Changing Coolers and Efficiency

I currently use a 5 gallon cooler with a false bottom and batch sparge. I am changing over to a 10 gallon cooler, false bottom and batch sparge. The crush will stay the same.

Any guesses as to a change in efficiency? I will be trying my first recipe in the 10 gallon tomorrow and don't quite know what to use for a system efficiency. With the 5 gallon I would usually hit in the high 80's so I don't know if I should just use those numbers when calculating my grain bill or undershoot it a little and worst case I will end up with a little higher OG beer than I wanted.

Any thoughts?

IMHO you wont see much of anything, just the normal deviations that you see when using the 5 gallon.

i don't know why your efficiency would change at all. It should stay the same if the false bottom is the same.

Thanks guys. That's what I am hoping for too. I just thought I would ask as I hate missing my numbers by more than a few points SG.

And now that I have the capability what about going from a 3 round batch sparge to a 2 round?

thevalkrye said:

And now that I have the capability what about going from a 3 round batch sparge to a 2 round?

Click to expand...

I think it has been proven that you only gain a few % points doing a DOUBLE over a SINGLE...

I cant imagine there is much difference between a DOUBLE and a TRIPPLE....

I think you are good.

thevalkrye said:

And now that I have the capability what about going from a 3 round batch sparge to a 2 round?

Click to expand...

I actually went back to a single sparge, the few extra points wasn't worth the extra time involved.

Thanks guys, once I quit staring at wilwest450's avatar I will try and make some beer.

I brewed today and came in 8% lower efficiency than usual average. I guess I will know for next time I use the 10 gallon.

Also it was harder to keep the temps up during the mash. I usually lose about 2ºF in an hour in my 5 gallon, but I lost 4ºF in the hour using the 10 gallon mash tun. I guess the larger thermal mass of the big cooler has a higher coefficient for heat loss. For 5 gallon batches anyways, doing a mash that uses more of the cooler space probably will have better results.

I have read that most of the conversion is done after 15 to 20 minutes anyways, so I wonder about how important maintaining that temperature is. Any of you guys that use recirculating systems notice any differences with that ability to hold a steady mash temperature for the hour?

More dead space in the 10 gal vs. the five gal? When batch sparging w/ a false bottom, can you really stir the liquid below the FB. Might help if you recirculate or vorlaugh a few gallons?? I'm a braid guy fwiw.

I usually vorlauf about a gallon, I am ok with my efficiency being what it is as long as I know what it is so I can adjust my recipe accordingly for the beer I want. I just wasn't expecting that much difference in my setups, and from the responses above I just thought I would post my results of my initial run.

Yes I think the dead space is part of the problem in keeping the temps up doing only 5 gallon.

I was reading last night and I found this quote from Cargill Malt

"It is well known that North American malt is higher in enzymatic power than British malt, but as a point of reference most domestic 2-row converts in 5-6 minutes assuming the malt is of good quality and is in good condition."

thevalkrye
2 things you can do if you aren't already:
Preheat the mash tun and let the temp stabilize
Make a floating insulator, like a round lid that fits inside the tun to keep the dead air space minimized.

Yes I preheat. I usually add my strike water as boiling water to my tun then let it stabilize for 10 minutes or so, then if I need to I adjust with cold water to reach my strike temperature.

The floating insulator is a good idea, but I think I might just stick with my 5 gallon tun unless I am doing a brew that will use the full volume of my 10 gallon setup.

My question now..is it really necessary to do a 60 minute rest at the rest temperature? If conversion is already done wouldn't only the temperature for the first 20 minutes or so be important? There will still be enzymatic activity happening but that will mainly be longer sugars being broken up to smaller chains right?

I can see if you want to make a highly fermentable extract or one with light body then a longer rest would do the job right? But why do we do an hour long rest as a rule at say 154ºF?