critique my mash / lauter process

My efficiency is the suck. I can't get decent efficiency to same my life. Here is my process, with as much painstaking detail as I can put in:

Ingredients:
8lbs domestic 2-row
2lbs vienna
.5lbs 10l crystal malt

equipment:
5 gallon igloo with braided ss hose for a filter.

Process:
1) heat up igloo with 5 gallons of 150 degree hose water
2) dump out hose water, fill igloo with grain.
3) add 2.5 gallons of 165 degree water. stir. take temperature at 159 degrees. I am using one of those thin yellow thermometers with red alcohol in them. I push that thing almost all the way to the bottom to take the temp.
4) add about .5 gallons of room temp water. stir. take temp at 156 degrees.
5) put on cap and let mash for 1 hour. Temperature drops during this time from 156 to 153.
6)start running the mash out of the cooler. Return first quart because it is murky.
7)complete running the mash out of the cooler in about 10 minutes. Return all of the wort to the top of the lauter tun. stir.
8) start running the wort back out of the cooler. return first runnings to top of the cooler because they were murkey (about half a gallon) 2nd time I ran the mash out into brew kettle it took about 10 - 15 minutes. gravity is reading about 1.080 at 120 degrees at this point.
9)fill lauter tun with 2 gallons of 170 degree water. stir. wait 5 minutes. turn ball-cock about 75% open. return murkey first runnings of wort to top of the cooler. drain for about 15 minutes.
10)repeat step 9 with 2 more gallons of water.

Proceed to boil

At this point, my mash / lauter process is about 70 minutes, and I have a brew pot with about 6 gallons of water in it, gravity at 1.040.

Missed target gravity of 1.050 by a mile.

What am I doing wrong?

Pretty frusterated at this point, as this is the second batch in a row where my gravity is way, way low.

I'm thinking about just increasing my grain bill by about 50%.

everything looks ok to me. the only thing we can not see is your crush. Try getting the grain ground a littler better then check eff. I bet that is your problem.

Was 1.050 your pre-boil target gravity or your post boil target gravity? Everything you're doing sounds pretty good so as Reverend JC mentioned I would look to your crush.

A quick look at this and things seem ok.

Your grain to water ratio seems off for the mash though. With 10.5 pounds of grain you should have 3.2 gallons of water for your mash (1.25qts/lb).

But from reading your post, I think you are misunderstanding how efficiency is calculated. You need to know what OG is AFTER the boil, not before. If you were at 1.040 at 6 gallons, your gravity would be very close to 1.050 at 5 gallons.

Thanks for the feedback.

My beer is being crushed at the homebrew supply store in Houston.

I don't have a crusher, so I am kind of at their mercy. If my process is good, maybe the increased grain bill is the way to go.

In the mean time, I think I am going to buy some pre-crushed grain from a different store, and see if that makes a difference.

As for my gravity increasing during the boil, my gravity post boil only increased to about 1.042 after I added a little water to get up to 5 gallons. I'm correcting for temperature. Am I just reading my hydro wrong? Is there any other reason that my post-boil gravity would not have increased by more than that?

I didn't see anything in your process about PH. I believe having the proper PH can help efficiency. I use a scoop of 5.2.

I don't quite understand step 7. Could you explain that a bit further? I must be reading something wrong. Thanks!

casper0074 said:

I didn't see anything in your process about PH. I believe having the proper PH can help efficiency. I use a scoop of 5.2.

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If you're down around Houston, you DEFINATELY need to consider the water chemistry. The water is extremely alkaline. Here in CS, it's off the chart. Have you checked your water report? The 5.2 buffer will go a long way (although I'm not sure if it's enough here) to getting your mash pH right. Without it, the enzymes have a hard time converting the starches to sugar. It can also cause your beers to have a very astringent bitterness to them.

Yooper Chick said:

I don't quite understand step 7. Could you explain that a bit further? I must be reading something wrong. Thanks!

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And step 8? A second mash out? I don't understand at all. Could you walk me through both of those steps? I think I can figure out some ways to make this work.

To add to the lots of good advice already given, here are a few other things to consider (in case you hadn't already):
- check your thermometer in case it is reading low; overshooting your mash temps (and not realizing it) will definitely affect your efficiency. Also, take temps at the middle of the mash, after some gentle stirring to avoid hot/cold pockets
- I find it easier to add the grain to the hot mash water -- it seems to help me avoid doughballs or dry pockets of grain (they REALLY rob you of efficiency)
- I, too, am confused about your mash-out process. The purpose is just to raise the temp of the mash, so all that should be involved is adding some really hot water, stirring it gently but thoroughly, then letting it rest for 10 mins. After that, THEN you can recirculate and lauter. (Maybe this is what you are doing, but I couldn't quite understand what you wrote. In particular, not sure what you meant by a 'second mash-out'. There is no requirement to do two infusions of hot water, if that's what you meant.)
- and please let us know if your 1.040 was pre-boil or post-boil. That could be your problem right there.

I don't understand steps 7 and 8 either.
I also don't understand steps 4 and 6.

