Maximizing Efficiency when Batch Sparging

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Efficiency...
I have a question concerning this topic. Does efficiency matter to the average home brewer? Can I just follow recipes without worrying about all these calculations? I'm far from a perfectionist and just wan to brew decent tasting beer for cheap.

This reminds me a lot of those cyclicsts "I call weight weenies" that spend so much money just to shave a few grams off their bikes.. Is this the same scenario? are brewers efficiency weenies or does it really matter to the average home brewer?

Thanks ahead for the comments!
 
It matters to AG brewers when they are trying to hit specific gravities and volumes.

The same recipe in 2 different systems could vary drastically. One at 85% eff. could end up with a beer at 7.5% abv while the other brewing with a 65% eff. would end up with a beer at 6.5% abv. using the same recipe. Knowing your efficency allows you to scale the original recipe to your system to end up with the desired end product.

And we are dealing with a balance of malt and hops, we really want to know what are gravity is going to be so that we can introduce the appropriate amount of hops during the boil. A lot of us are trying to hit targets when we brew and if we didn't know our efficiency, what's the point of actually measuring out the grains. Just guess at that point.
 
I think that as long as you are consistent with your efficiency number you are fine in being able to predict the outcome of your wort.

You are right that some people don't care about efficiency (hit 60% every time) and just spend a few extra dollars on grains for every batch. Nothing wrong with that but if I can change my procedure or spend $.30 to balance the PH in my water to save $3 on grains I'll do it. Also depends on your mashtun and how big of beer you are making. I can make a 10% beer at 65% or a 13% beer at 80%. Do I want to buy a new mashtun to make a 12% barleywine (or 10G of a 6%) or try to increase my eff.
 
Efficiency...
I have a question concerning this topic. Does efficiency matter to the average home brewer? Can I just follow recipes without worrying about all these calculations? I'm far from a perfectionist and just wan to brew decent tasting beer for cheap.

This reminds me a lot of those cyclicsts "I call weight weenies" that spend so much money just to shave a few grams off their bikes.. Is this the same scenario? are brewers efficiency weenies or does it really matter to the average home brewer?

Thanks ahead for the comments!

I'm a former sniper. Brewing with knowing my efficiency would be like me taking the shot without windage and range dope. I would more mash blind than I would fire blind. Of course if you put enough lead downrange your bound to hit the target at some point. But I want to make the shot the first time and every time. The more a can tune in my scope (efficiency) the better my shot (wort).
 
I just bought beersmith and am trying to get everything ready for my first AG batch on Friday. A couple things are giving me problems though so please give me some feedback so I can figure out the best thing to do. I am doing a 10 gallon all grain IPA and my confusion is on the mashout and sparge volumes that beersmith is giving me. In one case when I select a medium bodied single infusion it is telling me to mash with 37.5 qts at 165.2 F (cooler pre-heated) and then mash out with 21 qts at around 195. Then it says to drain all of that and then sparge with around 3 gallons. I feel like this isn't right because sparging with only 3 gallons doesn't seem like it is going to do much. The least amount of mashout volume it will allow me is 14.1 qts at boiling in order to get me to 168 F. This is still only leaving me 4.3 gallons of sparge. Should I just skip the mashout? I mean I have a 75 qt mashtun so I have the room to do the large mashout to bring it up to temp but is my efficiency going to suffer from such a small sparge? I feel like adding 5 gallons or less of sparge to 30 lbs of grain isn't going to do much but I have never done all grain so that is why I am asking. Any input or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Kaiser, I am interested to know more about your scenario of too high a boil-off rate causing 'thermal loading on the wort'.

I see from your linked wiki on batch sparging that this would 'burn' the wort which scares me !

I have a 15 gallon kettle which I bought in case I wanted to do 10 gallon batches, but I have actually made a mistake since I seem to only end up doing 5 gallon batches. But anyway, thats another matter... my concern now is that Im getting 25-30% boil off over an hour - presumably because the surface to height ratio of the wort in the kettle is higher than normal due to the wider kettle.

Do I have cause for concern ? what would the effects of this wort burn be ? just more melanoidins ? or other differences ?

I could boil a but more gently, but I reckon I would only get down to about 20% at best and still keep a rolling boil. Or I could buy a smaller kettle !

