very slowly the bulk if your wort is still mashing. I think your spot on with the sugar addition. These are only my experiences I'm sure you'll get more feedback.
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Yeah try slowing down the lautering... 40% seems pretty low. What are you mashing in?
For the sugar, not sure it matters. When you boil hops with a higher gravity wort you get lower hop utilization compared to a lower gravity wort, so depends on what you want
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Yeah 40 is real low. 65 C is a bit low as well, although I mash around there frequently as it helps dry out my beer as well - which I like. I often mash for 2 or 3 hours (strike over lunch, sparge after work). Even still, 60 minutes should still give you much better efficiency than that... sounds like something might have gone wrong, maybe a scaling error on the grain? Thermometer problem? More water than you thought? Something like that? I've mis-measured before and been confused with the end product - easy to do...
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I lauter so that if the ball valve was open any less, it wouldn't drain. I fly sparge and it takes me about an hour. My sparge water was 80C. I'm mashing in a rectangular cooler with a SS braid, its a newer set up that I've probably only mashed in 5 or 6 times but I've consistently hit 75-80% on all but this recipe. I did have more wort pre-boil (max half a gallon) and post boil (max 1 gallon) I didn't loose anywhere near as much from evaporation or hop absorption as I normally do.
Here is my scaled down version:
6.74 lb German - Pilsner
1.68 lb Rye Malt
1.01 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 40L
0.67 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 60L
0.67 lb German – Wheat Malt
0.67 lb Flaked Wheat
0.27 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 120L
0.07 lb American - Chocolate
My O.G. was 1.040
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Maybe your wort got confused on what to do with all those specialty grains. :lmao:
But seriously just let it ferment worst case scenario it makes beer. If this keeps happening it's probably got do do with your method if not it's probably the ingredients. I know that doesn't help much but your method seams solid enough.
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Chalk it up as a one off batch! 75-80% is great effiiency
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That is unusually low for 11ish pounds of grain. Did you end up with a poor crush by chance? I just did a Belgian wit a few days ago and ended up with 84% at 11 pounds of grain, and I drain at half a valve. However I try to drain my mash tun dry before I start my sparge.
Did you do a hydro reading at a higher temp maybe that threw off your reading?
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Nope, did a reading at 20C before pitching to be sure. I guess I'll try again and just hope it was an off batch.