low gravity problem

[BitterBrewer]

First off, this community is great; there's tons of useful stuff in the forums on this site.

So I went to brew myself an English Best Bitter and wound up with an unexpectedly low original gravity and a startlingly low gravity when I racked to the secondary yesterday. This was also the first time I tried a late extract addition. I steeped my grains in 1.5 gal of 150 deg water for 30 mins, added a slightly reduced quantity of bittering hops and boiled for 30 mins, then added 1.5 gal more water that was pre-mixed at a low temp (150 or so) with my malt extract and sugar and boiled for another 30 mins, adding aroma hops at the end (Burton salts were added at the beginning of the boil, Irish moss at the 30 min mark).

My O.G. as predicted by beertools was supposed to be 1.043, it turned out to be 1.035 or so. The F.G. was supposed to be about 1.009, but its a shocking 1.003, and I just started secondary fermentation! I'm wondering if any of the following could have led to this result:
1. My late extract method
2. Burton Salts (never used them before, but it seems like they should have the opposite effect)
3. I topped off to just a hair over 5 gal, forgetting that I had made a starter. So after adding my two quarts of starter (starter was probably about 1.030 O.G), I had roughly 5.5 gal.

Another piece of evidence for you brew-sleuths out there: my yeast sediment at the bottom of my primary was much slushy-er than I usually get.

Thanks for whatever help you can lend me. Process improvements are welcome, as are suggestions for saving the beer from tasting too watery (I'm thinking of dry hopping it in the keg to try to rescue it). For reference, here's the recipe and calculations from beertools:

Ingredients
.6 lbs. Crystal Malt 40°L
.25 lbs. American Victory
.25 lbs. English Amber Malt
4.25 lbs. Liquid Light Extract
.25 lbs. Torrified Wheat
.75 lbs. Light Brown Sugar
1.5 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Fuggle (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 2 min.
5 grams Burton Water Salts (not included in calculations)
Yeast : WYeast 1028 London Ale

Predicted Special/Best/Premium Bitter Compliance
Original Gravity 1.043 1.040 - 1.048 100 %

Terminal Gravity 1.009 1.008 - 1.012 100 %

Color 13.15 °SRM 5.00 - 16.00 °SRM 100 %

Bitterness 37.4 IBU 25.00 - 40.00 IBU 100 %

Alcohol (%volume) 4.3 % 3.80 - 4.60 % 100 %

[wortchillergoal]

I don't know if it is me or the way you wrote your post, but I am having a hard time following your train of thought.

Two things did jump right out at me thought. It appears you added a sugar of some type in stead of just using malt. That could be the reason it fermented down to1.003.

The Irish Moss only needs to go in for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

I can't see why you OG was low save for the volume of water you added.

[haaseg]

What does the compliance column in your table there stand for? My guess would be that is the same or similar to "efficiency" - how efficient your mashing system is. Most people claim somewhere between 75% and 85% for efficiency. Since 1.035 is roughly 81% of 1.043, this could very well make sense. If you can adjust the compliance rate to 80%, that will help you add more grains next time to get a higher OG.

[YamahaXS]

1. My late extract method
2. Burton Salts (never used them before, but it seems like they should have the opposite effect)
3. I topped off to just a hair over 5 gal, forgetting that I had made a starter. So after adding my two quarts of starter (starter was probably about 1.030 O.G), I had roughly 5.5 gal.


1. this will not affect your OG or FG
2. I assume you used 1-2 tspns of salts. this will not affect your gravity readings, but if it did it would be in the other direction.
3. you're concerned over a 25-20% lower than expected gravity. If you topped off up to 6 gallons, then you would see a 20% drop in gravity. Sounds like you might have a quart (at the most) or so extra water...that would drop your gravity by only a .001-.002

I suspect the problem is that the software is assuming a higher efficiency out of your steeping grains (likely assuming a conservative upper bound). You probably didn't get as many solubles as the software thinks you should have.

Another good possibility is that the extract you used had a lower density than the software's estimated density. All extracts vary slightly that could give you a .005 swing IMO.

Finally, your hydrometer could be off, though if you have used it in the past without any such problme then its probably alright.

BTW. the amount of crud on the bottom is not going to affect your FG...most of that stuff is particulate matter (ie hop particles and grain bits) which does not affect gravity.

[BrewDog]

I am also wondering about the lack of base malt in the mini. The Victory, Amber, Torrified Wheat all need to be mashed in the presence of a base malt. Not sure how unconverted starches would effect the OG. They'll add haze to the final product, though.

[Wilson]

Most times when I use Liquid ME my OG is lower than anticipated. I chalk it up to inconsistencies in the LME - more water in it. When I exclusively use DME, I usually nail my OG. However, I perfer the LME because I do a late addition and get better beers in my opinion, less of the extract twang.

[BitterBrewer]

Wow, that's a lot of responses in three hours! This forum is really a great resource. . . .

Sorry if my posting was confusing, it was after all Monday morning at 9:30 : ) Incase it wasn't clear to all, my complaint/concern was two-fold: I had a lower than expected O.G. and I seemed headed to an impossibly low F.G.

I'll try to respond in one post to all of the comments so far, let's see how this works : )

Wortchillergoal: Demerara sugar is a comment ingredient in many excellent British Bitters, so I was hoping it was appropriate to use. I certainly didn't expect this problem though, and the sugar probably made it worse.

Haaseg: Sorry, I thought people might be familiar with beertools, the compliance ratings are simply how well the software thinks you complied with the BJCP guidelines for your chosen style (Best bitter in this case). I'll have to look into compensating for the assumed efficiency in the beertools calculator.

