Loss of points

[private4587]

Hi everyone hoping someone can help here, i have just placed a Dunkelweizen (Greg Hughes) into my fermenting fridge. The problem with it is that the OG should have been approx 1.056 but i only achieved 1.030. I have attached the beer smith recipe in hope the someone can help

 

[Clint]

There are a few variables to consider that can affect og and efficiency.
The GH recipes are based around 75% efficiency. You need to work out your system efficiency. The grain can then be adjusted to reflect this. Another thing that could be responsible is your sparge where you are not fully washing out the sugars you should. I'm still learning myself and there will be someone along to better describe this and help you but I have had the same issues when starting out and get the occasional anomaly. What system are you using etc?

 

[BeerCat]

First glance I think the problem could be low Diastic power. I cant find dark wheat on brewers friend to check and be sure though.
I am just reading a post saying it took 2 hours to convert a 60% dark wheat/ 40% Munich mash.

 

[private4587]

Hi Beercat i think you may have hit it on the head there. although greg hughes book didn't mention and extended mash

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi @private4587
There seems to be a difference of opinion online about how much Dark Wheat can be used in a brew.
There are some who say that it's low in diastatic power, others say up to 100% of the grist.
Where did you obtain your dark wheat grain?

 

[Ghillie]

What equipment did you brew that on?

With a mash volume of 12L factoring in grain absorbtion at roughly 0.96L/kg you should have 8.3L-ish of wort when the grains are removed.

Sparging with 14.3L would then give you a pre-boil volume of 22.6L which is 1.8L more than the estimated pre-boil volume.

Did you hit your volumes okay? Going off my calculations I would guess that your low OG may be a consequence of too much sparge water.

As already mentioned, grain crush is a huge factor in BH efficiency. I found personally that going from 0.9mm to 0.6mm improved my BH efficiency by about 15%. Which is a massive amount in terms of gravity points. ~12 points different!

 

[BeerCat]

The thread i was reading is here. https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/dark-wheat-malt-diastatic-power.138143/

When i input the dark wheat (found it) and munich (light i presume) into brewers friend the DP comes out at 25. Adding the other grains brings it down to 23. I have suffered efficiency with grainbills in the 40's.

Edit. Reading the OP again i see its a GH recipe, perhaps the calc i am using is inaccurate.

 

[MagnusTS]

Not wanting to re-open old wounds, but a Boro fan should be used to the loss of a few points.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi @MagnusTS
Just remind me - how many did Leeds score against Boro at their last meeting?

 

[foxbat]

Hi everyone hoping someone can help here, i have just placed a Dunkelweizen (Greg Hughes) into my fermenting fridge. The problem with it is that the OG should have been approx 1.056 but i only achieved 1.030. I have attached the beer smith recipe in hope the someone can help

Have you done a wheat beer before and do you crush your own grain? Wheat is a pain to crush, it doesn't have a husk and is a tough one to crack. I suffered efficiency issues with my first wheat beer despite being aware of the potential problems and double-crushing the wheat.

 

[Zephyr259]

My latest beer was an amber wheat beer from Weyermann's site, 50% of the grain bill was Weyermann dark wheat and I got one of my best efficiencies yet somewhere in the 80s, specific value is tricky as I took some first runnings to use in a starter then split the wort pre-boil and made a wheatwine braggot with honey so the maths gets tricky.

I don't have pilsner malt in stock and don't have much use for it generally so I subbed Vienna instead and scaled it all back to 1.047 OG for a more easy-going 4.7% abv. I followed a step mash and added 200 - 300g of oat husks to help the mash/sparge. I also had issues grinding the wheat, put it through twice on a coarse then fine grind which seemed good.

GH doesn't list step mashes which might change things up given the wheat and munch malts, maybe the sparge wasn't ideal if the wheat had made things sticky? Beyond that it's hard to say, should still be tasty even if it is only 3% abv...

 

[private4587]

Have you done a wheat beer before and do you crush your own grain? Wheat is a pain to crush, it doesn't have a husk and is a tough one to crack. I suffered efficiency issues with my first wheat beer despite being aware of the potential problems and double-crushing the wheat.

yes i crush my own grain but because all the grains mixed in hopper didn't really notice any difference. My efficiency was well done with this brew.