My first all-grain. What the heck is "efficiency"??

So I tried my first all-grain today. A one gallon batch. 1.8 lbs of grain in a mesh bag and...

Target Original Gravity: 1.057 (which includes 1/4 cup honey and 2 oz belgian candy)
My Original Gravity: 1.034
Calculated Original Gravity at 100% efficiency according to calculator 1.071.

Calculator says: My efficiency was 45.1
Recipe says: Its efficiency was 70%

Is this bad? What should I have done to make it better? And how can I tell during mashing how I am doing?

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FWIW grains were 1.35 lb U.S 2-row pale, .1 lb crystal 10, .1 lb crystal 20, .1 lb american victory, .15 torrified wheat. Plus 1/4 cup (2 oz) honey, 2 oz belgian candi.

Kai explains things much better than I could:

Understanding efficiency

also there is this and lots of other helpful articles on the site

What I'm really asking is how badly did I **** up? And how could I have avoided ****ing up so badly. This is going to be #### beer and I'm just spending too much time and money for #### beer.

Well, you're going to have a much lower gravity beer, and it may be out of balance because of it. It's still going to be beer. As to how you could have avoided it we can't tell you without lots more info, so we need to do some troubleshooting. Many folks go through this when they start all grain. I tried to link you to some resources to start helping you figure it out. Did you take a look at those?

If they are too long, try this. If you spell out more of your process folks can help, like how do you mill, what was your mash process, temps, etc. Do you trust your measurements - temp corrected, calibrated, etc.

Okay. Sparging too quickly was probably my fault. Is there any way to test the gravity while you are mashing?

Not really. The way that I do it, and most other home brewers, is to just wait until you drain to the kettle to get your final efficiency. Also Batch Sparging is a big help for us new AG brewers, it's a LOT harder to screw up a batch sparge than a fly sparge

A safe bet for the future though, is to set your efficiency to 75%.

woozy said:

Is there any way to test the gravity while you are mashing?

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Yes, you're talking about checking your conversion efficiency. You can take a gravity of the mash liquid after completing your mash. There is a table about halfway down kai's troubleshooting guide (second link in my first post) that tells you what the gravity of the first wort would be for a given mash thickness if you had 100% conversion.

First be sure to recirculate and check that you're not having any measurement errors as is described in the article.

You can, you get a refractometer and take a few readings during mashing and calculate the gravity points.

e.g. if your first mash wort collected is 1.050 and you get 3 gallons, and you sparge once and it's 1.025 and 3 gallons, you have
(50 X 3) + (25 X 3) = 225 gravity points
total volume is 6 gallons, so divide 225/6 = 37.5 gravity points

so 1.0375 is your OG.

If you wanted the OG to be 1.050 you would have to just take your first runnings as any sparging will dilute the wort.

fizgig said:

If you wanted the OG to be 1.050 you would have to just take your first runnings as any sparging will dilute the wort.

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But my first runnings are only half the volume I want?????

So basically my question is how the heck do I get the most of my sugars out and why the heck did I fail so miserably at it?

woozy said:

But my first runnings are only half the volume I want?????

So basically my question is how the heck do I get the most of my sugars out and why the heck did I fail so miserably at it?

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Can you tell us what you did? Like "I used 4 quarts of water at 159 degrees in the poorly crushed grain, which was loose in a bag"? In order to help we really need every detail, even though it seems tedious. If you have the crushed grain tight in a bag, for example, the mash will be inefficient.

We need how much liquid, the temperatures, how you did everything, how the crushed looked, etc- no detail is too small!

We'll get to the bottom of this, so try to not sweat it too much right now!

Yooper said:

Can you tell us what you did? Like "I used 4 quarts of water at 159 degrees in the poorly crushed grain, which was loose in a bag"? In order to help we really need every detail, even though it seems tedious. If you have the crushed grain tight in a bag, for example, the mash will be inefficient.

We need how much liquid, the temperatures, how you did everything, how the crushed looked, etc- no detail is too small!

We'll get to the bottom of this, so try to not sweat it too much right now!

