thasnazzle
Well-Known Member
So we just switched over to all-grain and are having some issues with efficiency. I'm using Brew Pal for iOS (which is awesome) to do the math and have been using the default 75% efficiency setting. Both of our all-grain batches have come in well below what that 75% efficiency would predict. Yesterday we brewed a BPA with an expected OG of 1.048; after the boil we measured an OG of 1.032. I'm not a math whiz but I'm guessing that puts our efficiency around 50% (2/3 of the 75% predictor we used).
I'm trying to figure out where we're going wrong. Here's the process we're using:
- 60 minute mashes in a cooler mash tun. We are doing this on the cheap, so instead of spending like $75 on a false bottom we have been using huge grain bags. I think they're 23 x 25 in. bags from Austin Homebrew; we've been using one bag for ~10lbs of grain. I've included a picture of this below to give some perspective - bag covers the length and width of our cooler and the grain appears to be sitting pretty loosely in it.
- Our sparging process is something like this: we drain off the first runnings (that's the water that's mashed in, right?) and then add sparge water, draining that off while stirring the grains as much as we can to make sure it's all getting sparged. I'm not sure what kind of sparge this is - batch?
- all of the first runnings + sparge water go in the boil kettle. We do full boils.
I feel like I'm probably missing some really basic thing here. My best guess is that the grain bags might be too small for all the grain we're using and so we're not converting as well as we could be. I'm thinking to remedy this I might get a screen to fit through the inside of the cooler to use instead of mashing inside bags. Something like this: http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_82_88&products_id=12687
What do you think, HBT?
I'm trying to figure out where we're going wrong. Here's the process we're using:
- 60 minute mashes in a cooler mash tun. We are doing this on the cheap, so instead of spending like $75 on a false bottom we have been using huge grain bags. I think they're 23 x 25 in. bags from Austin Homebrew; we've been using one bag for ~10lbs of grain. I've included a picture of this below to give some perspective - bag covers the length and width of our cooler and the grain appears to be sitting pretty loosely in it.
- Our sparging process is something like this: we drain off the first runnings (that's the water that's mashed in, right?) and then add sparge water, draining that off while stirring the grains as much as we can to make sure it's all getting sparged. I'm not sure what kind of sparge this is - batch?
- all of the first runnings + sparge water go in the boil kettle. We do full boils.
I feel like I'm probably missing some really basic thing here. My best guess is that the grain bags might be too small for all the grain we're using and so we're not converting as well as we could be. I'm thinking to remedy this I might get a screen to fit through the inside of the cooler to use instead of mashing inside bags. Something like this: http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_82_88&products_id=12687
What do you think, HBT?