draining

Did my first AG yesterday, everything went alright a couple mishaps but it worked.
I missed my gravity I got 1.046 and the recipe stated 1.051 to 1.055. I haven't figured out my efficiency yet as I dont know how to, but I know I am on the low end I'm figuring around 60%

One reason I though would be my draining of the mash tun...How slow do you guys go with your first runnings after vorlauff and how slow on the batch sparge? I think I might have went a little to fast

Everything I read and experienced indicates that draining fast or slow is not a great cause of inefficiency. It generally is grain crush and possibly mash ph. Mash stabilizer works great.

Mash Stabilizer? Does that adjust the pH of the mash? Mot did you crush your own graind, order per-milled, or didi your LHBS mill them?

I just picked up 10 points by doing this.

BierMuncher said:

I just picked up 10 points by doing this.

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So you fixed your batch sparging by switching to fly sparging?

OP with batch sparging you want to drain the tun as quickly as you can, there is no reason to go slowly since by adding the batch sparge water you have gotten most of the sugars back into suspension. By going slowly you actually allow the sugars to get stuck to the grains again.

hopsalot said:

Mash Stabilizer? Does that adjust the pH of the mash?............

Click to expand...

Yes, that is the idea behind it. The website seems to be unavailable but it will adjust the ph of the mash with the addition to the strike and sparge water. I only use it in the strike water though.

I dont think I went to slow but may have, first time so I was trying to work out all the bugs in my system
Yeah I used mash ph 5.2 I only added it in the initial mash not the sparge. Should I have added it in the sparge also?

Also Anyone know of an excel sheet or something to figure out my efficiency? or the actual equation to do it, I found one but it is in metric and asks for info that I dont know where to find and I am lazy and dont feel like doing the conversion

look here

How to Brew by Palmer is great for tons of questions. I highly suggest buying a hardcopy.