Thanks,

Craig
 
I have a question that Im sure there is an easy answer for that I just don't know so if someone wouldn't mind steering me the right direction on this recipe I am attempting I would really appreciate it. I'm going to make an Arrogant Bastard clone and I want to end up with about (7 gal) of wart because it's a 90 minute boil and I want (5 gal) when its done boiling. I'm going to be batch sparging which I think is about 75% efficiency according to my book. (this is my first attempt at an all-grain if you couldn't tell.) So first off if it calls for 16 pounds of grain and a desired OG of 1.071, is there a way to calculate how much water I need to sparge with to come out with 7 gallons of wart(since I'm assuming the grains will soak up quite a bit) and if I'm batch sparging do I need to increase my amount of grains? I grind them at my LHBS. Even after reading through a lot of the threads I'm still pretty confused on this
 
I have a question that Im sure there is an easy answer for that I just don't know so if someone wouldn't mind steering me the right direction on this recipe I am attempting I would really appreciate it. I'm going to make an Arrogant Bastard clone and I want to end up with about (7 gal) of wart because it's a 90 minute boil and I want (5 gal) when its done boiling. I'm going to be batch sparging which I think is about 75% efficiency according to my book. (this is my first attempt at an all-grain if you couldn't tell.) So first off if it calls for 16 pounds of grain and a desired OG of 1.071, is there a way to calculate how much water I need to sparge with to come out with 7 gallons of wart(since I'm assuming the grains will soak up quite a bit) and if I'm batch sparging do I need to increase my amount of grains? I grind them at my LHBS. Even after reading through a lot of the threads I'm still pretty confused on this

16lb total grain

16x1.5 (qts of water calculation)= 24 qtrs of water divided by 4(4 qts in a gallon) = 6 gal water for the mash

16x.125 (grain absorption calculation) = 2 gal of water absorbed by grains during mash

6-2= 4 gals of wort is what you should get from the mash

So 7 (total boil amount needed) -4 (wort amount already collected) = 3 gal of water needed to sparge with

Hopefully that helps you. You will should get about 4 gallons of wort from the mash then will need 3 more gallons to sparge with to reach your 7 gallon boil size. It might be a little more then 3 gallons depending on ur MLT setup and what not but this should get you started.
 
I have a question about hot side aeration.

I'm using a 5 gallon Igloo cooler as my MLT. I have a 5 gallon brewpot and a 6.5 gallon plastic bucket.

I want to lauter into my 6.5 gallon bucket because it is see through. This way I can pre mark 4.5 gallons of wort (for my 3.5 gallon batch) in marker on the outside and know when I have the right amount of wort.

However, I then have to get it into my brewpot to boil. Should I be concerned about pouring from the bucket into the brewpot as far as hot side aeration goes?

Would it be better to just lauter straight into the brew pot and mark out 4.5 gallons in tape and guesstimate the levels?

The other concern is that if I lauter straight into my brewpot then I have to heat my sparge water, then transfer it to the plastic bucket while I drain off my first runnings.
 
I decided to use masking tape on my 5 gallon brewpot to mark off gallons (on the outside) so I can know how much wort I've collected. I'll just use my plastic bucket to hold my sparge water after I heat it. The first runnings shouldn't take too long to collect and my water should stay hot.
 
1. I need a new thermometer
2. I need a grain mill
3. I need to figure a better way to mash rather than a 10 gallon cooler. I've tried and CAN'T get my temps right.
4. Would a piece of software help?
 
3. I need to figure a better way to mash rather than a 10 gallon cooler. I've tried and CAN'T get my temps right.

Are you using a round igloo or rubbermaid cooler? i have no problem with mine. i put the water in about 15 degrees more than my desired mash temperature and it sticks to within a degree or two for the whole 60 mins.
 
I batch sparge, and I find I get better efficiency (76-78%) with smaller grain bills (8-10 lbs). As the bills get bigger, I see a decline, stopping at around 68-70% when my mashtun is maxed out (17-??? lbs).

I figure the difference has to do, at least in part, with the fact that the smaller my grain bill is, the closer I get to raising my mash temp to 170 during the first runoff.

[Explanation, if needed: With a small mash I’m using less mash water and so I am required to add some amount of infusion water prior to my first runoff if I’m going to collect half my pre-boil volume with each runoff. I make an effort to get the mash as close to 170 as possible with that first infusion, and that usually results in an infusion of boiling water. I’d expect my efficiency in that first runoff to be higher the closer the mash is to 170. With session beers, I’m pretty much nailing 170. With monster mashes, there’s enough water in the mash already so I don’t infuse and my 1st runoff happens at whatever temp my mash finished. The second runoff happens under the same conditions regardless of grain bill size, so I it’s only in that first infusion where there’s a difference.]

That’s my theory, anyway. I do wonder if the amount of grain alone has an effect on efficiency as well, though it doesn’t seem like it should, otherwise professional breweries would be suffering hellishly low efficiencies.

Anyone else use the same practice I do and see the same results?
 
