Too much water below false bottom?

I have bad efficiency and have lived with that for a while (65%) and tried a couple things this time to try and fix it.

1- Followed Bobby M's double batch sparge very closely. I hit all my temperatures and used two thermometers to make sure. I used the water/grist ratio he suggests he uses as well.

2- I crush my grain at LHBS but I ran it through twice this time. I planned on getting a mill next, but I was hoping this brew would confirm that it would be a big upgrade.

I still ended up with 65%. I am curious if my equipment is the culprit here. I currently mash in a 7.5 gal kettle. There is one gallon of dead space and .25 gallons above that to reach the false bottom. I have been just adding the 1.25 gallons to my water/grist ratio to make sure the grain gets all the water attention it needs.

My question is being that I'm only doing 5 gallon batches and this last beer had a total of 13.5lbs of grain, will the 1.25 gallons kill batch sparge efficiency?

That's an awful lot of deadspace under the false bottom, and I would bet money that it was part of your problem.

What kind of false bottom do you have? Is there no way to lengthen the diptube below it so it goes further down toward the bottom of the keg?

I just recently switched from a cooler to a converted sanke for my MLT and I ended up screwing a 1/2" female threaded copper fitting from lowe's ($2) to the ubderside of my false bottom and that thing gets way down deep in there.

I think I only leave a half a pint in the bottom of the tun when I drain it.

I got my false bottom from more beer. I regret not just making one but it was the quick solution at the time.

http://morebeer.com/view_product/74..._Kettle_Screen_for_8_Gallon_Heavy_Duty_Kettle

I also don't have a diptube in my kettle. Since I also boil in that kettle, I thought it would just pick up a bunch of sediment after the boil.

bigchristheman said:

I got my false bottom from more beer. I regret not just making one but it was the quick solution at the time.

http://morebeer.com/view_product/74..._Kettle_Screen_for_8_Gallon_Heavy_Duty_Kettle

I also don't have a diptube in my kettle. Since I also boil in that kettle, I thought it would just pick up a bunch of sediment after the boil.

Click to expand...

So you have no kind of pick-up tube attached to the inside of the thing at all, which leaves you with a gallon of liquid you can't get out of it because it's below the spigot.

Is that right?

yes

So, what do you do for batches then? Make 6 gallons so you can get 5 in the kettle?

I honestly wouldn't worry about sucking up stuff from the kettle to the fermenter at the end of the boil (my dip tubes are set up to get as much as I possibly can out of the kettle and mash tun), but if you are concerned about it.... It might be worthwhile to at least make a diptube that you use when mashing and then take it out before you boil.

I leave the 1.25 gallons in the mash tun. Basically I'm doing everything the same as people mashing in a cooler except with 1.25 gallons of water just sitting between the kettle bottom and the false bottom

i use a 10 gallon gott cooler for my mash tun. no false bottom, i use stainless braid connected to the stainless spigot and i get every drop available to the spigot height.
and it has impeccable temperature resolution. it may drop 1-3 deg f in up to an 80 minute mash.

I mash in a 10 gallon RubberMaid cooler with this false bottom:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_82_88&products_id=10654

My FB has a right angle 3/8 barb coming out of the center on top and male threads (1/2 MPT) on the bottom. The barb is connected to a barb on the outlet by a length of silicone tubing. Originally there was a nut on the bottom of the right angle barb, under the FB, to hold the barb fitting in place. This left quite a bit of wort in the cooler, so I removed the nut and replaced it with a sawed off 1/2 inch stainless steel coupling like this one:

http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=36_39&product_id=49

I cut the coupling down so that the cut off end is only about 1/8 inch off the bottom of the cooler, and so I only leave a little over a cup of liquid behind.

I boil in a 10 gallon Megapot. After the boil I siphon the wort to the fermenter until I get down to about the last gallon, then place a large funnel into the mouth of the carboy, lay a (boiled to sanitize) large grain bag in the funnel, and pour the remaining wort through the grain bag to filter the hop residue out - I don't worry about the other stuff that goes into the carboy - it settles out during fermentation.

DeafSmith said:

I mash in a 10 gallon RubberMaid cooler with this false bottom:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_82_88&products_id=10654

My FB has a right angle 3/8 barb coming out of the center on top and male threads (1/2 MPT) on the bottom. The barb is connected to a barb on the outlet by a length of silicone tubing. Originally there was a nut on the bottom of the right angle barb, under the FB, to hold the barb fitting in place. This left quite a bit of wort in the cooler, so I removed the nut and replaced it with a sawed off 1/2 inch stainless steel coupling like this one:

http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=36_39&product_id=49

I cut the coupling down so that the cut off end is only about 1/8 inch off the bottom of the cooler, and so I only leave a little over a cup of liquid behind.

I boil in a 10 gallon Megapot. After the boil I siphon the wort to the fermenter until I get down to about the last gallon, then place a large funnel into the mouth of the carboy, lay a (boiled to sanitize) large grain bag in the funnel, and pour the remaining wort through the grain bag to filter the hop residue out - I don't worry about the other stuff that goes into the carboy - it settles out during fermentation.

Click to expand...

maybe this is completely n00bish, but what is the benefit of this beyond getting more liquid out?

maltbarleyhops said:

i use a 10 gallon gott cooler for my mash tun. no false bottom, i use stainless braid connected to the stainless spigot and i get every drop available to the spigot height.
and it has impeccable temperature resolution. it may drop 1-3 deg f in up to an 80 minute mash.

Click to expand...

I've been thinking about making a similar setup. What kind of efficiency are you getting?

VanHorneDog said:

maybe this is completely n00bish, but what is the benefit of this beyond getting more liquid out?

Click to expand...

Getting more liquid out is indeed the reason for doing this. Why would you want to throw away fermentable sugars?

Tindel said:

I've been thinking about making a similar setup. What kind of efficiency are you getting?

Click to expand...

70-80 min

Essentially I am mashing with an extra 5 quarts diluting the mash beneath the false bottom.

Would this cause my setup to be unable to hit 70-80%?

DeafSmith said:

Getting more liquid out is indeed the reason for doing this. Why would you want to throw away fermentable sugars?

Click to expand...

well there is a point where i reached my boil volume and shut off the spigot. i don't need to boil for 120 minutes to get down to my desired volume. i was just wondering if there was a cause to think there may be an efficiency boost.

the fact that you are not leaving much space for wort to hide with sugars leads me to believe it might, but i dunno.

The reason that dead space effects efficiency is that when you batch sparge, you mix water with wet grain to dilute the sugar and drain. The more water that is left in the grain before sparging, the less dilute the runoff. The less dilute the runoff, the higher its specific gravity. The higher the gravity of your final runoff, the less sugar you've recovered, and the lower your efficiency.

Imagine rinsing paint out if a 1 gallon paint can. but you only have 1 gallon of clean water to do it with. If you leave a cup of paint in the can before rinsing, you won't get it very clean. If you wipe out the paint before rinsing, you'll get it cleaner.

Check your runoff gravities, for every step. The goal is to get your final runoff as low as you can. Not easy with a lot of dead space.

makes sense