E-HERMS--What kind of efficiency should I be getting?

So I've built a semi-automated cooler-based E-HERMS (based mostly on ideas stolen from these boards), and on my first mostly-successful brew day using my completed setup, I was slightly disappointed with my efficiency. So I thought I would go through my process, and someone might be able to tell me where I'm making a mistake.

I was doing a 6-gallon batch, grain bill just over 18 pounds. (19 counting the rice hulls--by the way, I added the rice hulls in dry; was that a mistake?) After making sure to stir everything really well, I set the pump to recirculate. My first rest was 122 (although I overshot by about 1-2 degrees) for 15 minutes. During this initial rest, I realized that my sparge arm had fallen from the cooler lid and that my pump was just shooting wort directly down into the grain bed. I fished the sparge arm out and put it back in place, and everything seemed to be fine.

When the 15 minutes were over, I ramped up to 149, which took about 40 minutes total. After letting the mash sit at 149 for an hour, I ramped up to 165 or so and then started sparging (at 170). After pumping sparge water in for maybe 12-15 minutes, I shut the pump off and let the wort continue draining into the kettle for another 15 minutes or so. When I had a little over 8 gallons (My kettle is wide, so my boiloff rate is high--and I was doing a 105-minute boil.), I stopped draining.

After boiling down to ~6 gallons, I had an OG of about 1.075. I was shooting for 1.090, which I would have gotten at 80% efficiency.

If you're still with me after that novel... what am I doing wrong? Did I sparge too fast? Did I recirculate too fast and cause channeling? Did I not mash for long enough? Any ideas would be appreciated.

As an aside: I wrote my own software to control my brewery using an Arduino. It's still a work in progress. (One day I'll automate the valves and figure out how to precisely monitor volumes and stuff.) It's a bit of a hack job, but if anyone's interested in this kind of system for an E-HERMS, you're welcome to the code. Just let me know...

Here's the control panel:

i'm running at about 70% if i'm calculating it right.

I've never bothered to calculate efficiency, but I did just brew 11 gallons of beer yesterday with my eHERMS and got 1.062 SG with 24 lbs of grain.

TB

It depends on the recipe- if you used all two-row, 18 pounds of grain should get you about 1.080 or so at 75% efficiency. At 70%, 1.075.

Why the protein rest? I'm concerned that you did a protein rest, and then took over 40 minutes to get up to the saccrification rest.

Thanks for the replies. From my calculations, I think I'm somewhere between 65% and 70%.

Yooper, the malt bill was mostly German pilsner malt, plus a little over a pound and a half of amber malt.

I did the protein rest, honestly, because I was following the BYO recipe for Dogfish Head 90 Minute, and that's what it said to do. I think I need a bigger element in my HLT--the 1500W I have in there now is a little slow.

utopeya said:

Yooper, the malt bill was mostly German pilsner malt, plus a little over a pound and a half of amber malt.

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That still does not answer Yooper's question. You can find domestic German style Pilsner Malts that are fully modified that can be brewed with a single infusion. What did the malt analysis sheet say? Was it undermodified or fully modified? My bet is that it was undermodified and the step schedule you used did not allow you to convert enough starch to sugar hence your low efficiency.

My malt was Weyermann Pilsner. I don't have the analysis sheet (I order my grains from Brewmaster's Warehouse, and they come pre-crushed and pre-mixed.), but the Weyermann site says it's "well-modified."

utopeya said:

My malt was Weyermann Pilsner. I don't have the analysis sheet (I order my grains from Brewmaster's Warehouse, and they come pre-crushed and pre-mixed.), but the Weyermann site says it's "well-modified."

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If the malt is well modified, a step mash robs the beer of it's body and head retention making a watery beer.

The following is from Palmer's "How to Brew"

Using this rest in a mash consisting mainly of fully modified malts would break up the proteins responsible for body and head retention and result in a thin, watery beer.

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If you don't mind be asking why did you think you had to use a stepped mash schedule?

For three reasons:

1. I didn't remember that from Palmer's book.
2. I didn't know about Weyermann Pilsner specifically, and I had read that German Pilsner malts were less modified than their US counterparts.
3. That's what the recipe I found said to do. (I've only brewed three batches so far, so I'm still a novice when it comes to things like this.)

Thanks again for your help.

utopeya said:

For three reasons:

1. I didn't remember that from Palmer's book.
2. I didn't know about Weyermann Pilsner specifically, and I had read that German Pilsner malts were less modified than their US counterparts.
3. That's what the recipe I found said to do. (I've only brewed three batches so far, so I'm still a novice when it comes to things like this.)

Thanks again for your help.

