10% efficiency???

So apparently I get about 10% efficiency with my partial mash brewing, according to Beer Smith. I don't get it. I seem to hit my temps (~170 when grains go in ~3 gal of water), keep the temp constant between 150 and 160 for 45 mins-1 hour, 'tea bag' grains in 165-170 degree water, let it sit for 10 mins, dump tea water into main water, and then bring to boil and do as normal. Last batch I made the estimate was 1.063, I got 1.050 (apparently most from extract).

Anyone have a tip as to what I should tweak first to try and figure out what's wrong with my process? Would having too much water screw it up? (~4 pounds grain, 3 gallons of pot water, 1.5 gallon sparge water).

I doubt its that low,try using rice hulls next time.

Three gallons of strike water seems like a lot for 4 pounds of grain. Isn't 1 to 1.5 quarts per pound of grain the rule of thumb? I would think 1.5 gallons for the mash and then 3 gallons for the rinse would be better, but I've only PM'ed a few times (decided to make the jump to AG really soon after first PM batches). I guess a check of your calc's could be in order since 10% seems really low, did you dump the tea water into the main water before adding the extract? If so how much total water was collected and what was the gravity before the boil (before adding the extract)?

Crap. Didn't check the gravity before adding the extract, and I just realized that it was the hippie barley malt extract from my local hippie store (prob not brewer's quality)... would that possibly provide less sugar than brewer's extract? Added about 6.5 lbs of extract, ended up with 1.052 gravity post boil/cooling. Double checked my numbers just now, and it looks like 18% efficiency max.

Next time I'll take the gravity pre-boil/extract addition.

ksocia said:

Crap. Didn't check the gravity before adding the extract, and I just realized that it was the hippie barley malt extract from my local hippie store (prob not brewer's quality)... would that possibly provide less sugar than brewer's extract? Added about 6.5 lbs of extract, ended up with 1.052 gravity post boil/cooling. Double checked my numbers just now, and it looks like 18% efficiency max.

Next time I'll take the gravity pre-boil/extract addition.

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I don't know about the malt extract. It makes sense that you'd get different amounts of fermentables, depending on how "thick" the extract is with actual malt.

Don't forget that for mashing you don't want to go over about 1.5-2 quarts of liquid per pound of grain. Six quarts would have been enough for mashing (1.5 gallons). When you dilute the mash that much, you're changing the pH which would affect efficiency.

YooperBrew said:

Don't forget that for mashing you don't want to go over about 1.5-2 quarts of liquid per pound of grain. Six quarts would have been enough for mashing (1.5 gallons). When you dilute the mash that much, you're changing the pH which would affect efficiency.

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For some reason, AHS's recipe kits instruct you to use an unusually high amount of water for a PM kit. For example, the Honey Brown here uses 3 1/4 lbs of grain and instructs you to bring 2 1/2 gallons of water to 160F, for a mash thickness of 3 qt/lb. Maybe others do the same.

That said, I followed those directions to the letter for the first few kits, and they were some of the best beers I've ever made, and I hit the OG numbers right on.

ksocia, I would guess that the extract you're using doesn't have the same amount of fermentable sugar in it as the extract used to formulate the anticipated OG in Beersmith. If you don't know the amount of potential sugar in your extract, post-boil efficiency numbers are completely meaningless.

If you want to take the extract out of the equation, you need to take a pre-boil sample, then remove the extract from your recipe in Beersmith to check your pre-boil efficiency. You can also check your conversion efficiency with first running gravity (before sparging) and use this chart:



-Joe

Your hippie store extract could be anything. They could cut it with water. If you really want to rule it out, measure your gravity and volume after your partial mash. Are you sure you used grain that has enzymatic power or did you use all specialty grain? Exactly which grains did you try mashing?

And were your grains crushed??

The hippie malt was probably a baking extract, which are much cheaper than brewing extracts. Less concentrated than a brewing malt, making it easier to mix into food.

Definitely get accurate volume and gravity readings for the mash wort in the future.

As far as I know, all of the grains were crushed by the LHBS when I bought them (at least, I asked them to, they took them around the corner, and gave them back to me). I did notice that one (maybe the 2 row?) looked like it wasn't crushed, but I could have been mistaken.

The recipe was a 'kitchen sink' of leftover grains. Here's what I used:
12.5 oz Vienna
12.5 oz Munich
8 oz Crystal 60
8 oz Chocolate
8 oz 2 row
8 oz Special Roast
~6.5 lbs hippie store barley

The recipe is to try 2 things:
1 - Does the local hippie store barley extract make a decent substitute for LME
2 - Does fenugreek added to the secondary result in maple flavor

So it's not a huge loss that I didn't get the extra ~.01 in gravity, just want to make sure I don't screw up a recipe where I'm counting in the partial mashing.

You'll know if they were crushed. The best way to screw up a good batch is to not have the grains crushed right.

I made a Russian Imperial Stout recently that I had a planned 1.100 OG. I ended up at 1.075 OG because I was careless with my grain crush. I just did it the way I always did and didn't really check because I thought that my crush technique was perfectly fine. So through the mill, and into the mash it went. Never checked it. Boom... .025 points too low.

Given those grains, I'm pretty sure your mash was way too thin. The munich and vienna has SOME diastatic power, but not enough to help the crystal, choc, and roast convert at that thin of a mash. Just a guess.

ksocia said:

The recipe was a 'kitchen sink' of leftover grains. Here's what I used:
12.5 oz Vienna
12.5 oz Munich
8 oz Crystal 60
8 oz Chocolate
8 oz 2 row
8 oz Special Roast
~6.5 lbs hippie store barley

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Is that even enough diastatic power? I remember someone telling me once that you needed X lbs of 2 row for every lbs of other grain... but I don't remember just how much!

It's probably borderline in a normal mash thickness. Munich and Vienna can self convert and maybe a bit more given enough time. The two row would convert itself and another 8oz of something. Yeah, it's falling just a bit short no matter what.

Alright, next time I'll bump up the 2 row and confirm that everything is crushed effectively.
Thanks for all the suggestions!

IrregularPulse said:

And were your grains crushed??

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and for that matter, what grains were they? if it was a bunch of crystal malt, you won't be getting much outta it, period.

(i.e. did we have enough/any diastatic power for conversion?)

malkore said:

and for that matter, what grains were they? if it was a bunch of crystal malt, you won't be getting much outta it, period.

(i.e. did we have enough/any diastatic power for conversion?)

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https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/10-efficiency-131607/#post1479070

Seems that the consensus is it was a little weak on the conversion power.