Low efficiency on brew day - question

So this past sunday I went ahead and brewed this - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/chocolate-coffee-stout-chocolate-jitterz-35562/

Plugging this into brewtarget, I should have got around 1.073 at 72% efficiency. I ended up with 1.057 (taken from chilled wort, before adding yeast) instead, so about 56.5% efficiency.

My setup is here (man do I need to update these photos) - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-brew-stand-few-questions-318866/

Actually here is a better picture



My process was:

#1 heating up all water needed to about 168, draining the suggested 18.29 (so 1.25 qts/per lb) quarts of mash water to the mash tun.
#2 Mash for an hour, recirculating the entire time
#3 Drain the mash tun into the brew kettle, bnegin heating that water
#4 Drain remaining 4.5 gallons into mash tun and recirculate for a few minutes
#5 Drain mash tun into BK to get to 7 gallons pre boil.

As you can see I was planning on batch sparging. My question is, can I attribute the low efficiency to not giving the sparge more time before draining it into the BK?

How did you crush the grains? The biggest culprit i've seen for low efficiency is a bad crush. I've never seen 56% efficiency from a bad crush though.

What temperature was your mash resting at during step #2?

When I batch sparge I don't wait, I just dump the water in at around 170, stir it very well and run it through the spigot wide open. My last batch I got ~91% efficiency, from all the batches I've done the crush has the biggest impact on that number.

Did you stir the mash up when you batch sparged? If not check your crush and stir like a mad man next time

As long as you get all of the sparge water out before starting the next batch sparge you should hit about 85% efficiency. if you don't, then worst case you would be at 67% efficiency. Something else is going on here. Do you measure the actual mash temperature?

It seems like your process was fine. Minus the finer points of mash ph, which likely wouldn't account for that much difference anyways, I would say it's most likely a crush issue with the malt or, perhaps, a measurement error in terms of grain weight...

kblankenship11 said:

How did you crush the grains? The biggest culprit i've seen for low efficiency is a bad crush.

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I second this. Ever since I stopped using the mill at the LHBS and started using my corona mill, my efficiency has gone from 60 - 65 % to 75 - 80%.

I'll admit - the mash temp was a bit variable in the first 15 minutes (between 145 and 160), then I got my act together and it held around 152.

I have a barleycrusher at home that I use. I don't know exactly what the width between the rollers is set to right now, but I can check when I get home. Thinking back to when I got it, I did mess with the factory setting. ugh.

Would a wider adjustment increase efficiency or vice versa? Rather I guess is low efficiency a trait of too fine a crush or otherwise? Or is this something I just need to find out via trial and error?

Speaking of trial and error, would it be a reasonable way of testing the mill to do this -

#1 Mill 1 lb of grain
#2 Mash for one hour in 1.25 qt of water
#3 Take hydrometer reading

Repeat and adjust as necessary or would 1 lb of grain be too small of a sample size?

With all that recirculating is there a chance you could be channeling through your grain bed? That would nerf your efficiency.

Jeebas said:

I'll admit - the mash temp was a bit variable in the first 15 minutes (between 145 and 160), then I got my act together and it held around 152.

I have a barleycrusher at home that I use. I don't know exactly what the width between the rollers is set to right now, but I can check when I get home. Thinking back to when I got it, I did mess with the factory setting. ugh.

Would a wider adjustment increase efficiency or vice versa? Rather I guess is low efficiency a trait of too fine a crush or otherwise? Or is this something I just need to find out via trial and error?

Speaking of trial and error, would it be a reasonable way of testing the mill to do this -

#1 Mill 1 lb of grain
#2 Mash for one hour in 1.25 qt of water
#3 Take hydrometer reading

Repeat and adjust as necessary or would 1 lb of grain be too small of a sample size?

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The tighter the rollers, the better the efficiency, at the cost of risking a stuck sparge and a doughy mash. It's best to find a happy medium.

I've found that some malts are fatter than others so I have to tweak things a bit. 2-row is pretty consistent with specialty grains, I rarely have to touch it. The last floor malted bohemian pilsner malt I used was fatter and much harder than the 2-row I had been using. I had to widen my rollers to get them through and cracked, then tightened the crusher and ran them through again to pulverize the grain how I wanted it. After a while you will be able to just look at and feel the crush and get a good idea of how well it will mash. There are plenty of pictures on this forum to reference.

Just as a general comparison, I used to get about 68-71% efficiency with online and LHBS pre-crushed grain, without any difference in my process.

I think your test methods should work fine and give you a good idea of how to set your rollers. I'd like to see your results from that!

VTrookie said:

With all that recirculating is there a chance you could be channeling through your grain bed? That would nerf your efficiency.

