I know that crushed grains have a shorter shelf life. I get that…
I bought some pre-milled grains a little over 2 months ago. They have been stored in sealed bag inside a box in a dry place at room temp. They look good to me. I know that my extraction may suffer but should I add some DME to compensate?
My OG will be 1.060
and FG 1.012
Using WLP530 Abbey Ale
Thoughts?
I would make some beer.
So would I. Two months should not ruin anything.
If you want to adjust the gravity do it late into the boil after measuring the gravity. Don’t try to adjust it ahead of time based on the notion that your efficiency will suffer because your grains are old.
+1
I concur! Go for it!
I don’t think the lesser shelf life is due to loss of potential extract. Rather, I think it’s due to oxidation of some of the stuff in the grains. Kind of like the difference in bread made with store bought whole wheat flour and freshly ground flour - the flour ground a while ago has an acrid bitterness that is absent from the fresh
i went ahead with my brewday.
I mashed for 90 min at a perfect 152F. PH right on the money
Then boiled for 60 mins everything spot one except… My OG came at 1.055 out of an expected 1.067
Could it be my “oldish” grains?
Since it is a Belgian, can I boiled some clear Belgian syrup and add it tomorrow to compensate?
If so, how much water should I boil the syrup with?
yes you can add sugar during fermentation. I wouldn’t waste the money on clear candy syrup though. plain old table sugar is just fine. you can boil it if you want or just add it directly to the fermenter. it will disolve as the yeast work on it.
Your lower than expected OG is a result of something other than old grains. You don’t get less extraction as grains age, the sugars did not go anywhere, they are still right there in the grains.
If I had to guess I would say the crush was not very fine and the weight may have been shy of what was stated. Either of those would affect the OG. Most homebrew shops do not crush fine because they don’t want to hear complaints about a stuck mash/sparge.
I’ve added sugar directly to the fermenter on numerous occasions. No worries.
If you’re adding a significant amount of sugar, you probably want to stage the additions rather than adding it all at once.
Small breweries order the grain pre-crushed, as they may not have a mill or space for a mill. They might have some grains around for longer periods. Briess has stated that crushed malt can last up to 6 months if stored properly (dry cool environment). I would taste some of the grain to see that it has not gone rancid.
Another source of OG being shy is volume - if you ended up with more than expected, that is. What were you measuring volume with? Since you mention everything else being spot on, if the volume was properly measured, then I would say that the guys above have captured the most likely culprits…
I used the amount of water that beersmith calculated and even though I used the “eye-meter” to measure water I don’t think I could have been that off.
Well let’s assume your water was +/- a half gallon since it was eyeballed. So you were shooting for 5 gallons and ended up with 5.5 gallons and perhaps some of that extra volume was left behind in the boil kettle.
67 x 5 = 335 which was what you were expecting later in the thread (earlier you said 1.060)
335 / 5.5 = 60 or 1.060
FWIW - if you had 6 gallons your 1.055 OG would be right.
I still believe your crush affected your efficiency and OG, but compound that with a lack of volumetric measurement and it isn’t difficult to miss the desired starting gravity.