Adding 0.5g room temperature water to a 159 degree mash should cool it down much more than 3 degrees. More like 12 - 15 degrees.
What do you mean by returning something at the start of the mash out because it is murky?

-a.

I personally took 7 and 8 to mean sparging and it was simply a terminology mix up.

so maybe my terms are mixed up. I edited the original post.

From a BYO articel, I interpreted "mash out" to mean "run the mash out of the cooler" Apprently I am all mixed up about terms.

As far as temperatures go, I am pretty confident about temperature measurements.

I am not so confident about liquid volume measurements. "about half a gallon" could be a quart or so, maybe even 3 quarts. I do know I ended with close to 6 gallons, however.

As far as water PH, I have no idea.

I know I have some bad stuff in the tap water, so I have been using bottled water until I can get my carbon filter on my refridgerator fixed.

Sounds like I need to buy some ph test of some sort.

What kind of bottled water are you using? Spring water is good, but you don't want to use distilled or reverse osmosis for AG.

BeerAg said:

I am not so confident about liquid volume measurements. "about half a gallon" could be a quart or so, maybe even 3 quarts. I do know I ended with close to 6 gallons, however.

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Water measurements are very important to correctly figuring your efficiency. Was the 6 gallons before the boil? Was the gravity 1.040 before you boiled or after? If it was before, I think you are pretty close to 70% efficiency after the boil. That's not so bad. My worst efficiency was 58% once.

I would suggest finding a way to measure your water. Get a quart or gallon pyrex measuring cup.

most everything looks pretty good to me as well. However, like Fly Guy mentioned, I would start adding your grain to your hot water, not your hot water to your grain. That should help at least a little bit. It did for me anyway.

As for your confusing 7 and 8...are you collecting your wort into your pot, and then adding it back to the grain in the tun? If I read that correctly, that would almost assuredly mess up your efficiency. Your first run off of wort is full of sugars...if you add that back to the grain, you would almost certainly lose some of them. When collecting your wort, you want to collect maybe a quart or two and add it back to the tun to help keep grain husks and stuff out, but you certainly dont want to do that with the whole batch.

BeerAg said:

...
3) add 2.5 gallons of 165 degree water. stir. take temperature at 159 degrees. I am using one of those thin yellow thermometers with red alcohol in them. I push that thing almost all the way to the bottom to take the temp.
4) add about .5 gallons of room temp water. stir. take temp at 156 degrees.
5) put on cap and let mash for 1 hour. Temperature drops during this time from 156 to 153.
...

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I think your mash in temperature is too hot. You basicaly denaturate all of your beta amylase and big part of your Alpha Amylase. When you strike with 165F water and take reading from bottom of your mash tun - on top the water is even hotter. After enzymes got destroyed at higher temperature they are not going to recover at lower temp. I think you may want to try to mash in around 150F and then bring water up to 156 with boiling water.

Also take a look here http://www.howtobrew.com/images/f79.gif

Good luck.

I don't mean to pick apart your terminology- that is not my intention at all. I'll tell you what I THINK you said, and you correct me, OK?

I think you said that you ran the wort out of the mash tun after it was done, but then dumped it back in to run it through again. You should do that for a couple of quarts, true, but not the whole run off.

And, as was mentioned earlier water amounts and temperature are critical. When I'm cooking, "around a quart" works good- but for brewing you need to be sure. Big pyrex measuring pitchers are a great idea!

A mashout is not the full draining of first runnings. A mashout is actually the process of raising the mash temp up to about 168 by either applying heat directly (burner) or infusiong more hot water (or even steam). Do not drain all the wort and then dump it back in.

Some improvements can be made by simply increasing the sparge volumes so that you run off at least 6.75 gallons. You certainly don't want to add water to top up. You just didn't rinse all the sugars out of the grain. How big is your boil kettle? Did you stop at 6 gallons because it's all you can accomodate? If so, run at least another gallon of sparge total and save whatever you can't boil. Add that towards the end when you boiled off a good 3 qts.

The other improvement is to use a slightly higher sparge temp, say 180F as long as it doesn't get the grainbed up past 170 at any time.

Thanks guys! This is all great feedback, and I really appriciate everyone on this thread. It seems like I was doing more wrong than I thought.

My only question is about strike temperature. If I start my mash with 155ish degree water, once I add the grain, I have a feeling my temp is going to fall to the 140s.

Should I just start it that way, and add hot water until I get my temp up?

BeerAg said:

Thanks guys! This is all great feedback, and I really appriciate everyone on this thread. It seems like I was doing more wrong than I thought.

My only question is about strike temperature. If I start my mash with 155ish degree water, once I add the grain, I have a feeling my temp is going to fall to the 140s.

Should I just start it that way, and add hot water until I get my temp up?

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If you use Beersmith or Promash, you can use the calculator in them to determine the temp of your strike water. This weekend I put 22.5/lbs of grain that was at 71*F into 7 gallons of 166*F water. The resulting temp was 153*F (right where I wanted it). If you have to move the water to your cooler, you may want to over shoot the water temp by one or two degrees as the pouring action will cool it a little. Take a temp of the water when it is in the cooler before adding the grain to double check. Make sure you measure your water so that you have the same quantity in the tun as you used in the calculator.

