What to do when your mash is too efficient?

[Dennis King]

It won't be the length of the mash, for convenience reasons a lot of my mashes are 2 hours. My starting liquor is always 37lts, slightly above yours but that would not explain such a big discrepancy. The other difference is I brew on a 3 vessel system not BIAB. As you can imagine I have brewed this recipe a lot and have had a some variation in strength but never more than a few points either way.

[Manngold]

Thanks all, Dennis, this is the by far the best recipe I have used, thank you.

Is it fairly safe to assume that my readings are off, and that my gravity is lower? Or was it my method?

On a side note, Kev I know I have 24l in the fv as I measured with a jug and marked 23l as I also do kits.

Thanks all once again

[simon12]

I think everything useful has been said, but just to let you know I had a faulty hydrometer that still read 1.000 in water. It was a Wilko 1 I think was damaged by putting it in the dish washer but not 100% on that.

[Manngold]

Ok. Grateful for all information provided!

Thanks

[gnorwebthgimi]

This intrigues me!

I thought that efficiencies above 85-90% were bad because they led to extracting tannins from the grain.

You didn't happen to add a a kilo of sugar to the recipe did you? That might do it!

If not and your readings are accurate, I would get in touch with one of the major brewers ASAP.

[Kev888]

very high mash efficiencies are possible without the beer being dire but it takes quite a bit of skill and usually careful sparging to avoid noticeable reduction in quality. It is for this reason, as well as improved consistency, that I always advise against chasing efficiency too far people get obsessed with it above quality, yet it gains them peanuts. In this case though there is almost certainly, 'something' wrong with a reading or measurement - 92 percent brewhouse is not going to have happened in a full volume BIAB.

Next time, weigh to check your ingredients, measure and record all your volumes and gravities at each stage (at the correct temperature for the hydrometer ) as I suggested, and check all your measuring devices are accurate and if it happens again we will be able to follow the chain of events. It is mostly guesswork with just the final result and it could be so many things; We even had one in the past where there wasn't enough wort in the trial jar for the hydrometer to float..

[rpt]

I've had my gravity go down during the boil! Of course, this was due to a bad reading. Denser wort sinks and so drawing a sample from the tap can give a high reading. With BIAB there is no transfer from mash tun to boiler to mix up the wort. However, readings after the boil ought to be accurate since boiling will mix the wort.

[Dennis King]

The temperature of the wort is also relevant when taking a hydrometer reading.

[goldthirst]

The two Graham Wheeler recipes I've done in the Grainfather have both turned out at a higher gravity than shown in the book.

[Kev888]

Yes, unless specifically designed for the GrainFather and your own methods of using it, then (to get the specified results) recipes almost always need to be customised based on the characteristics of ones own system and process. Neither GW's recipes or the GrainFather are unusual in this respect, it applies to all recipes and systems.

In the OP's case though, the results are too high to be attributed to this alone. The gravity that has apparently been achieved seems to be unreasonable for the method used to obtain it in any normal circumstances.

[Manngold]

Kev, thanks for that. Although I don't have a spare hydrometer at the moment, and don't have the time to get another before the weekend I have decided to just pitch the yeast (planning a order with payday so will wait and add it to that.

From what everyone has suggested I think that it is most probably the hydrometer, as I know that my BIAB set up has also in the past lead me to have 1.040 from a 4kg grain bill (or there abouts), and I used an old hydrometer for that. That was from the time when I recorded everything!

Thanks for all the help

[Intothevoid]

I'm going to add a litre of hop tea to my strong beer but still doubt this will make much difference'
But id rather add this than pure water

[MTW]

If you have pretty accurate scales (check them with coins of the realm), then one way to check your hydrometer across the range is to dilute a sample of your unfermented wort 50/50 with water. That should give a reading of half the pure wort alone. You could further dilute that mixture 50/50, and check the result is 1/4 of the wort's SG. If it is straying a long way somewhere, that should highlight it. I never had much luck with making up sugar solutions to test the hydrometer, even with good scales, but there you go. I did give a sample to two homebrewing friends once, without telling them the SG that mine read, and they all came back exactly the same (1.040 in that case), all on cheap homebrew hydrometers, which is reassuring.

You mention jugs; I don't trust the markings on them either, never mind brewing buckets. I even have a conical flask on which the markings are a bit out. As Kev says, weighing is the way to go for calibration, and that starts with any jugs you're using.