Higher OG than recipie

[brydo]

Hi guys so I brewed the greg Hughes cascade hop ale today in my brewster beacon.
The OG of recipe was 1050 but I came out with 1060.
I used the exact amount of grain, mashed for 60 mins, mashed out at 75 for 10 minutes.
Mashed in 20 litres and sprayed with 4 litres, so at the end of the boil I have 20 litres again.
Why would there be such a difference in gravity from the recipe ?

 

[phettebs]

What was the grain bill for the beer?

 

[brydo]

What was the grain bill for the beer?

4.7kilo pale malt and 240 grams carapils

 

[Tanglefoot]

Your efficiency is better than that assumed in the recipe ?

 

[phettebs]

I get about 82% efficiency with my system so plugging in the numbers, that puts my OG at 1.061. What is your normal BHE?

 

[brydo]

Your efficiency is better than that assumed in the recipe ?

Yeah, by 10 gravity points, which seems excessive, should I have thinned it down maybe after the boil ? 20 litres is fine for my bucket size

 

[phettebs]

I would agree with Tanglefoot. These recipes are often conservative and assume around 70-75% BHE. It sounds like your setup is just more efficient.

 

[brydo]

I get about 82% efficiency with my system so plugging in the numbers, that puts my OG at 1.061. What is your normal BHE?

I've no idea, I only just got the unit and before this I was doing BIAB but that was 5 years ago. How do you work out efficiency?

 

[phettebs]

Yeah, by 10 gravity points, which seems excessive, should I have thinned it down maybe after the boil ? 20 litres is fine for my bucket size

If you wanted to hit the listed OG, then yes. Nothing wrong with a little stronger pint though.

 

[brydo]

If you wanted to hit the listed OG, then yes. Nothing wrong with a little stronger pint though.

One packet of yeast will still be enough though wont it ? I used safale s-04

 

[phettebs]

Yes, that will be just fine.

 

[phettebs]

I've no idea, I only just got the unit and before this I was doing BIAB but that was 5 years ago. How do you work out efficiency?

It's the actual gravity points divided by the potential gravity points (100% efficiency). You are never able to extract all of the sugars from the mash so you'll be somewhere less than 100%. Just how much you can extract is your brew house efficiency. I used to calculate it by hand before I had brewing software. I used the formulas in "Designing Great Beers." You can just google brew house efficiency calculator and it will do a much better job of describing it than I can!

What you will want to keep notes on is your actual OG each time you brew. If you are consistently hitting those higher numbers and all else stays the same, then you will be able to settle in on your actual BHE.

 

[brydo]

Thanks very much guys

 

[Sandimas]

All AG recipes are only an approximation, because all our efficiencies vary. Most recipes are spec'd for 70 or 75%, phettebs gets 82%, I get 68%, everyone will get something different depending on their equipment and method. You will work out what yours is after a few brews, then you can dial it into brewing software to hit the target OG.

 

[obscure]

I think the key thing as a home brewer when it comes to efficiency is knowing what it is for your system I consistently get 62% not fantastic but it means that I can up the grain bill a bit and in turn consistently hit my numbers.

 

[brydo]

I think the key thing as a home brewer when it comes to efficiency is knowing what it is for your system I consistently get 62% not fantastic but it means that I can up the grain bill a bit and in turn consistently hit my numbers.

That's what I'm hoping for. If this one ferments down to 1010 then that's close to 7% abv. I only really want to make session beers around the 4-5% mark so looking forward to being more accurate

 

[phettebs]

I think the key thing as a home brewer when it comes to efficiency is knowing what it is for your system I consistently get 62% not fantastic but it means that I can up the grain bill a bit and in turn consistently hit my numbers.

Exactly. Once you get it figured out, you can adjust the recipe accordingly. When I first started AG, I was getting around 58% which was not at all good. Worked on my process and started crushing my own grain with a consistent gap and it shot way up.

 

[brydo]

Exactly. Once you get it figured out, you can adjust the recipe accordingly. When I first started AG, I was getting around 58% which was not at all good. Worked on my process and started crushing my own grain with a consistent gap and it shot way up.

I did crush my own grain as well, immediately before brewing so maybe that has helped as well

 

[An Ankoù]

4.7kilo pale malt and 240 grams carapils

I standardise my recipes on 20 litres (and scale up or down from there) and, all things being equal, I expect to get an OG of 1050 with 4Kg of grain. You've got 5Kg so an OG of 1060 is certainly to be expected. I use the old-school, three-vessel system so nothing special. I'm off to check out GH's recipe right now.

Edit:
First, his grain bill is for a batch size of 23 litres not 20 litres, but even so I would expect to ge eet an OG of 1054. You must have had an amazingly efficient mash and sparge to get 1060. Well done. :hat:

Edit:
There's another error on this page: The malt extract version on p. 109 tells you to substitute the pale malt with 3.3 Kg of dried wheat malt extract! I don't know if that's bee corrected in later print runs.

 

[phettebs]

I did crush my own grain as well, immediately before brewing so maybe that has helped as well

The important part, I found, was the size of the gap in the crushing. The stuff that comes crushed from my LHBS is usually not crushed that well. I keep mine gapped to the width of a credit card. For me, that works very well.