Help with low ABV on AGs

[The Kitten King]

Hey All, I've been playing around with all grains and I've hard a hard time getting above 6% ABV in the wash. Is this normal for an All Grain or is my method off? I don't want a crazy high ABV, but I would like to get around 8-10 consistently.

My general method for all grain mashes is the following:

1) take 1 gal water per 2-3 lb of grain (depends on type of grain) up to temp such that added grain will bring to ~153F
2) add grain and malt (or commercial enzymes)
3) let sit for 90 minutes at least at around 150F, testing with iodine to ensure conversion.
4) Boil for 5 minutes
5) bring down to <80F with ice (bringing water to around 1.5 lb per gal of water)
6) Pour between two buckets 12+ times to aerate.
7) use commercial lemon juice to bring PH to 4.5 (could preservatives here be an issue?)
add yeast bomb.
9) pitch yeast (ec-118 left in ~100F water for 15 minutes to start)

Yeast Bomb:
1) 3 tblsps miracle grow (with another tablsp added at 36 and 60 hours after pitch)
2) 3 tblsps epsom salt (with another tablsp added at 36 and 60 hours after pitch)
3) 4 walmart women's equate vitamins ground up
4) 1.5 oz biotin and dead yeast mixture.

OG usually comes in around 1.050 and finishes at around 1.030.

The ferment itself is usually pretty healthy, it bubbles away consistently for about 72 hours (2-3 bubbles/sec in airlock), and the top looks like a freshly poured fountain soda. Smells dry and delicious, no lactic souring, like a crisp white wine.

I've played with some other ingredients, but this problem persists no matter what I'm doing. Any tips?

thanks in advance,

[RedwoodHillBilly]

bringing water to around 1.5 lb per gal of water

There you go. Don't dilute so much and your OG will be higher. You might want to try some kind of wort chiller if you don't want to wait for the temp to come down on it's own.

[Swedish Pride]

Nah 2 lbs per gallon is plenty.
Your water is a bit hot that would explain the og, for that high of a fg i can only guess.
Either your yeast gave up on you or you had a phcrash

Have a look at jimbos single malt thread for expert advise

[RedwoodHillBilly]

153F is slightly warm, but if starch test passes that's not the problem. The FG of 1.030 is a problem. PH crash might explain it or just not waiting long enough. But OP says that the smell is dry, what about the taste? Is it still sweet? Something doesn't add up. Bubbles on hydrometer giving bad reading? Lots of unfermentables ?

[The Kitten King]

Taste is still pretty sweet. Ph stays at 4.5 all the way through.

I figured it may be unfermentable sugars so I tried an enzyme wash with an alpha rest at 158 with ph 5.5 and then a beta at 140 with a 4.5 ph. It fermented like crazy (seriously looked like it was par-boiling) but stopped dead at 1.030 again.

As far as water per lb, while the ratio is pretty consistent I've used that same method with various flaked and cracked gains so I've seen different degrees of viscosity in the wash from watery to slightly syrupy an everywhere in between, would that solve the water per lb issue or should I still change that?

[Swedish Pride]

the mill of the grain may be too big, causing low OG.
Never used your yeast, think it's mainly for vine, does not explain low FG though..

Is the mash temp still in the yeasts working range?

[woodshed]

What type of yeast are you using? All I see is dead yeast in reference.
Why are you adding all that shit to your yeast bomb?
Why are you boiling your wort after assumed conversion?
Why PH 4.5?
Why is your strike target 153?

You are not getting complete conversion and I think you are freakin the yeast out will all that in the bomb.

As suggested above a little deeper digging (reading) of successful protocols listed here on the site should be your focus.

[RedwoodHillBilly]

1.050 SG at 1.5 lbs/gal isn't out of the range one might expect. 1.030 FG is a bit high, some of my AG beers have come in at as high as 1.020 - to 1.015 after 10 days, but they taste dry. Those were stouts with a lot of chocolate malt and crystal malt, i.e. a lot of unfermentables. Perhaps it just needs to work for a bit more. You said that this was after 3 days, right? What was the grain bill that you are talking about?

[The Kitten King]

I've tried this particular formulation with flaked rye and two row, cracked corn and commercial enzymes, and flaked corn with two row. When malt is involved it's 20% of the bill.

I use ec-118 champagne yeast. The yeast bomb I use comes out of zymurgy bobs book minus tomato paste. The miracle grow and Epsom salt provides nitrogen, sulphur and magnesium, the women's vitamins provide calcium and b vitamins, along with various metals that yeasties like. The biotin and dead yeast is my own addition to the yeast bomb, and it's there for biotin and amino acids.

