improving efficiency

my batch sparge process -
I heat my strike water in my keggle transfer to 10 gallon cooler all at once then dough in and stir until there are no clumps left and add 5.2. I have been pretty good on my mash temps. during the mash I heat my sparge water to 170 I usualy collect 1/2 and batch sparge the other half to get to my boil volume. After the hour mash no mash out I take a hydrometer/refractometer reading, I get most of my extraction from the initial mash and very little from the second runnings. my effiency has been at best 70-75%
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Im brewing this week end I will post my numbers for that batch. The grain bill Im working on is 20 lbs marris otter, 1lb caravienna, 1lb crystal 60 and 1lb crystal 30
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any ideas?

Are you crushing your own grains?

And if you're using 170F mash water without a mashout, what's the temp of the grain bed before you start draining?

Finer crush and maybe hotter sparge water would be my guesses.

I do crush my own with my barley crusher I adjusted to a smaller setting from the standard. I still havent picked up a feeler gauge so I cant say what Im set at I will pick one up tomorrow. I thought my adjustment from the original was a little to much but I should really know what Im set at. good point thanks
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My mash in my cooler usually stays with in 1-2 degrees

The two biggest improvements:

Raise the grainbed temp either by a small HOT mashout infusion before draining first runnings or use a higher sparge infusion temp (180F works and it doesn't settle the grainbed over 170F).

The next one is to split your batch infusion into two equal portions. Drain first runnings, infuse half sparge, stir, vorlauf, drain, infuse second sparge, stir, vorlauf, drain.

This gets me high 80's low 90's.

You already crush your own grain so that's a definite plus.

First, I think a mashout helps. I used to only do them when I had room in my cooler to infuse that last step. Since I moved to steam infusion, I do them every time. I think there is truth to the "more sugar extraction" after a mashout.

Second (and I don't want to start a batch vs. fly sparge pissing match), I think fly sparging will get you a few more points. The trade off is that it takes longer.

With that said, at 70-75 percent, you are doing really well right now!

None of us here are commercial brewers, buying rail cars and silos of grain, with bean counters looking to squeeze every ounce of fermentable sugar out of the grain to increase margins.

I'm also sold on a "mash out-like" temp rise to get sugar more soluable prior to first runnings but ONLY if you can do it without an infusion of more water. I've found that there is little difference between a mash out and a simple "hotter" sparge. If you direct fire or HERMS your MLT, go ahead and raise the temp, otherwise just sparge with 180F water and break it into two equal volumes.

I've also gotten the best results with splitting the sparge water and sparging hot using pH5.2. I stir gently for about 5 minutes after each add.

david_42 said:

I've also gotten the best results with splitting the sparge water and sparging hot using pH5.2.

Click to expand...

Care to elaborate a bit? This intrigues me to some extent that I am getting only 68% to 72%.

I Mash at a 1:1 ratio and MO bringing the total mashing ratio to 1:1.5.

Say I have 15lbs of grain. I mash with 15qts for 60min and then MO with 7.5 additional qts to reach 77*C. Vuorlauf - drain first runnings. If my grain absorbtion is ~ 5qts I will end up w/~ 4.375 gallons. Then I would Batch Sparge with 77*C with 2.625 gallons and end up with about 7 gallons to boil down to 5.5 gallons. My efficiency pre boil are ~ 44% - 48%.

What should I do differently? What is Sparging Hot?

- WW

Nudge.

- WW

*edited*
I decided not to hijack at all...will repost as my own thread.

Willie,
I've never used a grainbill that large for a 5 gallon batch so my experience probably won't help you. Most of my grain bills for 6 gallons have been around 10-12 pounds so I've had much more sparge water than you.

For 15lbs, I'd go near 1:1 like you have but lets call it 16qts/4 gallons to make the math easy. Instead of a mash out infusion, drain your first runnings as is. I don't know what your deadspace is but let's say you get 3.75 gallons out. Now you have 3.25 gallons of sparging to do. Break that up into two infusions of 1.75 and 1.5 gallons respectively. Now since you didn't raise the temp with a mash out, you can raise the sparge temp for the same purpose. I've used between 180-185F sparges. It never gets the grainbed up over 170F so you're ok there.

Excellent! I will try that. Deadspace is minimal. I tip the barrel to get as much as I can and I end up with less than what can be accounted for so I add it to the whole grain absorbtion (1.125 real grain absorbtion plus .125 deadspace).

So do two sparges (amts respecitve) @ ~ 82 - 85*C. Are these amount usually split evenly?

- WW

Oops. bad math. If you lose 5qts of a 4 gallon mash infusion you'll drain 2.75 gallons not 3.75. SO, if you like 7gal preboil, your sparge would actually be 4.25 gallons. Break that into 2.25 and 2 gallons. Yes, I usually try making them equal but I'm not going to measure out 2.125 gallons. I calibrate in 1 quart increments.

I'll heat my total sparge to about 180F/82C or a little more and shut off the heat. The first infusion is obviously the same temp and by the time I get to the second batch, it cools a few degrees. Software can tell you the exact equilibrium temps given a certain infusion volume/temp but it's usually in the low to mid 160's F or 72C(ish).

Thanks again Bobby.

- WW

Great ideas on this thread for my next brew. Thanks, all.