Did yesterday a pilsner. Took preboil grav. Way low. Did calculation by hand and. Brewers friend. Did 60 min mash. Did sparge slow about 10 min. Untill i got 7 galons. Dont know what happend ??? Did solve the issue by adding dme. So og. 1.050. On the end. Dont know why my. Preboil grav low. And using some calculation to get a estimated og
You can find a lot of opinions about pilsnaer malt and whether to step mash or to mash for 90 minutes at below 150. Probably depends upon the specific malt you used.
I too just had that issue with a particular craft malt I am trying. Epiphany foundation malt. Mash came in way lower than expected as well. Only 57% efficiency compared to my regular 75.
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Usually poor mash efficiency is caused by the following:
- poor crush
- poor sparging technique
- wort stratification
- recipe calculation
Of course, if you are accustomed to getting 75% efficiency and you copy a recipe that claims 80% you won’t hit the specified OG.
Malts do play into this. This is another reason to find a base malt that works for your system and stick with it. I won’t specifically name my preferred base malt but it rhymes with Bahr. 
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This could be the issue did use different malt than what i use normaly did sparge real slow. So still wonder why i am off. I create my recipy on 75% efeciency
I had a tough time getting to my OG with a straight pilsner… Mine didn’t rhyme with Rahr… I mean Bahr…
BUT… This isn’t the first time either… Used in conjunction with other malts I haven’t any problems… I’m not to sure I can read a malt schedule from the supplier… so even talking about diastatic potential won’t help here… But I think that is the key… Perhaps some of the wise ones would text in common simple words to explain this piece… Sneezles61
Got a brew book. What gives. Specific grains. And. Gravity points per lbs of grain. I use this. While calculating my grain bill. But this time way of. Still. Confused. About this. Normaly it works out. Gonna brew the same beer next week. Gonna use 12 lbs insted of 10 lbs base malt see if this will help
With my figuring’, using 80%… you’re gravity should’ve started at 1.040… so you would’ve added about 3 lbs DME to get to 1.050… Aw nuts… I’m using English measurements…
12 lbs would yeild about 1.048 Sneezles61
Alrighty… read up on Diastatic Power… That is an enzyme that the Alpha Amylase use to convert long chains of sugar to shorter ones… It appears that “most malted” grains have it… 6 row having the most… crystal and the other darker malts don’t… Why? it was heated above a point that denatured (killed) that enzyme…
I see that in any given brew… the diastatic number 75 is the minimum for normal conversion… Going under that and your gravity will suffer…
I found this answer in PICOBREW… Looks as though pilsner malt has DP of 125…
My day is complete… I learned something that I just left alone… Until I needed to know. Sneezles61
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Will look it up. So now there has been questions. About 60 min vs 90 min mash. Longer mash means more sugers converted so higher pre boil grav. ?? But danny says. 60 to 90 mash not much difference.
What I’ve seen… you can spend even more time mashing… but the payoff isn’t worth it… Even those over night mash… Doesnt yield much of a gain… I’d look to your volume of HL… When I plan… I know I want 10 gallons into the keg… But that means I have to put 11.5-12 gallons into the fermenter…Thats how my grain bill is weighed out… I’ll bet that will help… Try do the math again… You’ll see it working… Sneezles61
Will try to do this. And recalculate. Thanks. This might help. Once recalculate the recipy. Gonna do the same brew saturday.
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Morning sir. So did some recalulating. And did did brew the same beer yesterday. My preboil grav this time. 1.040. Much beter than 1.025. Now only thing. I can think of that. Last week did spage to fast. Now went slow this time. About 15 min. And ended up with 1.040. Preboil.
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How’s the construction going for the brew den? We haven’t seen pictures in a while.
What was your final gravity? If I’m real vigorous with a boil, I can add very close to 10 points… Sneezles61
1.060 og. It came out
Holy Moly… You gained alot! Sneezles61
Few more thing some shelfs to store carboys and a grain cabinet. Tomorow airo. And move the kegurator. In the brew room. Got power. Water. Almost ready