Nice write-up. I'm currently trying to validate some more of the points about extraction efficiency. In particular mash thickness, crush, mash-out and time. But that actually applies to fly and batch sparging.

Here is some info on what factors affect the lauter efficiency part of the brewhouse efficiency when batch sparging.

Kai

THAT WAS A GOOD READ,DIDNT UNDERSTAND IT COMPLETLY,BUT LEARNED ALOT ANYWAY:rockin:
 
16lb total grain

16x1.5 (qts of water calculation)= 24 qtrs of water divided by 4(4 qts in a gallon) = 6 gal water for the mash

16x.125 (grain absorption calculation) = 2 gal of water absorbed by grains during mash

6-2= 4 gals of wort is what you should get from the mash

So 7 (total boil amount needed) -4 (wort amount already collected) = 3 gal of water needed to sparge with

Hopefully that helps you. You will should get about 4 gallons of wort from the mash then will need 3 more gallons to sparge with to reach your 7 gallon boil size. It might be a little more then 3 gallons depending on ur MLT setup and what not but this should get you started.

Assuming the 1.071 OG that Shay was shooting for is it likely that sparging with only 3g of water would be enough to fully rinse the sugars out of the grain?

I ask mainly because I'm almost always brewing 6-8% beers and regularly was ending up with 55-70% efficiency depending on the batch. I was using the double batch sparge method Bobby came up with but even more so with 3g of sparge water being split in half... you can't bring your mash up to ~165-170 with 1.5 gallons of sparge water.

I got a grain mill recently and still didn't get above 70% until my last batch when I ignored my brewing software's sparge calculation and just sparged with a full 5g (2.5g x2 infusions) and then boiled 90 min to make up for the extra wort I collected. So I guess I really have 2 things I'm not sure about.

1) In general, is there some good way for figuring out how much sparge water you need to properly rinse all the sugars out that is based on your recipe's ingredients, target OG, etc? Most brew software seems to just accept your qts/lb of grain ratio and then calculate how much sparge water you need to hit your intended end volume...as far as I can tell it's not factoring in whether you've got enough sparge water to get consistent efficiency.

2) If you're in a situation where you use brew software to calculate your volumes and it spits out a small number for your sparge like <=3g are you more likely to get better efficiency if you do a single sparge than if you break it up and do the double batch sparge? That would be more likely to get you to ~170 at least.
 
I have a quick question on dead space/ left behind wort. My cooler is a little older and doesnt have the nice channel leading to the drain like some of the new ones, so i notice a decent amount of wort left behind as I scoop the grains out for cleaning.

Would i be getting some nasties if after collecting my last batch sparge to scoop the grains out of the cooler and collect those last few quarts left behind in the bottom for the boil?

I ask this because I did my first AG today and was way low, (61%) with a pretty good crush.

EDIT: I know this is not going to be the fix all solution (I missed my sparge temp as well) but am starting to look at small places to get a few points back.

Thanks
 
Personally, I would worry about hitting mash temperature and sparge temperature as desired and see what that does for your efficiency first. If you're still not where you want to be, *then* I might consider taking more extreme measures to raise my efficiency.

Brian
 
Would i be getting some nasties if after collecting my last batch sparge to scoop the grains out of the cooler and collect those last few quarts left behind in the bottom for the boil?

Assuming the dead space is below a false bottom, why not just create a dip tube to get almost all the wort out from each sparge without having to scoop out everything, etc.?
 
Even in batch sparging you may need to restrict the flow in order to prevent a stuck sparge. If the "natural" flow rate is to slow b/c of poor husk quality and/or lots of flour the grain bed can still set itself if to fast of a flow is forced. I used to be able to let it "rip", but that was when I bought the grain crushed and got only 75% efficiency. Now I mill finer but need to watch the flow rate.

You'll have to find the sweet spot yourself.

WRT to boil rate, keep it between 8 and 15% per hour. To much can actually hurt the beer as the thermal loading on the wort gets to high.

Kai


Could you elaborate on the thermal loading and negative effects? I have never heard of this until now (one day after I sparged too much on a beer and tried to compensate by having the most vigorous boil possible with my BTU limitations) so I am a bit worried. I was doing a ten gallon batch in a 15.5 gal sanke keg and never had a boil over but it was boiling very hard most of the time.... Is this beer in trouble? I didn't get a final volume but it was certainly a harder boil than I normally do...
 
I'm going to be doing my first AG batch later this week. I have decided to batch-sparge just due to equipment limitations. Following the conversion, should I stir the mash and let it settle again or just start draining right away? Also, how hard should the grain-bed be stirred? Are we talking a gentle swirling for a few seconds, or do I need to be scraping the bottom and turning it over?
 
