low brew house efficiency

I am finishing my first partial mash and got a fairly low efficiency and was wondering if anyone would see something obvious. I mashed 5 puonds of pils and a pound of crystal 40. Strike water was 1 3/4 gallons at 164F and the mash was at 151F. The mash stayed the same temperature through an hour. I sparged with 170F with a very slow drain (probably 30 min). I did notice the temp dropped to around 140 while sparging. Attached is my set up. It is 48 qts. My only thought is the cooler is too big for partial mash.

I got 1.024 out of 4 gallons.

Any ideas?

Your grain bed didn't lose a single degree over an hour, even with that much headspace? Temperature may or may not be the problem, but that makes me think that you've got measurement problems then. Are you sure your thermometer is working? How's your crush? How did you sparge?

I didn't do the math on what efficiency that gives you so I don't know how low you actually were. My question would be why do partial mash when you have all the equipment to do all grain? You have to go through the exact same motions...........

As for efficiency, It's tough to really "blow it" unless you compeltely forget a step. How much water did you sparge with?

I think you are right and the thermometer may have been stuck, so next batch I'll up the temperature. I didn't stir too hard, so maybe that too. My efficiency is basically below 50. I sparged by slowly adding water to keep it an inch above the grain bed. Sparge water was 3.5 gallons. No all grain cause my pot is too small. I just started the hobby 5 weeks ago. I just built this so I can move to all grain, but need a bigger pot for that. Does the manifold look ok?

Brauerei said:

I think you are right and the thermometer may have been stuck, so next batch I'll up the temperature. I didn't stir too hard, so maybe that too. My efficiency is basically below 50. I sparged by slowly adding water to keep it an inch above the grain bed. Sparge water was 3.5 gallons. No all grain cause my pot is too small. I just started the hobby 5 weeks ago. I just built this so I can move to all grain, but need a bigger pot for that. Does the manifold look ok?

Click to expand...

When you strike, you need to stir until your arm feels like it's about to fall out. Grain is a great insulator, and likewise your reading at a single point didn't really tell you much about the overall temperature.

Manifold looks good. Very similar to what I have been using for the past 3 years. I suspect part of the problem could be with how close your manifold runs to the cooler walls. Also the shallow grain bed as a result of the small grain bill was probably very prone to channeling.

Personally, I would batch sparge over fly sparge especially on such a small grain bill. Not saying batch is better. It's fairly fool proof though assuming you stir lol. There's no channeling issues to deal with either (if that did in fact play a part in your low efficiency).

Those are my thoughts assuming that you did hit conversion temp range in your mash .........

How did or what did you crack your grain with? I ran the same cooler and manifold was very similar and i had great efficiency. I would aim towards your grain Crack, and your water measurements. Looked like your temps shouldof done the job,unless your temps displayed wrong due to a bad thermometer.

The local HBS crushed the grain. Looked good to me.

Maybe I should just go after the batch sparge technique and move the manifold more to the center. I am really doubting the thermometer at the end. In the begining, I used two thermometers and both said 151F, but it had to drop by the end.

If it means anything my manifold was close just like yours and worked fine. The recent BYO had a article towards the back on sparging techniques and Fly sparging gives the best efficiency..

I don't think you need to reconfigure the manifold. i would leave it as-is. I only suggested it being a potential problem bc when fly sparging the water can have a tendency to run down the walls of the cooler so figured I'd mention it as a possibility...... Somthing to consider if you continue fly sparging and having issues. If you try batch sparging then the whole channeling/manifold placement is a non-issue.

As for fly sparging giving the best efficiency ........ That has been beat over the head way too many times to even get into in this thread. My only point in bringing up method of choice for sparging is that fly is a little more technical and in my experience if done wrong as the potential to yield fairly low efficiency numbers. If done right can produce very high numbers ..... It can just be a little more finicky.

strange. when my brew was done, I did the math backwards with the LME I used and figured I got 58% efficiency. Better than I thought at the mash, but not good enough.