zacster

Recipes 

I know this is a problem you'd all like to have, but I'm new to this and don't understand what I'm doing different than everybody else that I get high efficiency.

My batch yesterday gave me an 89% efficiency according to Beersmith, and my prior batch was around the same in the end. I lift the grain out, let it drip into the pot, then squeeze out the last of it into another pot and pour it into the main kettle, then pour some wort over it and squeeze it out again. That's all I do. It doesn't sound all that different. I have the homebrew store grind it all extra fine. I stir the mash to get it mixed in, and stir when bringing the temp up to mash out.

What am I doing wrong or right?

michael.berta

Recipes 

I'm curious how fine your crush was. I am also curious more about your process. Starting gravity, grain bill, mash temp & duration.. etc...

DannPM

Recipes 

Extra fine? Definitely your crush dude if I had to guess.

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zacster

Recipes 

Other than asking to go extra fine on the crush I don't know how "extra fine" it really is. Maybe that's it, but if it were that easy wouldn't we all be doing that?

I'm trying to figure out how to paste my recipe from Beersmith, nothing I'm trying gives me good formatting. I'm on a Mac if anybody has any advice.

passedpawn

Recipes 

Your math is messed up, or your measurements. Or you are sparging.

Let's assume the following, and I think these are good assumptions:

• 0.2 gallons per # of grain stays in the grain, lost because you don't sparge
• 10# of grain for your 5 gallon batch
• Boiloff = 1 gallon

So, you add 8 gallons of water, and get 6 gallons of wort at the end of the mash. You've lost 2/8 of your sugars, still trapped in grain.

The max efficiency in this case is 75%. I don't know how you would get around that.

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Now there's some take delight in the carriages a rolling
and others take delight in the hurling and the bowling
but I take delight in the juice of the barley
and courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early

zacster

Recipes 

That's just a bad assumption. I added 7 gallons of water and ended up with 6.6 before the boil. That's a lot less loss. It didn't make sense to me as I expect to lose more. In fact I have more sitting in my primary 6.5 gallon carboy than will fit in my 5 gallon secondary.

I'm also not doing any math. Beersmith is doing it all. I'm just plugging the numbers in and following its method.

I'm just perplexed by the result.

keesh

Recipes 

Just wondering, how do you take your water measurements?

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Primary - 1 Gal JAOM, Belgian IPA, Pumpkin ale
Secondary - 5-way split Breakfast Imperial Stout, 2 Gal Traditional mead
Bottled - Kolsch, Pliny the Younger clone, Centennial Blonde, Alpine's Nelson clone, Apfelwein, QuicknDirty Cider
On deck - EdWort's Haus Pale

passedpawn

Recipes 

Perhaps. It comes from Ray Daniels, Design Great Beers.

[edit: now that I think about it (should have done that first), I usually lose about 2 gallons on a 10g batch, which in the example above would be 1g or 0.1g per # of grain]

__________________
Now there's some take delight in the carriages a rolling
and others take delight in the hurling and the bowling
but I take delight in the juice of the barley
and courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early

zacster

Recipes 

My measurements are by the sight glass on my Blichmann. Reasonably accurate as Blichmann generally knows what they are doing.

Stauffbier

Recipes 

If you're saying you lose that much on a 10lb BIAB batch, then I'd say squeeze it more! I only lose about .1 gal per lb of grain (if even that much), but I squeeze the heck outta the bag!

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