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The bag did seem too tight. Made a point to not use a bag next time.

Used 2 quarts of water. Placed grains in a bag that looked a little small to me but the LHBS guy said would hold about 2.5 lbs (and if I did my math right I filled with 1.8 lbs of grain). The mill at the LHBS had only one setting so far as I could tell. The grains looked properly ground to me but what the **** do I know? Let the water get to 148 and put in the grains. I couldn't really stir the grains 'cause they were in the stupid bag but I shoved them about and whacked 'em with me metal spoon. Had a ***** of a time keeping the temperature steady. Alternated between turning off the heat and turning the heat to simmer. (I should have covered with a lid, huh? Well, I didn't.) Still for the hour the temp ranged fro 140 to 160 but mostly at 150. At the end of an hour heated 1 gallon of water to 172. Lifted the grains and put them into a steamer/strainer section over the runoff water and let them drip. Took the 172 water and slowly poured them over the grain bag. By slowly I mean it took about 3 or 4 minutes (which I now think was way too fast). Moved the steamer/strainer section to the now empty pot and took the collected liquid and poured over the bag again again for 3 or 4 minutes. And then I squeezed the bag. (Yeah, that's right... I'm a bag squeezer!)

Then I did my boil (raised to a boil, added hops, etc.) Turned off the heat and did the late additions (Homemade Belgian Candi, Honey, and roasted grapefruit peel) cooled. Lost a bit to evaporation. (Me and lids; long time enemies). Topped off about a quart, maybe less to get to the pre-marked gallon mark on my fermenter. Took the Hydro reading of 1.03 with the wort at 92 degrees and guestibrated to 1.034 for the 60 degree calibration.

So I'm thinking first of all the bag was tight. (I really didn't like that I couldn't get in and stir the dang thing like oatmeal.) But .... well. I don't really have any sense of technique. (It *seemed* like sparging wasn't enough but left to my own devices I would have squished and stirred the heck out of it during the mashing part so what do I know.)

That helps!

Next time, use 2 quarts of water per pound of grain. So, more water for sure. And a warmer temperature to start. If you start with water at 165, then add room temperature grains, that should get you right in the 150-155 range for the whole time.

Use 2 or more bags, so that the grains are very loose and free flowing.

check the temperature with a good thermometer. Then cover it all up with a sleeping bag, or in a warmed (but turned off) oven for 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes, lift up the grain bag(s) and put them in a colander over your brew pot. Pour 170 degree water over the grains to rinse them until you reach your boil volume. It doesn't have to be slow, just try to smoosh the grainbags flat-ish and pour the water over. And go ahead and squeeze if you want!

That should make a big difference- more volume and better conversion will help you hit your desired OG.

Go buy yourself a pkg of 5 gal paint strainer bags for your grain bag next time. It will hold enough grain to even do a low gravity 5 gallon batch. They are cheap and reuseable. You can get them at any hardware or home improvement store. Read up on BIAB and that will help you with your process.

Yooper said:

That helps!

Next time, use 2 quarts of water per pound of grain.

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That much? I had read the rule of thumb was 1.25 to 1.5 quarts per pound but if you say so.
[/quote]

Use 2 or more bags, so that the grains are very loose and free flowing.

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I'm thinking as I'm forgo bags altogether for small 1 gallon batches and using a strainer. Might be hard to find a strainer large enough for a 2 gallon batch, though. So maybe 4 bags for a 2 gallon batch? Paint strainer bags from a painting store, I believe you said on another thread?

After 60 minutes, lift up the grain bag(s) and put them in a colander over your brew pot. Pour 170 degree water over the grains to rinse them until you reach your boil volume.

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Boil volume.... Theoretically, how small can boil volume/batch size get. My cooking pots are basically 2 gallon ones so this is fine for 1 gallon batch (where my boil size can account for evaporation and be as high as 1 1/2 gallons) but if I wanted a 2 or 3 gallon batch but used only a 2 gallon boil size would I get enough sugar from the grain with so small a sparge?