I'm going to be doing my first AG batch later this week. I have decided to batch-sparge just due to equipment limitations. Following the conversion, should I stir the mash and let it settle again or just start draining right away? Also, how hard should the grain-bed be stirred? Are we talking a gentle swirling for a few seconds, or do I need to be scraping the bottom and turning it over?

Do not stir before draining. At the end of the mash time, you recirculate a few quarts until no grains or other particles are in the runoff. Then you drain, slowly so the mash doesn't get too compacted.

After you drain, put the sparging water in. Now you stir. Stir well, but without splashing to avoid oxygen from mixing in too much. But I would give it a good, solid, stirring, bringing up the bottom, turning it over, etc. The idea is to get to any sugars that may have been left hiding. Stir slow and steady instead of fast and furious. Then you recirculate again and drain.
 
I am new to all grain brewing and i need some help. I did not reach my original gravity that i was supposed to hit from my recipe. I was at 1.037 and the recipe stated it was supposed to be 1.049. What could be the reason for this? i was thinking that i did not crush my grain good enough. I used 6lbs of american 2-row, 1 lb of crystal and 2 lbs of wheat. i crushed the 6 lbs of grain and then mixed everything together. Then i preheated my coleman extreme mash tun with boiling water and then dumped that out. Then i added 2.8 gallons @163 and mashed in all of my grain to hit a target of 150 mash temp for 1 hour. I was at about 152 and i opened the cooler to let the temp drop a little. then i vorlaufed a few times and collected my wort. then i batch sparged 5.9 gallons @ 170 degrees for 20 minutes, vorllauf and then collected that. I brought it all to a boil and did a 60 minute boil. .5 oz centennial for 60 minutes, .5 oz centennial for 15 minutes and then 1 oz of centennial for last 5 minutes until flame out. chilled it down to 80 degrees and got a gravity of 1.037 adjsuted the dydrometer with the temperature. I ended up with around 5.5-6 gallons of beer. Any thoughts?
 
what you really want to know to help lock this down next time is your pre-boil gravity. That will let you know whether you've came out of mashing with the right gravity before you go into boil. Unless you know that then it could be due to not boiling down enough or not converting enough. My guess is the mash though.

A few things to think about:
- Look to get your pre-boil gravity from now on
- what was the efficiency for the recipe you had? Since you're new to AG, you'll need to figure out what your standard efficiency will be on your system. You could have done everything "right", but still have been off b/c your recipe assumes say a 75% efficiency and you got 70%
- When batch sparging, look to bring the grain bed up to 170 degrees. That means you'll need to sparge with hotter water (~185* usually). While you don't technically need to do a "mash out" when batch sparging, doing so usually gets you a few more points of efficiency and could have gotten you closer. Don't worry about extracting tannins since your grainbed isn't going higher than 170ish (and even if you overshot it, your PH would have to have been off for it to happen with any real concern). Check out Denny Conn and Bobby_M's articles on batch (and double batch) sparging
 
Thanks you for responding.
The recipe said it should be 75% efficiency, i am not sure what i am getting.
So i should strike to get the mash to 150 degrees, and then batch sparge with hotter water to get it up to 170 degrees?
i was thinking about letting the sparge water sit for an hour instead of 20 minutes. Is that a bad idea also?
 
Thanks you for responding.
So i should strike to get the mash to 150 degrees, and then batch sparge with hotter water to get it up to 170 degrees? i was thinking about letting the sparge water sit for an hour instead of 20 minutes. Is that a bad idea also?

Yes. You'll want to sparge with hotter water (typically around 185) to bring the grain bed up to 170 (from the 150 it was at). I've been letting the sparge water sit as well for about 15 min, but everything I've read recently has basically said there's no need to really let it sit at all. Your conversion is done - you're now just rinsing the sugars off the grain. It's much more important that you stir really well for a few min to get all the sugars in solution so you can then drain it out. Letting it sit won't hurt though if you choose to do that. Either way, stir very well.
 
I have done many experiments with letting the sparge water sit for various amounts of time, from 20 min. to no sitting at all. It made absolutely no difference. Same yourself some time and trouble and just stir in the sparge water, vorlauf, and runoff.

And in batch sparging, you're not rinsing the sugars out, you're draining them. That's why it's so important to stir before draining your sparge.
 
OK I am trying a blonde ale this weekend so we will see what happens with that. one more question.. should i be striking with more water then my sparge water? i felt like i was doing it backwards when i used less then 3 gallons of strike water and then used almost 6 gallons to batch sparge. or is this correct?
 
