Problem with grain crush & eff.???

HELP!
Made a new batch this wknd and I’m still having trouble getting good efficency (62%). Up to this point I have
been compensating by adding additional grains because my eff. is only 60% to 68%.
I’m using a 10gal Gott cooler with a false bottom. I’ve done both fly and batch sparging, but have never gotten
any higher than 68%.
I’m hitting all my temps for the prescribed times using BeerSmith. One odd occurrence this wknd was my dial
thermo read 10deg higher than two digital thermo’s. Even one of the digitals (Polder) went haywire and I had to
toss it in the oven to dry it out.

The only other common denominator is I have sourced my all my grains from the same HBS. Could the crush not
be good enough all this time?
My next batch I’m going to source my grains from Northerbrewer and see what happens.

Any other thoughts? Really need some insight here.

If you had a picture of the crush, we could take a look at it. The way I crush, there will be no whole pieces of grain at all.

It sounds like you might have a temperature related issue as well. When you sparge, what temp does your grainbed reach? If it's under 160F, that's a problem.

How much water are you using for your Mash and for sparging? If you don't use enough you won't rinse all of the sugars into the brew pot.

I'm getting ~65% on grain I get from Midwest, my local place must crush finer because I'm typically mid 70's with their crush. Also, pre-crush tends to settle out so the finer bits and powder are at the bottom of the bag while the big chunks and hulls stay on top. Pouring from the top of the bag without mixing it up may give you worse efficiency than if you were to use the grain in the bottom of the bag.

Speaking of the crush, I set my 10 inch rollers on my new mill to .039, is this a good gap, I think I read somewhere to try it there first? Any opinions welcome, thanks.

Bobby_M said:

If you had a picture of the crush, we could take a look at it. The way I crush, there will be no whole pieces of grain at all.

It sounds like you might have a temperature related issue as well. When you sparge, what temp does your grainbed reach? If it's under 160F, that's a problem.

Click to expand...

Bobby,
come to think of it, I don't think I've monitored the grain bed during sparge.
I'm usually monitoring the sparge water which has been 168 to 170F.
I thought you don't want to go above 170f with the sparge so that you don't extract tannins. But I guess if I'm not get the mash temp up high enough, I'm not getting the sugars into solution.
Also, I have noticed hole husks in the crush. To me it looks as if it should be finer. As far as Mash and Sparge water amounts, I use
BeerSmith's numbers, usually 1.5qts/lb for mash in.
Am I on the right track here?

megavites said:

Bobby,
come to think of it, I don't think I've monitored the grain bed during sparge.
I'm usually monitoring the sparge water which has been 168 to 170F.
I thought you don't want to go above 170f with the sparge so that you don't extract tannins. But I guess if I'm not get the mash temp up high enough, I'm not getting the sugars into solution.
Also, I have noticed hole husks in the crush. To me it looks as if it should be finer. As far as Mash and Sparge water amounts, I use
BeerSmith's numbers, usually 1.5qts/lb for mash in.
Am I on the right track here?

Click to expand...

Sounds like you might benifit from a mashout at 170 degrees for 10 minutes. This allows you to not lose the heat from the sparge water when it hits the mash which is only in the 150's. All your 170 degree sparge water is hitting a grain bed that is the same temp right from the start.

Yeah, if you're fly sparging you'll want to get the grain bed temp up to near 170 prior to starting the runoff. If you batch sparge, you can use hotter sparge water, like 180F.
In any case, throw a thermo in the train when you're sparging just to see how you're doing.

Also, you'll nudge eff up if you go thicker mash like 1.25qts/lb leaving more room for sparge (batch sparge only).

OK,
I'll adjust my mash out temps and see where I'm at. Mashing in w/1.25 per lb is next, then I'll look at the
grain crush. Thanks all for the input.

I'll try the next batch in a week or two.

megavites said:

I thought you don't want to go above 170f with the sparge so that you don't extract tannins. But I guess if I'm not get the mash temp up high enough, I'm not getting the sugars into solution.

Click to expand...

You just do not want your grain bed temperature to go above 170F. Your sparge water temperature can be hotter than 170F, so long as you do not raise your grain bed temperature too high.


TL

When you mix water hotter than 170 F, STIR. You want the grain bed to infuse that water quickly and add only enough to hit 170 F. Check several places with your thermometer. You then can vorlauf (recirculate) to get a clean runoff before starting to collect. Do this for fly or batch sparging. Now adjust your sparge water to 170F and start the sparging to obtain your preboil volume of wort. I collect in buckets so I know how much I have. You can also use a dip stick that has been calibrated in gallons for your boiler if you are going to runoff directly to the boiler. Correct volumes are very important to measuring efficiency. Note: If your grain is not crushed enough you can mash for a longer time to improve efficiency. I have mashed for up to 2 hours just to see what happens. Try this.

To answer an earlier question, I started crushing at .039 then went to .037 and I'm currently at .035. I'll probably still go a little tighter, but I do batch sparge.

Thanks for the reply Bull, the mill I have is the JSP malt mill, it seems you can only adjust the rollers on one end, right now I have it at .039 on the fixed end and just used feeler guages on the adjustable end, we will see when I try it out, if my burner ever gets here, Im starting to fret over that (been 4 weeks since it was ordered).