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Maybe, but I am using a false bottom (I guess I should have mentioned that). Also I have hose running from the recirculation port that runs to a length of tubing in a circle with holes in it - it can kinda be seen here

I've never circulated during the initial infusion mash, I just stir every 15 minutes or so. I'm sure recirculation is intended to give you an extra few points in your efficiency but to me it's more trouble than it's worth. Same with fly-sparging vs batch-sparging. With older undermodified malts it was probably needed, but I haven't seen the need with todays grain. Maybe with your next batch you could try holding temp during the initial mash and just stir every once in a while.

kblankenship11 said:

Maybe with your next batch you could try holding temp during the initial mash and just stir every once in a while.

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Its worth giving a try I think I will.

I think I am gonna try that test, make a few mashes and then combine them for a small batch or something.

Jeebas said:

Thinking back to when I got it, I did mess with the factory setting. ugh.

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The factory setting on the Barley Crusher is generally kind of crappy anyhow. Mine wasn't even consistent across the gap. Once I locked in at .033" at both ends, I got great efficiency.

So I think this is what my experiment is going to be:

Three mashes - 2 lbs of 2-row each mashed with 2.5 quarts of water at 152 for 60 minutes

One batch crushed at .030", on crushed at .033" and one crushed at .035".

Mash em all and then take readings.

I realize that:
#1 This will only be mash efficiency and not brewhouse efficiency
#2 As I will be doing this on the stovetop with smaller pots it will not be representative of what my system will get - concerning issues of if the crush is too fine there being a stuck sparge.

I will probably then sparge each of them, combine and maybe make a 3 gallon batch out of it - I mean why waste the mash?

Please share your results after you finish the experiment. I've noticed pretty significant differences in efficiency related solely to the crush. But there's a trade-off in in lautering flow. When I crush fine, I'll get great efficiency but it'll drain painfully slow if I don't toss in some rice hulls. A coarser crush makes for easy lautering/sparging but less efficiency--it's all about finding that middle ground. This is one factor that the mini-experiment won't give you good insight into since it won't be done on your brew equipment and in the quantities you'd typically brew with. Still, I think your test is worthwhile, and you'll either have a mini-batch to show for it or a lot of wort for future starters.

cram said:

Please share your results after you finish the experiment. I've noticed pretty significant differences in efficiency related solely to the crush. But there's a trade-off in in lautering flow. When I crush fine, I'll get great efficiency but it'll drain painfully slow if I don't toss in some rice hulls. A coarser crush makes for easy lautering/sparging but less efficiency--it's all about finding that middle ground. This is one factor that the mini-experiment won't give you good insight into since it won't be done on your brew equipment and in the quantities you'd typically brew with. Still, I think your test is worthwhile, and you'll either have a mini-batch to show for it or a lot of wort for future starters.

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Will do. I plan on doing this at some point this weekend.

I just picked up a mini-feeler gauge to calibrate my mill yesterday ($3 from AutoZone). I went to set it and oh man, I must've messed with it before, because that gap was nowhere near .035" - much wider

One thing you can do to see if you are extracting all the sugars from the grain during mashing is look at this chart from braukaiser.com.
Once you are done mashing recirculate just to get the liquid from below the false bottom mixed throughout (recirculate maybe ~10secs) then take a gravity reading of the wort.
Look at the chart for the mash thickness you used and see if the gravity matches. If not, you know your weren't fully converted and something is wrong on that end (crush, temperature, pH, time, diastatic power, water/grist ratio, mash schedule)


On the other hand, it could be you're losing a lot of sugars when lautering. Follow the procedures under "Testing the lauter efficiency (fly and batch sparging)" to get an idea if this part of your process is where you are losing your sugars.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency


I did these tests the last time I brewed and and found I was having trouble with lautering.

I did this experiment Friday night / Saturday morning - I posted my results here - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/my-mill-calibration-experiment-385387/

Well, here's a doozy, so I did that experiment dialing in my mill settings and just today did an actual batch on my actual equipment. 3 15 gallon pots, mash tun has a MoreBeer false bottom with about 3 gallons of "deadspace" under it. So my mill was set to .030" and I did malt conditioning as well.

