andymi86
Well-Known Member
I'm getting sick of awful efficiency. I've done everything I can think of and nothing has worked. I've read braukaiser.com and all of the articles related to efficiency and can't figure out what might be wrong. Today I brewed Edwort's Bee Cave Brewery Bavarian Hefe and got an efficiency of 63%. I consistently get around 65%.
I'm brewing 5.5 gallon all-grain batches. I batch sparge. After the mash I vourlauf and collect my first runnings. I have my sparge water ready and try to get to ~168 F. I add half of my sparge water, stir like hell, let it sit for a few minutes, stir like hell again, vourlauf, and drain at full open. I repeat this once. I hit all of my volumes very close.
I do get my grain crushed at the LHBS, so I thought it might be my crush, but last batch (also terrible efficiency) I checked it according to the chart for first runnings on braukaiser and it was at like 98%. I didn't check it this time because I figured it would be in the same range. Today was the fist time I tried using water salts. The water here is already really soft, so I didn't need to add much. I used EZ water calc 2.0 for my salt additions. I don't have a way to test pH yet.
I really don't know what to do. I don't really want to have a separate hlt for fly sparging right now because of space concerns (tiny apartment), and I know it's possible to get decent efficiency from batch sparging....any suggestions?
I'm brewing 5.5 gallon all-grain batches. I batch sparge. After the mash I vourlauf and collect my first runnings. I have my sparge water ready and try to get to ~168 F. I add half of my sparge water, stir like hell, let it sit for a few minutes, stir like hell again, vourlauf, and drain at full open. I repeat this once. I hit all of my volumes very close.
I do get my grain crushed at the LHBS, so I thought it might be my crush, but last batch (also terrible efficiency) I checked it according to the chart for first runnings on braukaiser and it was at like 98%. I didn't check it this time because I figured it would be in the same range. Today was the fist time I tried using water salts. The water here is already really soft, so I didn't need to add much. I used EZ water calc 2.0 for my salt additions. I don't have a way to test pH yet.
I really don't know what to do. I don't really want to have a separate hlt for fly sparging right now because of space concerns (tiny apartment), and I know it's possible to get decent efficiency from batch sparging....any suggestions?