Anyway, thanks a million. I'll try again next week (and maybe with some DME on hand for an adjusted in the end if need be).

bell0347 said:

Go buy yourself a pkg of 5 gal paint strainer bags for your grain bag next time. It will hold enough grain to even do a low gravity 5 gallon batch. They are cheap and reuseable. You can get them at any hardware or home improvement store. Read up on BIAB and that will help you with your process.

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I see it as a matter of being OUT or IN. A 5-gallon paint bag in essence coats your cooking vessel and thus you are IN the grains and have direct access to your cooking. I like that. The grain bag I used was in essence a tea bag and I was OUT side the grains and that kind of bugged me.

Thanks. This is a good idea.

Yep, the 5 gallon paint strainer bags are great and usually cheaper than what you get at the LHBS. I use them for my all grain 3 gallon batches. Regarding your boil volume question, you can do a partial boil and top off with all grain but that is going to make your efficiency suffer even more, as you point out because of less sparge water. I do my 3 gallon batches in a 5 gallon pot.

You can also try batch sparging if you have a second pot with your sparge water. Lift the bag out after your mash and squeeze well, then dunk it in the heated sparge water and stir it up really well. Lift and squeeze again then combine the two pots.

Lastly I noticed you topped off before your measurement, make sure to mix really well or you can get an artificially low reading. When using a hydrometer I also like to let the sample cool to at least under 80 degrees, I don't find the correction factors always work for hot wort.

To check on conversion take a small sample of wort on a white plate and look to see if it is cloudy, (that's starch) keep it in the temp range for a while longer and check again, when the cloudyness has gone you will have achieved a better conversion of starch to fermentable sugars.

I guess I shouldn't have mentioned efficiency. I'm fine being inefficient (for now) as long as I'm in the right ballpark but when I'm not even in the same time zone... well, I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

FWIW, here's my spent grain bag so you can see it was too small and packed too tightly. (Grains swell with water but even so...)

woozy said:

What I'm really asking is how badly did I **** up? And how could I have avoided ****ing up so badly. This is going to be #### beer and I'm just spending too much time and money for #### beer.

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RDWAHAHB. I've been in this pastime for five years, never calculated my efficiency or had a second thought about it. Beer is great.

rico567 said:

RDWAHAHB. I've been in this pastime for five years, never calculated my efficiency or had a second thought about it. Beer is great.

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Yeah? But have you ever had an O.G of 1.03 when it should have been 1.057?

Well, maybe it could have been worse...

It's quite possible that you didn't do as badly as you seem to think.
You said in post 11 "Topped off about a quart, maybe less to get to the pre-marked gallon mark on my fermenter. Took the Hydro reading of 1.03"
As chickypad said, topping off wort without mixing adequately can result in apparently low gravity readings. If you didn't stir enough before taking the gravity sample, it is quite possible that you really had a gravity of 1.057, but it looked like 1.030 because it wasn't mixed enough.

-a.

I mixed. I picked up the carboy and shook vigorously.

Just took another reading. It's definitely only 1.03

In all grain you shouldn't be topping off. You should be sparging 170 degree water to reach the boil volume. That may not account for a .02 miss but it will get you several additional points.

One thing I learned quick when I switched to all grain was calculating boil volume. Even when I miss by a title bit I never top off, just suck it up that I have less beer.

Grain crush plays a HUGE role in your efficiency also. Using a paint bag or some other fine mesh you can get away with a finer crush than with typical all grain systems. This can help your efficiency.

bacchusmj said:

In all grain you shouldn't be topping off. You should be sparging 170 degree water to reach the boil volume.

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I had huge evaporation. 2 quarts mashing plus 1 gallon sparge = well over 1 gallon boil (didn't measure but at least 5 quarts). But I didn't cover and ended with roughly 3 quarts.

No topping off? But less evaporation, true?

Well...

Followed up a bad all-grain with a near flawless 2 gallon extract batch. Got a low gravity reading for that too. Then realized I forgot to add the DME. Ooops. Added it and gravity got back up there. Nice to follow incompetence with decent execution...