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I'm guessing you are making a pilsener? Pilseners and many lagers are supposed to be crystal clear, so I too would consider a step mash. Especially if you, like me some times, are getting chill haze in your beer. There are other means for dealing with haze, such as gelatin, but it too takes away from the beer. I am working on doing a wirlpool after the boil which may also help.

As long as you mash long enough and all the grain is properly soaked, a HERMS setup isn't going to get you higher efficiency. It's only for maintaining mash temp.

I'd suspect the sparge. How long did it take from start to end? That wasn't clear. It wasn't clear whether you fly sparged or batch sparged either. It sounds like you added a bunch of water quickly to the mash and then just ran it through quickly to the kettle?

What sort of mash manifold do you have?

Kal

My mash tun has a false bottom.

My guess is the sparge took about 30 minutes total. I was fly sparging, and I only had the water going to to the tun for the first 12-15 minutes. The rest of the time, I was just letting it drain. There was still a bunch of water in the tun when I stopped draining, but the liquid flowing into the kettle was almost completely clear. I never quite know how far to open the valves when I sparge... I'm not sure how slow to go.

utopeya said:

My mash tun has a false bottom.

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What kind? Just trying to figure out if there's something wrong that caused channelling.

M 2 cents: It's more important to get consistent efficiency than high efficiency. Grain is cheap. 80% efficiency is not "bad" by any stretch of the imagination.

Kal

utopeya said:

During this initial rest, I realized that my sparge arm had fallen from the cooler lid and that my pump was just shooting wort directly down into the grain bed. I fished the sparge arm out and put it back in place, and everything seemed to be fine.

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Did you re-stir the mash? This could have caused channeling.

Senor Wanderer,

I did not. I probably should have.

kal,

It's a 12-inch stainless steel false bottom. I bought it from Brewmaster's Warehouse.

Edit: Yeah, I'd be happy with 80% efficiency. But I'm at somewhere just over 65% right now, and that seems pretty low.

utopeya said:

My mash tun has a false bottom.

My guess is the sparge took about 30 minutes total. I was fly sparging, and I only had the water going to to the tun for the first 12-15 minutes.

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I batch sparge, so I am not sure, but isn't that an Uber quick sparge?

utopeya said:

My mash tun has a false bottom.

My guess is the sparge took about 30 minutes total. I was fly sparging, and I only had the water going to to the tun for the first 12-15 minutes. The rest of the time, I was just letting it drain. There was still a bunch of water in the tun when I stopped draining, but the liquid flowing into the kettle was almost completely clear. I never quite know how far to open the valves when I sparge... I'm not sure how slow to go.

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There is your problem. You simply are not rinsing the grain to get all the sugars out. The valves should be set to keep 1 to 2 inches of sparge water above the grain bed while draining your mash tun. You stop sparging when you have your desired volume in the boil kettle.

Sawdustguy said:

There is your problem. You simply are not rinsing the grain to get all the sugars out. The valves should be set to keep 1 to 2 inches of sparge water above the grain bed while draining your mash tun. You stop sparging when you have your desired volume in the boil kettle.

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Right, and slowly. It should take about 45 - 60 to sparge.

TB

A 30 min sparge when fly sparging is pretty fast (I typically go about 90 mins myself) but I'm still surprised at how low the efficiency is.

Kal

kal said:

My 2 cents: It's more important to get consistent efficiency than high efficiency. Grain is cheap. 80% efficiency is not "bad" by any stretch of the imagination.

Kal

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Just saw this. Wise words, Kal! On a homebrewing scale, the difference between 70% and 85% efficiency is maybe a couple bucks. What matters more is consistency, and the final product. I hear guys bragging about efficiency and want ask them what 92% efficiency tastes like. I get about 75% last I tried calculating, but I'd put my beers next to any 90+% in a comp any day. Because, really, what are we trying to accomplish here, saving money, or making good beer? (Props to anyone who does both.)

TB

Exactly. I get consistent efficiency with my setup from 3% to 9% ABV beers. That's the most important thing to me.

Ok, it is a high 93% efficiency too but I had to choose one, I'd have consistency than high efficiency only sometimes.

(I think my beers are pretty tasty too if I do say so myself... )

Kal

kal said:

Exactly. I get consistent efficiency with my setup from 3% to 9% ABV beers. That's the most important thing to me.

Ok, it is a high 93% efficiency too but I had to choose one, I'd have consistency than high efficiency only sometimes.

(I think my beers are pretty tasty too if I do say so myself... )

Kal

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That's awesome, Kal. Sounds like you're getting the best of both worlds.

What doesn't make sense to me is the people who chase numbers instead of flavors. I can understand if one is getting 60% or less and wants better, but just don't lose sight of why you began brewing at home in the first place.