Use whatever ratio of mash water gets you close to 1/2 your total boil volume from the mash runoff. I usually use about 1.6-1.75 qt./lb. If your mash and sparge runoffs are estimated to be within a gal. of each other, that's close enough. If not, at the end of your mash time, add enough water to the mash to get 1/2 your total boil volume from the mash.
 
Yes. You'll want to sparge with hotter water (typically around 185) to bring the grain bed up to 170

One issue I have had with my fly sparge process is when I try to mash-out my 150&#730;grain bed with 185&#730; water I can never get it up to 170&#730;. I read a post recently that inspired me to just stop worrying and add boiling water. Which I figured was ok if I quickly stirred it into the grain. Or during fly-sparging I had at least a few inches of water above the grain bed and the grain wasn't exposed to temperature that high for very long. It was still a bit hard to keep that water temp high enough because too much heat is disbursed out the top of my igloo mast tun.

Has anyone added boiling water with adverse effects? Because as we all know if grain gets too hot you'll get tannins.

p.s. I noticed some whole kernels in my milled grain from the hbs. I wanted those grains to be put to use so I double ground it! I modified my tun filter to have greater surface area and I consistently get 80+%
 
That's great to know Denny, thanks!

One more thing. When I did this batch I was pretty fed up with my mash tun not keeping the temperature where I wanted so I mashed in a pot in the oven. I doughed in, did a protein rest for the heck of it and then brought it up to 153&#730;. My oven's lowest temperature is 170&#730; so I pre-heated it, put the pot in and closed the door. The thermal mass of the mash would be enough to keep from heating up with the oven off.

I had to go to work for 3.5 hours and I figured it be fine if the temperatures slowly dropped over that time because the 150's would maintain for at least an hour. My question is after the temp is brought up to scarification, any idea if the lower temperature enzymes will activate on the temperature decline? Or would they be denatured by then?

This is a pale ale, I wonder what the textures and body will be like!
 
Question on pre-boil gravity. Does the temperature of the Pre-boil effect the gravity and do you need to take that into account. I need with Original Gravity if you take it while it is still warm you have to account for that and change your gravity to based on temp.

The beer I just did (a rye pale) had a pre-boil gravity of 1.044 and my estimated gravity was much higher. My OG after my boil was less than estimated but not by as much. Is this just an efficiency problem or am I not taking temp into account correctly when measure my preboil gravity?
 
As with all gravity readings you need to adjust for temperature. There are a number of resources / programs that will do the adjustment.
 
For example - my hydrometer is calibrated for 60 degrees which means at 60*F the reading is exact. Outside of 60 degrees, the reading will be off and I need to adjust.

So for a 1.044 wort at 68*, the adjusted gravity is 1.045 (not a big difference), but for that same wort at 135* it's 1.059. In the case of pre-boil gravity, the runnings coming out of the mash and into the kettle are going to be pretty warm so you really need to figure out the adjusted gravity.

Knowing your correct pre-boil gravity (and pre-boil volume) is critical to the rest of the process in regards to hitting your targets. For example, if you know you typically boil off 1 gal / hr, you can easily figure out your expected OG and compensate with DME (to raise) or more water (to lower) if needed to hit your target. The gravity in the boil also affects the utilization of hops as well so hitting your targets allows you to replicate the recipe the way it was intended.
 
First off thank you for the information, this makes me feel much better about my efficiency on this latest batch. my hydrometer is calibrated to 68, and the wort was around 140 my pre-boil reading was about 1.038 Temp corrected is 1.053 and my expect was 1.057.

My question now moves to my actual OG. I finished with 5 gal of wort into my primary. Took my initial Grav reading and got 1.052 temp corrected to 1.054 which is much lower then my expected OG. I feel like something must be wrong here. Any thoughts?
 
So you're saying that your gravity readings (temp corrected) are 1.053 for your pre-boil gravity (4 points low) and your OG (aka after boil gravity) was 1.052? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. The boil should concentrate the wort, increasing the gravity significantly. The fact that your OG is lower than your pre-boil gravity doesn't make sense. A few things that are very important to think about here are:

- When taking a pre-boil gravity, it's important that all the runnings are well mixed. For example, the first runnings will be much higher than the final runnings.
- Make sure your equipment is working / calibrated properly (thermometer, hydrometer, etc.)

Not sure what's going on here to be honest.
 
My question now moves to my actual OG. I finished with 5 gal of wort into my primary. Took my initial Grav reading and got 1.052 temp corrected to 1.054 which is much lower then my expected OG. I feel like something must be wrong here. Any thoughts?

Did you happen to do a partial boil and top off with water?
 
Back
Top