I boil the wash to avoid bacterial infections (I use feed supply cracked corn), I keep the wort at 4.5 for the same reason and also because it is supposedly favorable to yeast.

153 strike temp is on recommendation of this site and also from research into all grain beers.

I don't typically let them sit for more than a week, I will try that out and report back.

Thanks all

[corene1]

I've tried this particular formulation with flaked rye and two row, cracked corn and commercial enzymes, and flaked corn with two row. When malt is involved it's 20% of the bill.

I use ec-118 champagne yeast. The yeast bomb I use comes out of zymurgy bobs book minus tomato paste. The miracle grow and Epsom salt provides nitrogen, sulphur and magnesium, the women's vitamins provide calcium and b vitamins, along with various metals that yeasties like. The biotin and dead yeast is my own addition to the yeast bomb, and it's there for biotin and amino acids.

I boil the wash to avoid bacterial infections (I use feed supply cracked corn), I keep the wort at 4.5 for the same reason and also because it is supposedly favorable to yeast.

153 strike temp is on recommendation of this site and also from research into all grain beers.

I don't typically let them sit for more than a week, I will try that out and report back.

Thanks all

Most all the AG guys here shoot for a steady mash temp of 148 to keep unfermentables at a minimum. Most also use a standard bakers yeast or ale yeast such as safale us-05 or similar. Most use the ec1118 on their fruit musts for brandies . I have had much better results with the PH around 5.3 to 5.8 using this protocol for mashing. I would say the higher mash temps are what is contributing to your high FG. You also don't mention any real cooking of the cracked corn so you may not be getting full gelatinization. Cracked corn is a bear and needs some good hot cooking to release the starch. Flake corn that is pre gelled ,on the other hand still needs temps in the high 160's to 170 to gelatinize before reducing down to mash temps.

[masonsjax]

What temp are you fermenting at? Maybe try warming up your fermentor a little to get the yeast active enough to finish.

I'd skip lemon juice too. Once the yeast are going, they can fine tune the pH of the environment to what they want.

Also, iodine will tell you if there's starch present, but wont indicate how fermentable the wort is. Doing a saccharification rest in the mid 150s like that will result in less fermentable wort than resting at a preferred 145-150 where beta-amylase can optimally do their thing. Actually I've been experimenting with a brief rest at 155 or so, where alpha amylase works very quickly to convert starch to sugar, stirring uncovered to let the temp fall to 148 before sealing it up to hold so the betas can break down the sugars to more simple sugars. Good results so far.

[The Kitten King]

Thanks guys I'm trying a cooked corn now with pugis yeast bomb instead of my own, ill try the lower mash and higher ph. It sounds like unfermentable a may be the issue, I was specifically doing a big alpha rest because I was under the impression from my half formed research that an alpha would break down big starches into unfermentables and then a beta would break down the unfermentables into ferment abgles. But sounds like that was completely wrong so ill just avoid unfermentables altogether

[greggn]

I've not read Zymurgy Bob's book that seems like way too much epsom salt (regardless of your batch size ... which I didn't see mentioned above). As a practical experiment try following your typical protocol but skip the yeast bomb and just add re-hydrated yeast to your mash. You may find the yeast prefer a cleaner environment and will keep working well after your FG drops below 1.000.

[skow69]

+1. For all grain, the only additions I make are a pinch of epsom salts and some calcium carbonate cuz I have soft water. The grains have everything the yeast need. I usually end at 1.000 or below.

[greggn]

+1. For all grain, the only additions I make are a pinch of epsom salts and some calcium carbonate cuz I have soft water. The grains have everything the yeast need. I usually end at 1.000 or below.

I do AG with liquid enzymes (no malted grains) so I also add just a pinch of epsom salt ... about 1/8 teaspoon in a six gallon batch. Adding 5 tablespoons is the most glaring component of that recipe.

[HDNB]

I've tried this particular formulation with flaked rye and two row, cracked corn and commercial enzymes, and flaked corn with two row. When malt is involved it's 20% of the bill.

I use ec-118 champagne yeast. The yeast bomb I use comes out of zymurgy bobs book minus tomato paste. The miracle grow and Epsom salt provides nitrogen, sulphur and magnesium, the women's vitamins provide calcium and b vitamins, along with various metals that yeasties like. The biotin and dead yeast is my own addition to the yeast bomb, and it's there for biotin and amino acids.

I boil the wash to avoid bacterial infections (I use feed supply cracked corn), I keep the wort at 4.5 for the same reason and also because it is supposedly favorable to yeast.

153 strike temp is on recommendation of this site and also from research into all grain beers.

I don't typically let them sit for more than a week, I will try that out and report back.