Tiberit'sabouthavingfunandgoodbeerBrew

Tiber_Brew said:

What doesn't make sense to me is the people who chase numbers instead of flavors.

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Bragging rights.
Numbers are 'concrete' and easy to explain.

I contest that a lot of people who brag about efficiency are also not measuring it correctly also, making them completely meaningless. You can easily add 10% efficiency by measuring your grain incorrectly or your water volumes incorrectly. I'd argue that most people don't have the means to measure their water correctly so quoting efficiency is meaningless. In most setups it's easy to be off by half a gallon. You think you boiled down to 11 gallons and use that number when in fact it's actually 10.5 which results in a higher gravity so your efficiency is higher.

Kal

I consistantly hit 72% efficiency in my set up and, when i first started was not happy with that number... tried to bump it higher, and my beer's suffered. Now at 72% I am happy with the consistancy and am left to focus on other area's of my brewing like water...

I suspected I was sparging too fast... I'm still working out how to set my valves up so things go at the proper speed. Maybe I also had some channeling, but I'm not sure. I guess as I get my process down, this issue will work itself out. Anyway, the beer in the fermenter smells really good, so I'm excited about that.

Thanks everyone for the help.

kal said:

I contest that a lot of people who brag about efficiency are also not measuring it correctly also, making them completely meaningless.

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This is a great point, Kal. My efficiency dropped from 92% to 86% when I figured out how to read the hydrometer correctly. Not meaning to start an opinion war here, but I believe the hydrometer should be read at the top of the meniscus, and I had been reading it at the bottom. Depending on the specific hydrometer the two readings may differ up to .004 specific gravity. A reading of tap water at 60F opened my eyes to this error.

kal said:

Bragging rights.
Numbers are 'concrete' and easy to explain.

I contest that a lot of people who brag about efficiency are also not measuring it correctly also, making them completely meaningless. You can easily add 10% efficiency by measuring your grain incorrectly or your water volumes incorrectly. I'd argue that most people don't have the means to measure their water correctly so quoting efficiency is meaningless. In most setups it's easy to be off by half a gallon. You think you boiled down to 11 gallons and use that number when in fact it's actually 10.5 which results in a higher gravity so your efficiency is higher.

Kal

Click to expand...

+1000 I read a lot of posts where the BIAB and no sparge brewers brag about getting efficiencies of 85%+. I just say to myself "yeah, right". Anyone can claim anything but I am very happy with my consistent 78% efficiency and good tasting brews.

Quaffer said:

This is a great point, Kal. My efficiency dropped from 92% to 86% when I figured out how to read the hydrometer correctly. Not meaning to start an opinion war here, but I believe the hydrometer should be read at the top of the meniscus, and I had been reading it at the bottom. Depending on the specific hydrometer the two readings may differ up to .004 specific gravity. A reading of tap water at 60F opened my eyes to this error.

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Question... I know that most of the time efficency in our systems comes down to the crush of the grain... But... for you to be getting 86% efficiency, are you a Batch Sparge or Fly Sparge brewer?

I'm wondering if I should employ a Fly sparge set up now that I have my single tier set up working well...

I know I just said I'm happy with the 72% but at the same time I do feel that my system should be performing around the 75-80% mark.

Any tips and or tricks?

Bowtiebrewery said:

Question... I know that most of the time efficency in our systems comes down to the crush of the grain... But... for you to be getting 86% efficiency, are you a Batch Sparge or Fly Sparge brewer?

I'm wondering if I should employ a Fly sparge set up now that I have my single tier set up working well...

I know I just said I'm happy with the 72% but at the same time I do feel that my system should be performing around the 75-80% mark.

Any tips and or tricks?

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the truth emerges biggerbetterfastermore!

Bowtiebrewery said:

Question... I know that most of the time efficency in our systems comes down to the crush of the grain... But... for you to be getting 86% efficiency, are you a Batch Sparge or Fly Sparge brewer?
Any tips and or tricks?

Click to expand...

I fly sparge with the goal of a 60 minute sparge for a 7.6 gallon runoff. I usually come in at 50-60 minutes on the sparge. This then boils down to 5.5 gallon over 90 minutes.

When I first started all-grain in 2008 I had a terrible time figuring out where the bugs in the system were. I would miss the mash-in temperature, overflow the MLT with the strike-out, and run out of sparge liquor. I decided to weigh all the water used to eliminate sloppy measurements as a cause. Professional bakers weigh all their ingredients for consistent results, including water and yeast. Weight measurements are far more accurate and repeatable than volume measurements. I decided to standardize all water measurements at 60F. A given amount of water weighs the same at any temperature so it would not matter what the temperature out the tap was. At 60F one liter of water weighs 0.9990 kg. Here's a trick I use to convert the recepie's water volumes to weight. Go to google.com and put in for example "3.5 gallon * 0.999 kg/L" in the search bar and it will respond with 13.236 kg. This is the google calculator at work. I set the tare of the kitchen scale with a filled one gallon pitcher on it. Then after dumping the water into the pot I return the pitcher to the scale and read how much water I dumped in. The last pitcher I drizzle water into until it reaches the correct weight. I know this is really anal to be this particular, but I got used to it and it is pretty quick after some practice. It also solved all my consistency problems, except for the wheat beers.