I did this Old Foghorn clone that calls for 21 lbs of 2 row, and 1 lb of 80L Crystal. I mashed with 6.875 gallons (1.25 qt/lb) got about 5 gallons from first runnings and then sparged with 180 degree water for the other 2.5 gallons. Pre boil came out to 18 brix (I took a sample and waited for it to get down to 68 degrees) which according to this should be 1.074. Post boil came out to be 1.075 with the hydrometer. Admittedly when I added the strike water to the mash tun, by the time I mixed all of the grain in the temp had dropped to the low 140s, so I turned the burner on under the mash tun until I got it sitting around 158 (which I figured that it would drop during the next 60 minutes but it really didn't). Mashed for 60 minutes once it was at 158 then sparged with 180, stirred like crazy then recirced til it was clear and ran off the remaining 2.5 gallons to the BK. Could the high mash temp have had an effect on my (ridiculously low) efficiency? Is it possible that for some reason I am not getting full conversion during my mash process? The wort tasted sweet as all, but should I be testing it with strips / iodine?

Or could it be that I am trying to do 5 gallon batches in 15 gallon pots?

I am reallly at a loss here - Unless I have Brewtarget configured wrong it is telling me that I just got 49% efficiency.

I guess I am gonna read this - http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency - again. Ugh.

3 gallons of dead space? Is that getting left in the lauter tun, or are you able to drain that out?

WoodlandBrew said:

3 gallons of dead space? Is that getting left in the lauter tun, or are you able to drain that out?

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no thats just the amount below the false bottom/

i usually leave about 1-2 quarts in the tun

After reading this - http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Understanding_Efficiency#Mash_thickness - I am starting to think that I need to experiment with a thinner mash ratio than 1.25 quart/lb. Maybe something in the realm of 2 quart/lb (to go from one extreme to another).

I am slowly coming to understand that AG is gonna be a lot more trial and error... oh well in the end, there's beer as a result of experimentation.

Mashing a lautering shouldn't have to be trail and error. The water to grain ratio doesn't effect the mash much, but it will effect the laugter. With the 3 gallons of space below the false bottom in your tun you probably need to give it a really good stir to disperse the sugar before opening it up.

In if you are getting 5 gallons of running 1-2 quarts left behind is a loss of about 5-10% in efficiency.

Keep in mind with a big beer like that (21 lbs for 5 gallons) that your efficiency is going to drop unless you use more sparge water. The problem with using more sparge water is that you have to boil longer to get the volume you need, and there comes a point where you're wasting dollars of fuel to save dozens of cents of grain. For example, Kal's Electric Brewery system gets 95% efficiency in general, but on a big barleywine, it dropped to 86% efficiency.

The reason is that you have less sparge water available (assuming you want a reasonable pre-target volume that you don't have to boil forever) due to requiring more strike water to maintain a reasonable liquor-to-grist ratio, so it's less effective in rinsing out the grain.

I'd suggest brewing a beer with a 1.040-1.060 OG rather than judging by a such a big beer.

latium said:

Keep in mind with a big beer like that (21 lbs for 5 gallons) that your efficiency is going to drop unless you use more sparge water. The problem with using more sparge water is that you have to boil longer to get the volume you need, and there comes a point where you're wasting dollars of fuel to save dozens of cents of grain. For example, Kal's Electric Brewery system gets 95% efficiency in general, but on a big barleywine, it dropped to 86% efficiency.

The reason is that you have less sparge water available (assuming you want a reasonable pre-target volume that you don't have to boil forever) due to requiring more strike water to maintain a reasonable liquor-to-grist ratio, so it's less effective in rinsing out the grain.

I'd suggest brewing a beer with a 1.040-1.060 OG rather than judging by a such a big beer.

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You are right. I suppose with bigger beers I can just plan on getting efficiency in the 50s and add more grain rather than having to boil for an atrocious amount of time.

I still have concerns that something I am doing (or not doing) is having a large effect on my efficiency. I stirred the %#$%# out of it at dough-in and then recirculated for the last five minutes of the mash, then after draining and then adding the sparge water I stirred it and then recirculated for another 5 minutes.

The first batch that I tried was supposed to be 1.072 (75%) and ended up being 1.057 (60%). This one should have been 1.114 (75%) and was 1.075 (49%). You see that's what I am worried about, is going to try a smaller normal beer and hoping for 1.050 and then getting 1.033.

Jeebas said:

You are right. I suppose with bigger beers I can just plan on getting efficiency in the 50s and add more grain rather than having to boil for an atrocious amount of time.

I still have concerns that something I am doing (or not doing) is having a large effect on my efficiency. I stirred the %#$%# out of it at dough-in and then recirculated for the last five minutes of the mash, then after draining and then adding the sparge water I stirred it and then recirculated for another 5 minutes.

The first batch that I tried was supposed to be 1.072 (75%) and ended up being 1.057 (60%). This one should have been 1.114 (75%) and was 1.075 (49%). You see that's what I am worried about, is going to try a smaller normal beer and hoping for 1.050 and then getting 1.033.

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I know thr feeling i recently shot.for 1.074 and hit 1.052. Im just thankful.i did a big beer instead of a normal beer.