Thanks all

Most all the AG guys here shoot for a steady mash temp of 148 to keep unfermentables at a minimum. Most also use a standard bakers yeast or ale yeast such as safale us-05 or similar. Most use the ec1118 on their fruit musts for brandies . I have had much better results with the PH around 5.3 to 5.8 using this protocol for mashing. I would say the higher mash temps are what is contributing to your high FG. You also don't mention any real cooking of the cracked corn so you may not be getting full gelatinization. Cracked corn is a bear and needs some good hot cooking to release the starch. Flake corn that is pre gelled ,on the other hand still needs temps in the high 160's to 170 to gelatinize before reducing down to mash temps.

what she said^^^

1118 has been really slow for me. Ph is important. temps are important. liquid enzymes can make this easier...just watch the temp, the Ph... and use different yeast for grain

[masonsjax]

Getting your water tested is easy, ward labs for those in USA has a homebrew test that tells us everything we need to know. Alternatively you can start with RO water and build from there.

Enter your grain bill and the numbers from the water test into some brewing software like the brunwater spreadsheet and you can easily see how much acid and/or minerals to add to get a sensible mash pH. If you get that right, you shouldn't need to do anything else except keep the fermentation temperature within the yeasts preferred range, lower end of the range to start, warmer once activity slows.

[rager]

+1 on 148 mashing temp

id forget the yeast bomb as well. it was designed for sugar washes that lack what grains naturally have. insted make a big starter while your waiting for the temps to drop down to pitching temp. what i do is take equal parts of mash and water , combine them in a half gallon mason jar and pitch my yeast. the gravity of the starter is usually 1.03ish. by the time im at pitching temp the starter has been going for over and hour and is really getting going at the point. once i hit 75-80 it goes in.

one other thing i would recommend is picking up a paddle mixer for aeration ,at a local home depot or hardware store. much easier than dumping back anf forth 12 times .

the combination of a good starter and the paddle mixer for me were two big steps in my AG success.

here is a good read http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... Conversion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

good luck. cheers

[skow69]

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... Conversion

That might be the best discussion of mashing and conversion that I have ever seen. Thanks for the link.

Except for this chart

I wish I could get corn to hydrate at that temp.

+2 mash at 148. That's the only way to bring your FG down. I know you read 153 on the forum. Hey, it's the internet, we have crackpots, too. HAR! Actually, we more likely have well intentioned contributors who are misinformed. Fortunately, we also have a lot of really smart people dedicated to correcting bad information. Part of having a free internet is that any weird shit you post can hang out there forever. All we can do is drown it out with the good stuff. Sorry you got the bad sample. I fought the unfermentables for a long time, too.

It sounds like you are right on the verge of success. Keep on keepin' on.

[skow69]

That reminded me...

When I was new here I read on the parent site about making a still out of an aluminum pressure cooker, so I started a build thread by proudly announcing that I was off to Goodwill to get a cheap pressure cooker for my still.

It was a dogpile of biblical proportions.

[goinbroke2]

All kinds of great info already but I'd like to throw this out there;
I use 20# of cracked corn and throw in another 5# or so of flaked rye and top up to 10-11galllons (45-50L).
155deg water and I have a stainless steel mortar mixer so I have the water at 155 and start dumping in the pre-measured grain. I stir the crap out of it until I figure it's been enough (5-10 minutes?) Once it's all in and mixing well and topped up to the 10-11 gallon (13 US gallons) and still at 155* I then shut off the burner, add enzymes and wrap in blankets)
I know it's 90minutes but for me it might be 3-4hours as I've always got something on the go. Then I unwrap and do an iodine test (always been good) and wrap up again and let it sit overnight.
Next day I come out and either drain off the wort (squeezing the grain which sucks) or throw the bread yeast into the keg and let it ferment on the grain.
Let it go 3-4 days (or a week if I'm busy) then check it and normally get about 10%. Run it and get 46-51% from the potstill down to 20% which averages about 35%. Second pass the hearts are 69-71% and that's what I age at.
Let it go a year or more on medium toasted oak and enjoy.

And that's it in a nutshell.

I've experimented with beano tabs when I didn't have any enzymes and they work too but I prefer enzymes. I've never used fertilizer or yeast bombs or whatever I guess because I've never had an issue. I've used tomato paste in a sugar wash and UJSM but that's about it.

Anyhoo....that's my rant for the day....

EDIT: Instead of rewriting it I just want to add that when I add the enzymes I mix them in with the mortar mixer for a few minutes too.

[masonsjax]

here is a good read http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... Conversion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

good luck. cheers

Kai Troester is a genius and has produced a tremendous amount of data for the brewing community to analyse. Everyone should bookmark his site and read through as much as possible. A great deal of his research is directly applicable to hobby distilling as well.