YamahaXS: Any advice for getting better results from my steeping process? As for the hydrometer, I measured with two different hydrometers and it was always the same (and I've calibrated both with tap water)

BrewDog: I've never heard this before . . . Could you elaborate or point me to another posting / resource that would fill me in on doing steeping in the presence of base malt? I'd be worried about doing the full 60 min boil with my base extract in there.

Wilson: So do you use something different than the usual ratio of 1.2 lbs LME to every 1 lb DME?

[toneyc]

If you put *just* the malt extract and brown sugar in the beer tools calculator, you come out with 1.036 OG, which agrees with your hydrometer measurements. You got no fermentables from the grains, probably for the reason stated above, there were no base malts present to provide enzymes to convert the other grains.

:eek:
Toney.

[BitterBrewer]

Thanks for responding to my post.

I'm kind of curious why I (maybe) was duped into believing my O.G. would be higher than if I had not steeped any grains. You were talking about adding base malt to the 'mini-mash' to contribute enzymes for conversion, but I've read plenty of material on all-extract brewing and no one has ever mentioned adding a base malt to the steeping grains. So I'm confused; In the future, should I :
A. Add a genuine base malt to my grist for the steeping grains? Or
B. Should I perform my calculations without considering steeping grains, even if they'll be present in the recipe?

Now, the real issue is why beer tools would assume in their calculations that I would get additional gravity points from steeping grains if, like I'm suggesting, the established practice in extract brewing doesn't call for base malts.

I mean, I'm not expecting anyone to send me the source code, but does anyone have any thoughts as to why the software would ignore the fact that my recipe was all-extract?

Thanks again for all the responses earlier.

[haaseg]

Barring any answers from beertools, there are some very easy, fairly unscientific things you can do next time you try this method.

After you've steeped, you should taste a bit of the resulting wort. The sweetness will be directly related to the amount of fermentable sugars that were extracted. The better your extraction, the sweeter the wort will taste.

Take a gravity of the wort just after steeping the grains. Remember to adjust for temperature. If you search around, you'll find a chart that tells you how to adjust the reading to the temperature... you'll be adding like 0.012 or something like that. The resulting gravity should match an all-grain recipe that consists of only those few grains (you can make up a dummy recipe in beertools for this purpose).

I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that no enzymes were present due to lack of base malts. While I agree that there may have been insufficient enzymes, I think that there would have been at least some enzymes present, and you would have almost had to have more than 0 extraction.

One more comment: The salts are important for the water profile DURING the mashing process. Next time you'll want to put the salts in before you heat the water to 150 and steep your grains.

[danno]

Originally posted by BitterBrewer
Thanks for responding to my post.

I'm kind of curious why I (maybe) was duped into believing my O.G. would be higher than if I had not steeped any grains. You were talking about adding base malt to the 'mini-mash' to contribute enzymes for conversion, but I've read plenty of material on all-extract brewing and no one has ever mentioned adding a base malt to the steeping grains. So I'm confused; In the future, should I :
A. Add a genuine base malt to my grist for the steeping grains? Or
B. Should I perform my calculations without considering steeping grains, even if they'll be present in the recipe?

Now, the real issue is why beer tools would assume in their calculations that I would get additional gravity points from steeping grains if, like I'm suggesting, the established practice in extract brewing doesn't call for base malts.

I mean, I'm not expecting anyone to send me the source code, but does anyone have any thoughts as to why the software would ignore the fact that my recipe was all-extract?
I'd stick with "B", until you're ready to jump into the wonderful world of mashing. I've never used beertools, so I can't comment on why it would add potential points to your recipe, it should be able to differentiate between malts that will contribute points (like the crystal), and those that won't (like the rest of your malts...) it could be simply that their target audience is partial/all grain users, where this isn't an issue...

or, you could go get the free trial version of ProMash, which, as I'm playing with it, with the right settings, looks like it will accurately determine steeping grain PPG contributions...

haaseg mentioned this, and I'm somewhat evangelical on the subject, but IMO you really shouldn't be using salts unless you know exactly why, and what they will do to/for your beer...

[BitterBrewer]

I will definitely look into ProMash, and I may send a question to the folks at beer tools. I'll post if I get anything back from them.

In terms of the salts, I meant them to alter the taste profile of the beer to give it the more mineral-y taste of my favorite british bitters. I also read about altering the hop profile with salts, but didn't concern myself too much with that as the descriptions of the effect were all vague.

I tried to mimic the amount of calcium in London water as listed in New Lager Brewing by adding the gypsum to the brew water, using knowledge of my municipal water supply to get the right amount (5 grams). Hopefully I didn't overdo it, but the mineral profile tasted pretty solid when I tested a sample from the primary.

I'll start reading about the effects of mineral content on mashing, partial mashing, and simple steeping, but can you give me a primer/ point me to some online resources in the mean time?

[haaseg]

John Palmer's How to Brew (http://howtobrew.com) is an excellent resource. You should read the online version, and then definitely buy the book. IMHO both formats are indispensible.

[BluesHarp]

Originally posted by Wilson
Most times when I use Liquid ME my OG is lower than anticipated. I chalk it up to inconsistencies in the LME - more water in it. When I exclusively use DME, I usually nail my OG. However, I perfer the LME because I do a late addition and get better beers in my opinion, less of the extract twang.

...interesting, I also do late LME addition, but still get better beer with a majority of DME. I usually get pretty close to the calculated OG, usually a bit higher, regardless of which type I use.

[toneyc]

OK, I was playing with BeerTools, trying to figure this out. It has no setting for steeping vs mashing so if you are steeping, you must set the mash efficiency to 0% or it will calculate points from the grains as if you were mashing.

The difference between steeping and mashing is that with steeping, you are getting flavor and color components, but no fermentables. With mashing, you get flavor and color comonents and fermentables, assuming that you have base grains with the potential for conversion in the mash.

:)
Toney.