Brewmaster's Warehouse crush?

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BWN

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I have been having issues lately with efficiency and I am trying to figure what is going on. I have been ordering from BMW and am just wondering if anyone else thinks their mill might be the problem. I am not trying to say anything bad about them I always order from them and they have great customer service. I am just wondering if I should have them run the grain through their mill 2x or if that would just cause more problems or if I need to search deeper for my efficiency problems.
 
I can post a pic next time I brew, I don't want to open up the sealed package right now. From the link you posted I have to assume it is not the crush(I really didn't think it was but was just looking for an easy answer) I guess I will continue to search deeper into my process to try and find a problem. I have a 52 qt. coleman extreme mashtun with a bazooka screen. I batch sparge one time, I used to do 2 but switched to 1. My next brew I am going to try 2 sparges but after reading many threads on here it seems that shouldn't make a lot of difference. I usually take the total amount of water I need and split it in half but I think I need to get my first runnings to be half of the preboil volume instead of the strike water being half. I don't want to change too much at once because I want to figure out what is causing this. Any thoughts.
 
Are ya stirring real well to aid in rinsing the grain prior to draining the MT? When I add sparge wter I like to stir well and let it sit a few minutes, then maybe stir again...think of it like washing clothes, but washing and rinsing grain...gotta stir well I think?
 
I get my grain from them too and usually hit around 70%. Are you adding your grain to water or water to grain? Did these batches have any high amounts of wheat or rye or other specialty grains.
Edit. Just re-read a part of your post. If you are splitting your water in half that maybe the problem. Aim for 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain see if that helps.
 
bchurch said:
I get my grain from them too and usually hit around 70%. Are you adding your grain to water or water to grain? Did these batches have any high amounts of wheat or rye or other specialty grains.
Edit. Just re-read a part of your post. If you are splitting your water in half that maybe the problem. Aim for 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain see if that helps.

I'm curious about the grain to water/water to grain issue you're bringing up- I've done it both ways with no change in efficiency at all.

To the OP: you never mentioned your efficiency %. With batch sparge, 70% is pretty standard. Where are you at?
 
BrightSpot said:
I'm curious about the grain to water/water to grain issue you're bringing up- I've done it both ways with no change in efficiency at all.

To the OP: you never mentioned your efficiency %. With batch sparge, 70% is pretty standard. Where are you at?

I have tried both ways with no problems either but there gave been posts of people having "doughball" issues when adding water to grain. Just a suggestion really.
 
I'm curious about the grain to water/water to grain issue you're bringing up- I've done it both ways with no change in efficiency at all.

To the OP: you never mentioned your efficiency %. With batch sparge, 70% is pretty standard. Where are you at?

low 60's

I add the grain to water. I do stir to make sure there are no doughballs. When I sparge I only usually stir once, I will try to stir, let sit, then stir again.
 
I usually take the total amount of water I need and split it in half but I think I need to get my first runnings to be half of the preboil volume instead of the strike water being half. I don't want to change too much at once because I want to figure out what is causing this. Any thoughts.

The way I read this it sounds like you're not accounting for absorption? Typical strike water volumes are, as said before, 1 - 1.5 qts. Per lb of grain and sparge water usually 2 qts/lb. I have lately been using less sparge water per brewpal's instructions and actually hit 82% on my last batch. (which I'm not considering a good thing because that means my OG was way high.) I'm not sure the 2 are related but maybe they are.

Make sure there are no dry grains when you mash in and stir like hell when you add your sparge water. Also make sure your sparge water is raising the temp of your grain bed to 165-168f. Some will say they sparge at a lower temp but once I got that worked out my efficiency shot up. So it helped for me.
 
I am taking account for absorption, I usually need 7 gallons to get 5.5 post boil. I usually lose .12 gallons per pound to absorption. I am usually within 1.25 to 1.5 qts/lb. when I split my mash and sparge water evenly. I am wondering if my hydrometer is off. I will take it to work tonight and check it in distilled water(I work in a lab with a still).
 
I just brewed a batch purchased from BMW, and got my usual 75% efficiency - this is batch sparging using a 10 gallon cooler w/ braid. Seems okay to me (it's usually somewhere between 70-75%). I have another bag of crushed grain from BMW for my next batch sitting at home. I can take a picture of the crush later this evening which you can use for comparison.
 
Ok, so fwiw I've noticed the mash/sparge ratios made a huge difference on my efficiency. I run a very small kettle (4g) so I have to mash concentrated worts. If I split the water evenly it was pushing it to use 1 qt/lb depending on grain bill. The trick I found was to mash big and sparge small, that way I'm getting the good conversion on first runnings. It has gotten me up to almost 70% even with a thick sparge. I don't know if it would make as much difference though, if you can use over 1.25 qt/lb for both.
 
My LHBS is BMW and I get 65-70% batch sparging. Sometimes a little bit higher, sometimes a little lower. I mash with 1.33 to 1.5 qt/lb and usually end up with around a 7 gallon boil.
 
I regularly get 72-75% efficiency with BMW's crush.

PS. That is the same efficiency (72-75%) I get with Farmhouse and Northern Brewer's crush.
 
I am taking account for absorption, I usually need 7 gallons to get 5.5 post boil. I usually lose .12 gallons per pound to absorption. I am usually within 1.25 to 1.5 qts/lb. when I split my mash and sparge water evenly. I am wondering if my hydrometer is off. I will take it to work tonight and check it in distilled water(I work in a lab with a still).

Okay, looks like I read it wrong then! :fro:
 
I alternate between NB and BMW and I can tell you that my efficiency is not related to who I get the grain from. I also get around 60% mashing 6 lb of grain w/ 1.25qt/lb and batch sparging with the same ratio, bringing my temp up to 170 F for 10 minutes for the mashout phase. I'm using a cooler, easily hit 152F for the mash, mash about 60 minutes and only lose 2 degrees in the process. I use the 60% figure in Brewsmith and usually come very close to getting the predicted OG, that is how I know that the 60% figure is representative of what I'm getting.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I didn't think it was their crush I was just hoping I found an easy answer.:) I didn't get a chance to check my hydrometer with distilled water last night(I actually had to work when I was at work).
 
well it is not the hydrometer. I got 0.996 in 26.7C distilled water which when corrected for temperature is .9985 so not too far off. Back to the drawing board
 
My personal recommendation is to try it a few times. maybe you got a dough ball in the tun that you didn't know about. after a few brews, if you're not hitting efficiency you want, then I'd be concerned.
 
It has been 7 or 8 brews since this has happened. It is something in my process because I brewed a porter that I have hit dead on before all of this happened and brewed it the same way and was only 2 points off.
 
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