Your result makes perfect sense to me based on your process. Mainly...that bag was way too small. As mentioned above, get the 5 gal paint strainer bags (they are really cheap!). When you dump the grain in stir the snot out of it! Otherwise, all the grain in the middle is not being exposed to the water during the mash.

The method that works for me for 5 gal partial mash and 2-3 gal AG is I mash 1.25-1.5qt water/lb grain in a 5 gal paint strainer bag in a cheap 12 qt stock pot. I pre-heat my oven to 170 (lowest setting) then after stirring the snot out of my grain, turn the oven off and toss the 12qt pot in for 45-60 mins. I typically only lose 2 deg. in a hour.

During the final 15-20 mins of the mash, I put my big brew kettle on the stove and heat up my sparge water which is the rest of the water volume I need for the batch. I yank the grain bag out of the small pot and dunk-sparge it in the kettle for 10 mins (stirring the grain after it goes in).

When that is done, take the bag out, squeeze the juicy-goodness into the kettle. Add the first runnings and start the boil. My efficiency is typically 80-90%

Thanks strambo and yooper.

I guess my only question at this point is predicting boil size and predicting evaporation rate. I guess that will ultimately be a matter of trail and error. But assuming negligiable evaporation during mashing the only water loss is that retained in the grains what's a reasonable assumption for water loss.

(I'm thinking to get a 1 gallon batch = 1 1/4 gallon boil size = 1 1/2 gallon of water - 1 quart of water absorbed by grains = 2 qt/lb * 1.85 lbs + sparge water = 3 1/2 qts mash water + 2 1/2 qts sparge water.

(Am I in the ball park?)

Also, should you really not top off? I kind of figure if I get evaporation I'm in essence making a concentrate...

Would it be reasonable to assume that for a gallon batch if I had 1.85 lbs of grain that I'd want a 1 1/4 gallon boil size and that 1 quart of water would be absorbed by grains? And thus I'd want 3 1/2 quarts for mashing (2 quarts/lb * 1.85 lbs) and 2 1/2 quarts for sparging would yield

1/2 qt per lb is a good estimation for grain absorption - so yes about 1 qt in your example. As far as topping off, you can do it to account for evaporation but the better way would be to predict your boil off more accurately and sparge more to get the extra starting volume rather than needing to top off. If you measured on your first batch you should know your boil off rate. It should be constant for a given pot diameter, assuming negligible differences in humidity, air flow, amount of flame applied etc.

Edit: I just saw you didn't measure your starting boil volume this time. Do that on the next batch so you know the boil off rate. Then your total mash + sparge water = target end volume + boil off + absorption to grain.

I also didn't use a lid.

What I will do next time (although I'm not sure when next time will be or whether it will be 1 gallon or two gallon. [I have 2 two-gallon fermenters {well, 3 but one I keep reserved for a bottling bucket} and one one gallon for the odd batch. For my first all-grain I thought I'd start small so it was an odd batch and now it's in use for probably two weeks. It was also my christianing of my new 1 gallon system {a Carlo Rossi bottle. Ha! Love it!}]) ... what I'll do next time which I didn't do this time is a) use a lid and b) measure my post mash and c) take pre-boil gravity readings (not something I intend to make a habit of but something I figure I should do until I perfect my mashing technique) d) predict 1 quart evaporation.

Will evaporation be dependent on pot size rather than boil size? i.e. should I expect the same total evaporation whether doing 2 gallon or 1 gallon boil if I use the same pot? Hmm maybe it's more like 2 quarts. Well, I'll figure it out. I could try simply boiling a gallon of water for an hour...

As I'll expect some evaporation I should expect any pre-boil gravity to be lower than post boil, correct? Will it be straight linear? e.g. a gallon and a half at, say 1.03 = .03 to 1 = .045 to 1 1/2 = 1.045 when the two quarts are lost to evaporation?

woozy said:

I also didn't use a lid.

