Moody_Copperpot
Well-Known Member
I've posted a few things now about efficiency and have gotten some good advice...but my efficiency is literally worse on every batch I brew. This last time I only got 56%...56! My recipe called for 8lbs American Two Row Pale, to make up for the bad efficiency I got last time, I bought 10lbs instead.
What I don't understand is that I've gotten 75% before, granted it was on lower abv session ales. On this last one I did all the things I was supposed to do. Here's the run down
-13.5 lbs of grain for an IPA. The projected OG range was 1.065-1.076, with 1.072 being 75% efficiency (I built a recipe on Hopville).
-Used 4.55 gallons strike water, mashed at 155 in Cooler MLT, didn't lose temp.
-Mashed for 90 min because I'd heard this would help efficiency.
-Yielded about 3.5 gallons.
-Used the .5lbs of water per pound rule for my sparge. As it turns out my pot wasn't quite big enough, so could only sparge with 5 gallons.
-My sparge when added to the grains was exactly 170. I let it sit for about 5-10 min. (Single Batch Sparge)
-Drained into kettle, took pre-boil OG, which was 1.0443.
-Used the a/b x (c-1) + 1 formula which for my purposes was 8.5/5.5 x (1.0443-1) + 1 = 1.068. I thought well hey, that's about 70%, not so bad.
Well then I ended up with 1.055 which is not so great. It will still taste pretty good, IBUs are at 53, and i'm on track to end up with a 6.5%-6.9% or so so it's not going to be a hopeless mess or anything, but what the hell is going on?
What I should've done was just gone with what I was doing before, and done a 7 gallon boil since I had bought the extra grain to make up for my less that desired efficiency last time. This time though, I did a little trial and error with boiling down 8.5 gallons to 5.5 in hopes of better efficiency,and using all the rules with the 1.4 quart per lb of grain for the mash, and .5 gallon per lb for the sparge. When all was said and done, I was left with nearly 6.5 gallons because I underestimated how much would burn off in the boil. I boiled for an hour before my first hop additions, so it was two hours total on the propane burner, but I guess that wasn't enough. Is it a safe bet that the main reason it was so low here is because I was left with a gallon extra of wort that didn't boil off that I had counted on boiling off?
My actual original recipe called for an OG range of 1.055-1.064, and as I said, I bought two extra pounds of grain in hopes of hitting that range. When I entered that into hopville though, it upped the OG range, so I missed the mark. If I'm adding grains to try and make up for efficiency loss (I am only about a month and a half into All Grain, by the way) should I not count that extra grain in my calculations? THis is the longest post ever, so I'm stopping now. Any words of wisdom would really be appreciated.
What I don't understand is that I've gotten 75% before, granted it was on lower abv session ales. On this last one I did all the things I was supposed to do. Here's the run down
-13.5 lbs of grain for an IPA. The projected OG range was 1.065-1.076, with 1.072 being 75% efficiency (I built a recipe on Hopville).
-Used 4.55 gallons strike water, mashed at 155 in Cooler MLT, didn't lose temp.
-Mashed for 90 min because I'd heard this would help efficiency.
-Yielded about 3.5 gallons.
-Used the .5lbs of water per pound rule for my sparge. As it turns out my pot wasn't quite big enough, so could only sparge with 5 gallons.
-My sparge when added to the grains was exactly 170. I let it sit for about 5-10 min. (Single Batch Sparge)
-Drained into kettle, took pre-boil OG, which was 1.0443.
-Used the a/b x (c-1) + 1 formula which for my purposes was 8.5/5.5 x (1.0443-1) + 1 = 1.068. I thought well hey, that's about 70%, not so bad.
Well then I ended up with 1.055 which is not so great. It will still taste pretty good, IBUs are at 53, and i'm on track to end up with a 6.5%-6.9% or so so it's not going to be a hopeless mess or anything, but what the hell is going on?
What I should've done was just gone with what I was doing before, and done a 7 gallon boil since I had bought the extra grain to make up for my less that desired efficiency last time. This time though, I did a little trial and error with boiling down 8.5 gallons to 5.5 in hopes of better efficiency,and using all the rules with the 1.4 quart per lb of grain for the mash, and .5 gallon per lb for the sparge. When all was said and done, I was left with nearly 6.5 gallons because I underestimated how much would burn off in the boil. I boiled for an hour before my first hop additions, so it was two hours total on the propane burner, but I guess that wasn't enough. Is it a safe bet that the main reason it was so low here is because I was left with a gallon extra of wort that didn't boil off that I had counted on boiling off?
My actual original recipe called for an OG range of 1.055-1.064, and as I said, I bought two extra pounds of grain in hopes of hitting that range. When I entered that into hopville though, it upped the OG range, so I missed the mark. If I'm adding grains to try and make up for efficiency loss (I am only about a month and a half into All Grain, by the way) should I not count that extra grain in my calculations? THis is the longest post ever, so I'm stopping now. Any words of wisdom would really be appreciated.