biertourist
Well-Known Member
Bottom-Line, Up-Front: I have a LARGE amount of deadspace under my mashtun FB and I'm getting TERRIBLE efficiency; I'm looking for things that I can do to maximize efficiency. 98% of my efficiency issues are NOT crush-related so the typical knee-jerk crush answers are not appropriate here.
While I finish building my custom false bottom, I'm using a false bottom that came with my kettle (fits the mashtun perfectly); my current false bottom is built like a tank but has a HUGE amount of dead-space below the grain bed.
Yesterday was my first brew day on my new system and my efficiency was TERRIBLE and I'm looking for advice on how to maximize efficiency with my current false bottom.
I'm used to mashing with a stainless mesh tube attached to a ball valve and then double batch sparging -I got GREAT efficiencies (75%-85% depending upon the exact recipe and process) on my old system but ABYSMAL efficiency yesterday (around 60%...).
On my old system I used a pretty loose mash (3 liters / kg) so I tried the same on my new mashtun and there's so much deadspace under my new FB that the top 2 inches of the mash had NO liquid on them so I had to make the mash even more liquid -I recirculated throughout the entire 60 minute mash hoping that that would help. (My mash tun is double wall insulated stainless so it holds temps fantastically throughout a 60 minute mash while recirculating.)
-This meant that I then had less liquid available for sparging so I also had a LOT of sugar left.
I was also making a 5 gallon batch in a mashtun with a 13 gallon capacity so my grain bed wasn't very thick and the liquid ran through it very quickly -i also recirculated the sparge addition but I'm just using a hose and because of the significant amount of dead-space the liquid is NOT being even remotely evenly distributed on the surface of the grain bed.
I have a "perfect storm" for bad efficiency and I realize that, but I'm curious if there's anything that I can do with the system as it is currently to try and increase my efficiency.
(I'm going to brew a bigger batch next time and I'm going to try and get my custom false bottom finished as soon as possible but what else can I do?) -I'm not willing to implement a rotating sparge arm, but if anyone has some novel solutions for more evenly spraying my sparge additions, I'm all ears.
When you have a large amount of dead-space under your false bottom do you HAVE TO go with a looser mash or does constantly recirculating the mash mean that this just isn't an issue?
(I have a 5500w electric kettle so I can gather more wort than I need to get more sugar out and then run it full-blast for an hour to boil off more liquid, too; I think this will get me a few more points because my final runnings yesterday were 1.010 so I was leaving a LOT of sugar behind.)
Adam
While I finish building my custom false bottom, I'm using a false bottom that came with my kettle (fits the mashtun perfectly); my current false bottom is built like a tank but has a HUGE amount of dead-space below the grain bed.
Yesterday was my first brew day on my new system and my efficiency was TERRIBLE and I'm looking for advice on how to maximize efficiency with my current false bottom.
I'm used to mashing with a stainless mesh tube attached to a ball valve and then double batch sparging -I got GREAT efficiencies (75%-85% depending upon the exact recipe and process) on my old system but ABYSMAL efficiency yesterday (around 60%...).
On my old system I used a pretty loose mash (3 liters / kg) so I tried the same on my new mashtun and there's so much deadspace under my new FB that the top 2 inches of the mash had NO liquid on them so I had to make the mash even more liquid -I recirculated throughout the entire 60 minute mash hoping that that would help. (My mash tun is double wall insulated stainless so it holds temps fantastically throughout a 60 minute mash while recirculating.)
-This meant that I then had less liquid available for sparging so I also had a LOT of sugar left.
I was also making a 5 gallon batch in a mashtun with a 13 gallon capacity so my grain bed wasn't very thick and the liquid ran through it very quickly -i also recirculated the sparge addition but I'm just using a hose and because of the significant amount of dead-space the liquid is NOT being even remotely evenly distributed on the surface of the grain bed.
I have a "perfect storm" for bad efficiency and I realize that, but I'm curious if there's anything that I can do with the system as it is currently to try and increase my efficiency.
(I'm going to brew a bigger batch next time and I'm going to try and get my custom false bottom finished as soon as possible but what else can I do?) -I'm not willing to implement a rotating sparge arm, but if anyone has some novel solutions for more evenly spraying my sparge additions, I'm all ears.
When you have a large amount of dead-space under your false bottom do you HAVE TO go with a looser mash or does constantly recirculating the mash mean that this just isn't an issue?
(I have a 5500w electric kettle so I can gather more wort than I need to get more sugar out and then run it full-blast for an hour to boil off more liquid, too; I think this will get me a few more points because my final runnings yesterday were 1.010 so I was leaving a LOT of sugar behind.)
Adam