What I will do next time (although I'm not sure when next time will be or whether it will be 1 gallon or two gallon. [I have 2 two-gallon fermenters {well, 3 but one I keep reserved for a bottling bucket} and one one gallon for the odd batch. For my first all-grain I thought I'd start small so it was an odd batch and now it's in use for probably two weeks. It was also my christianing of my new 1 gallon system {a Carlo Rossi bottle. Ha! Love it!}]) ... what I'll do next time which I didn't do this time is a) use a lid and b) measure my post mash and c) take pre-boil gravity readings (not something I intend to make a habit of but something I figure I should do until I perfect my mashing technique) d) predict 1 quart evaporation.

Will evaporation be dependent on pot size rather than boil size? i.e. should I expect the same total evaporation whether doing 2 gallon or 1 gallon boil if I use the same pot? Hmm maybe it's more like 2 quarts. Well, I'll figure it out. I could try simply boiling a gallon of water for an hour...

As I'll expect some evaporation I should expect any pre-boil gravity to be lower than post boil, correct? Will it be straight linear? e.g. a gallon and a half at, say 1.03 = .03 to 1 = .045 to 1 1/2 = 1.045 when the two quarts are lost to evaporation?

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Yes. In the same pot, you can start with 5 gallons or start with 1.5 gallons. If you boil off 1 gallon per hour (the common amount), that would be static and not change whether you start with 2, 4, or 5 gallons.

You should plan on about 1 gallon per hour for a normal boil off if you've got a nice rolling boil, more or less.

Also don't boil with a lid, DMS needs to boil off. The gravity calc is very simple, not sure I understand your wording of it but yes 1.5 gallon of 1.030 wort boiled down to 1 gallon will give you 1.045. Spelling it out:

V1 x G1 = V2 x G2

where V is volume and G is gravity in pts

Well as my largest pot is only 3 gallons filled to the very top, that will be hard for 2-gallon batches but I'll try. (there's always partial mashes... They just seem the *hardest* of all three 'cause they require juggling the other two methods.)

Remind my what DMS is again.

Thanks for everything.

By "gravity in points" I assume you mean "with the 1 taken off". (e.g. 1.03 ~ .03 and 1.045 ~ .045)

[My reasoning went: 1.03 means it a gallon of the stuff weighs 1.03 times as much as water and the difference is the amount of sugar; x amount of sugar makes the water weigh 3% heavier. A gallon and a half of sugar would have 1.5 x amount of sugar. This remains when boiling down to a gallon. Since x amount made a gallon 3% heavier, 1.5 x will make a gallon 4.5% heavier; So this gallon will weigh 1.045 times as much as water; or will have a gravity of 1.045.

....
[Or, in other words, V1 x G1 = V2 x G2 which would have been a much simpler way of expressing it...]

woozy said:

Remind my what DMS is again.

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DMS = Dimethyl Sulphides. Leads to a vegetal flavour/aroma in the beer. More prevalent in paler grains, due to them being malted/roasted at lower temps than others. A vigorous boil, without the lid in place, to allow them to vaporize and dissipate is the suggested method for avoidance. Also, cooling as quickly as possible after flameout helps to lessen the chances of DMS precursors remaining.

DMS
(Ogri beat me to it)

1.030 is 30 gravity pts

chickypad said:

DMS
(Ogri beat me to it)

1.030 is 30 gravity pts

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A bit like interest rates. (7% vs. 1.07 for base calculations.)

So, I've never done a partial mash but I suppose if I totally fail to get near the proper gravity due to mashing I could always up it with DME, right?

Let's see ... goes to online gravity calculator ... roughly .23 lbs DME per 10 gallon-gravity point?

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ex. If I totally fail a *second* time and get an O.G. of 1.030 on a two gallon batch when I wanted 1.058... I'm off by 28 gravity points. 2 * 2.8 * .23 ~= 1. 3 lbs of DME to get it up there..., right?

... I'm going to have to buy a bigger pot if I want to do two gallon batches. *sniff* ... just measured my pots and my biggest is 2 gallon (two inches from top). ...*sigh*...