You want your strike water to be at a temperature to give you your mash temperature. For example, I want to mash at 154 degrees. I have 9.75 pounds of grains I want to mash. So, I add 1.25 quarts of water per pound at a temp of 172 degrees. (I'm not really that smart, so I have Beersmith software do these calucations for me!). If I miss the temp a little, I can add hot or cold water to bring me to it. But it is easier at the start to hit it right with the strike water!

There's one thing I noticed that struck me as inconsistent and that is that if your preboil gravity is 1.040 @ 6 gallons it should be 1.048 @ 5 gallons, should it not? You cannot boil off sugar. There may be a slight oversight on your part leading you to believe more is wrong here than it actually was.

I think you probably made a nice beer and should wait till after your next batch to worry too much about efficiency and in the meantime, soak up the collective knowledge like you obviously have been from this thread. There's lots of smart folks on here.

Good luck on this and future batches.

BeerAg said:

...I'm thinking about just increasing my grain bill by about 50%.
..

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Now that's a plan.

Seriously, you said a "target" OG of 1.050. Based on whose efficiency calculation? If (as jdoiv mentioned) your post boil, temp adjusted gravity got you close to 70%, I'd be pretty happy with that.

I became a lot more content with my brewing when I resolved that my setup and process was getting me 68% efficiency. Now I simply plug a 68% efficiency into BeerSmith and create my grain bill from there. I can't fight the facts.

If it costs me an extra $1-$2 in grains per brew because I can't squeeze every last drop out of a grain bed...so be it.

I'm not suggesting everyone stops trying to improve the process. (God knows I love to experiment.) I'm just saying that given the choice of dicking around with this...and futzing around with that to get a few extra points...or just setting the dial and brewing...I'll take the ladder. (or is it latter?)

Back to the Mash-out thing. Now that we're all on the same page as to what it is, I see you didn't do one. I myself noticed that my efficiency went up when I started doing mash-outs.

But I fly sparge, and you were doing a batch sparge, so I'm not really sure if that makes a diff....

Just one other bit of advice.
Measure carefully, and take accurate notes as you go. If something goes a little wrong, such as your strike water is a bit too hot or cold, then you can adjust it in the right direction next time. It takes a few brews to get things dialed in, and what's right for somebody else may not be quite right for you. (See posts 21 and 22 for an example. Both use the same water to grain ratio, but there is a 6 degree difference in the strike water temperature to achieve a 1 degree difference in mash temperature.)
By the way, 1.25 qts water per pound is not a rule, it is a suggestion. I use 1 qt per lb when brewing English Ales, some others use up to 2 qts per lb for their brews. The thicker mash produces results similar to a higher mash temperature.

Good luck.

-a.

Nostrildamus said:

There's one thing I noticed that struck me as inconsistent and that is that if your preboil gravity is 1.040 @ 6 gallons it should be 1.048 @ 5 gallons, should it not?

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This is puzzling to me as well. Somehow, I wound up with 1.040 pre boil and 1.042 post boil. I am fairly certain that my pre-boil volume was 6 gallons, and pretty sure, but not as sure, that my post-boil volume was 5 gallons.

I'm going to have to double check my measuring line on my fermenting bucket, and double check my hydro.

I don't know, something not adding up.

Anyways, the brew is singing to me today with rapid CO2 bubbles while it ferments. I'm sure it will make some decent beer. I will be doing the same beer again soon, probably this week.

Thanks again for the help guys!

BeerAg said:

This is puzzling to me as well. Somehow, I wound up with 1.040 pre boil and 1.042 post boil. I am fairly certain that my pre-boil volume was 6 gallons, and pretty sure, but not as sure, that my post-boil volume was 5 gallons.

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Post 5 says you added water to make up the volume.

-a.

Keep in mind that you pulled a sample out of preboil wort that was combined from runnings with different gravities. It may not have been completely mixed. This is a similar mistake made by extract brewers after adding top up water.

Also, did you adjust your hydrometer readings for temp? That can make a big difference as well.

BeerAg said:

As for my gravity increasing during the boil, my gravity post boil only increased to about 1.042 after I added a little water to get up to 5 gallons.

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and

Bobby_M said:

Keep in mind that you pulled a sample out of preboil wort that was combined from runnings with different gravities. It may not have been completely mixed. This is a similar mistake made by extract brewers after adding top up water.

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Ok, maybe I made a real rookie mistake here: added a little top up water to make 5 gallons, didn't mix well, and acutally had a higher OG than I thought I did. Hard to tell now, the yeasties have already been at work almost 24 hours.

However, the opportunity to post this thread and get feedback from you guys was well worth the angst.

Thanks!

I'm kind of in the same boat, I follow the processes that everyone else talks about but my efficiency stays low around 60%. I ordered the pH 5.2 stuff and I think I'll try and run my grains through the LHBS mill twice because it has to be one of those two things...