Greg Hughes East Kent Golding Ale

[S7655]

Hi
Just completed the East Kent Golding single hop ale brew from Greg Hughes book on a G30.
The mash liquor was 12.3 litres and the boil volume was 27 litres. So assumed the sparge required 14.7 litres.
At the end of the brew I had approximately 18 litres which was 5 litres short of the predicted volume.
Has anyone else experienced this from one of his recipes?

 

[Agentgonzo]

If you enter in the ingredients and batch size into the grainfather app, it'll tell you how much mash and sparge water to add, and the end volume in the fermenter is pretty accurate.

IIRC the G30 has 3L of dead space at the bottom where the trub collects that won't go into the fermenter. And an hour's boil will drive off 3L at full power. That, combined with what gets absorbed into the grain would let me guess that from a total 27L mash+sparge liquor you'd end up with 18-19L in the fermenter, which is roughly what you got. I guess Greg's recipe probably doesn't account for part of your losses.

 

[S7655]

Agreed just found that in the app. Every days a school day I guess.
Appreciate your reply thanks very much

 

[Sandimas]

I guess Greg's recipe probably doesn't account for part of your losses.

AG recipes are only ever an approximation, depends on your brewing method, your equipment and your grain crush - they certainly aren't "plug n play". What works for the brewer who created the recipe will almost certainly not be 100% for those trying to replicate it, you need to understand how your system works and make adjustments to the recipe: that's what I do.

 

[S7655]

AG recipes are only ever an approximation, depends on your brewing method, your equipment and your grain crush - they certainly aren't "plug n play". What works for the brewer who created the recipe will almost certainly not be 100% for those trying to replicate it, you need to understand how your system works and make adjustments to the recipe: that's what I do.

 

[S7655]

Considered told.
Cheers

 

[Sandimas]

Considered told.

If you've made kits or extract brews, those recipes are very repeatable, it's the mashing process in AG that creates the variations. There have been so many threads on here over the years like "I made recipe x and the OG came out slightly different", I'm surprised more recipe books don't caveat the recipes, or at least state what efficiency figure they used (70% seems the norm).

I normally get 68% efficiency so need to use a bit more grain to hit the target OG, but depending which grain supplier I use I can get as much as 73% and as low as 66% - grain crush is a significant factor. The secret is to do a number of brews and work out what factors apply to your process, then plus this into your brewing app. After about 5 brews I realised I was getting 68% mash efficiency.

It's all a learning process, that's the great thing about homebrew

 

[S7655]

If you've made kits or extract brews, those recipes are very repeatable, it's the mashing process in AG that creates the variations. There have been so many threads on here over the years like "I made recipe x and the OG came out slightly different", I'm surprised more recipe books don't caveat the recipes, or at least state what efficiency figure they used (70% seems the norm).

I normally get 68% efficiency so need to use a bit more grain to hit the target OG, but depending which grain supplier I use I can get as much as 73% and as low as 66% - grain crush is a significant factor. The secret is to do a number of brews and work out what factors apply to your process, then plus this into your brewing app. After about 5 brews I realised I was getting 68% mash efficiency.

It's all a learning process, that's the great thing about homebrew

Thank you