I use a Corona grain mill. I learned from Brewkaiser here on HBT to pre-soak the malt before grinding it. I use 2% water by weight of the grain and let it soak for 20-30 minutes. This allows me to use a more aggressive setting of the mill without the husks being torn to shreds. I think you are right about efficiency being strongly dependent on the fineness of the grind.

I finally figured out where my wheat beer problem was. I had been grinding the wheat the same as the barley. Then I read Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing where he explains that he uses a Corona for his wheat, grinding it to a fine flour. Wheat does not have the husks to worry about so it can be ground fine. I think this is necessary for the diastatic power of the barley to reach into the wheat starch to convert it thoroughly.

Finally, it has been said many times, consistency is more important than efficiency. I certainly agree with this. Keeping track of the efficiency is an important step in identifying any inconsistency there may be. Like fuel milage for cars, it is an early indicator that something is off and needs attention.

Phew, I hope you are not sorry you asked.

One more detail. I use Beer Tools Pro to formulate all my recipes, even recipes I get from a reliable source like Jamil and John's book. This tunes the recipe to my equipment. BTP takes care of all calculations and volume temperature compensations so that I can focus on formulating the recipe and making accurate measurements. With good preparations I can hit the mash temp within one degree, and I have exactly 0.5 gallons of liquid left in the MLT at the end of the sparge.

Quaffer said:

One more detail. I use Beer Tools Pro to formulate all my recipes, even recipes I get from a reliable source like Jamil and John's book. This tunes the recipe to my equipment. BTP takes care of all calculations and volume temperature compensations so that I can focus on formulating the recipe and making accurate measurements. With good preparations I can hit the mash temp within one degree, and I have exactly 0.5 gallons of liquid left in the MLT at the end of the sparge.

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There's a compelling argument for using brewing software. I'm kind of old school still, and do most of my calcs by hand, and don't bother calculating irrelevant but useful data like sparge volumes. Using software like that would streamline my process, reduce variables, and help me dial in on some of my recipes.

I've only calculated efficiency a couple times, once with a trial version of software, and they were not the same. That was before I built the new rig. Perhaps I should make the leap to the 21st century now that I have the new rig and the ability to produce more consistent beers, and buy some software...?

TB

utopeya said:

I suspected I was sparging too fast... I'm still working out how to set my valves up so things go at the proper speed. Maybe I also had some channeling, but I'm not sure. I guess as I get my process down, this issue will work itself out. Anyway, the beer in the fermenter smells really good, so I'm excited about that.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Click to expand...

That has to be it. My first two beers on my new e-herms hit 80%, exactly where the last 50 batches I did in a cooler ended up at. This last one got away from me and I sparged way to fast, like 4 gallons in 15 minutes. I have never missed an OG by more than 2 points, this one came up 8 points shy.

Beer is ALL about the process, that's why I was so hesitant to change setups, there will be a learning curve. Damn you, mediocre transitional beers.

Tiber_Brew said:

There's a compelling argument for using brewing software. I'm kind of old school still, and do most of my calcs by hand, and don't bother calculating irrelevant but useful data like sparge volumes. Using software like that would streamline my process, reduce variables, and help me dial in on some of my recipes.

I've only calculated efficiency a couple times, once with a trial version of software, and they were not the same. That was before I built the new rig. Perhaps I should make the leap to the 21st century now that I have the new rig and the ability to produce more consistent beers, and buy some software...?

TB

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It certainly did the trick for me. Also I tried two programs to calculate efficiency. The results were different and neither matched my hand calculations. I figured that those guys must know something I don't so I picked one and let it do the calcs from then on. It is still enlightening to do the calculations once in a while to keep up with how it works.

I am really happy with Beer Tools Pro. It is inexpensive and it does a great job. It takes a little time to get the hang of, but now it makes perfect sense how it works.

I have a corona Mill sitting around and I could grind that into a fine powder on my next wheat beer. I'm thinking about doing a hefe soon.

I tried wetting the grains with a spray bottle once after reading Kai's brewing wiki page and I had a problem with grains sticking to the hopper... I'll certainly have to try it again, but to be honest... I havnt been super pleased with my Malt Mill.. I'm thinking about selling it and getting a Crankenstein 3D