tap water=poor efficiency?

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defenestrate

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so far all of my AG (5 all together) have been in the neighborhood of 75-80% efficiency. i recently picked up a second cooler and a pump, and have been having some heat problems.
two brews ago, i was unable to keep my sparge water hot enought to bring the mash up to the upper 160's (highest i attained was 162). i still ended up with 76%.
my last brew, a belgian blonde, turned out pretty poorly. i had the same problem with sparge temps. in my HLT the temp was holding at 185, but between the HLT and the mash tun it was dropping considerable heat, only reaching 160 once stirred into the grains. my target OG was 1.05 and i hit 1.033. ouch.
now to be fair, it has been roughly 35 degrees outside both times, and i think thats attributing to the heat loss (pumping through the hoses with such cold air) but also not having it hot enough in the HLT. i'm thinking 195 next time.
i also used 4 lbs of wheat malt in the belgian which i've never used before, would this make higher effeciency harder?
last but not least, i also used tap water. every other time i've brewed i've either used brita filtered water or spring water. i'm thinking its probably poor pH in the tap that hurt?

any ideas? thanks for reading
 
The names of your brews are disturbing at the very least.I would never say I'd had a rusty trombone in my mouth.
 
Not an answer, but just some thoughts:

-- I always have a tough time keeping my mash over 160° during the fly-sparge as well, but I've never noticed it hurting my efficiency. I usually have to heat my sparge water to about 190° to keep everything in range.

-- A light grain bill (no dark malts) will have a higher mash pH than one with a darker grain bill. I don't know what you normally brew, but I noticed you've brewed a stout and an amber.....if your other beers have been darker, that might be why your efficiency took such a hit on this lighter bill. You might have ended up with a pH way higher than 5.7 on this one, and should probably start checking the mash pH and adding water salts or 5.2 buffer.

-- I always get a bit lower efficiency when a large portion of the grist is wheat.

-- You mentioned how cold it has been outside. How are your mash temps? If they are dipping too low you might not be getting full conversion. You might want to check for conversion with iodine, or extend the mash to 90 minutes or so.

-- Are you fly sparging? If so you might want to try this: after you've run off everything to your boil kettle, take a sample of your final runnings. Then stir the mash up and let it settle back down for a few minutes. Take another sample of these runnings and compare. I did this recently and discovered that my final runnings were about 1.011, but after stirring it was pouring off 1.021. It helped me figure out that my sparge manifold is sitting too high and a lot of the sugars are getting trapped underneath.
 
I'd say low sparging temperature is the problem. Try some pipe insulation on the hoses, if that is possible with your setup.
 
If you're truly worried about ph, you can either get some test strips and see, or get some 5.2 buffer and put that in your mash. Then you know your pH will be right on and you can see if that's the difference.

Personally though, I don't see anything wrong with 75% efficiency.
 
Often times wheat won't crush as thoroughly because of the smaller kernel size. If you don't compensate for that, it could reduce your efficiency.
 
I think he was saying he was getting 75% efficiency (which was acceptable) until he used tap water this time and missed his OG by 17 points.
 
maltMonkey said:
I think he was saying he was getting 75% efficiency (which was acceptable) until he used tap water this time and missed his OG by 17 points.
Click to expand...

Ahh sorry. I misread the OP.

In that case, unless it becomes a trend, I'd say you're fine. If it was an anomoly and your process hasn't changed. Then it was probably a crush problem, or maybe incomplete conversion. Did you do an iodine test?
 
I don't use wheat myself, but have read that a handfull of rice hulls can help with lautering and could thus increase your efficiency.
 
RCCOLA said:
The names of your brews are disturbing at the very least.I would never say I'd had a rusty trombone in my mouth.
Click to expand...
i think if i ever launched a brewery it would have an opposite effect. nothing like yelling to the bartender that you want a cold rusty trombone or a pint of bloody seaman :D thats just me

maltMonkey said:
Not an answer, but just some thoughts:

-- I always have a tough time keeping my mash over 160° during the fly-sparge as well, but I've never noticed it hurting my efficiency. I usually have to heat my sparge water to about 190° to keep everything in range.

-- A light grain bill (no dark malts) will have a higher mash pH than one with a darker grain bill. I don't know what you normally brew, but I noticed you've brewed a stout and an amber.....if your other beers have been darker, that might be why your efficiency took such a hit on this lighter bill. You might have ended up with a pH way higher than 5.7 on this one, and should probably start checking the mash pH and adding water salts or 5.2 buffer.

-- I always get a bit lower efficiency when a large portion of the grist is wheat.

-- You mentioned how cold it has been outside. How are your mash temps? If they are dipping too low you might not be getting full conversion. You might want to check for conversion with iodine, or extend the mash to 90 minutes or so.

-- Are you fly sparging? If so you might want to try this: after you've run off everything to your boil kettle, take a sample of your final runnings. Then stir the mash up and let it settle back down for a few minutes. Take another sample of these runnings and compare. I did this recently and discovered that my final runnings were about 1.011, but after stirring it was pouring off 1.021. It helped me figure out that my sparge manifold is sitting too high and a lot of the sugars are getting trapped underneath.
Click to expand...

i batch sparge in two equal amounts. my mash temps have been holding great, only dropping a degree at most after an hour. the ambient temperature might be effecting the hoses in and out of the pump, so i'm going to compensate with 10 degree higher temp in the HLT. this was also the first time i used wheat, and it was 40% of the bill.

maltMonkey said:
I think he was saying he was getting 75% efficiency (which was acceptable) until he used tap water this time and missed his OG by 17 points.
Click to expand...

yeah, before this is have been happy with 75, but this came out to 46 :( and i dont know if it was the wheat, the tap water or both combined.

cmgray said:
Ahh sorry. I misread the OP.

In that case, unless it becomes a trend, I'd say you're fine. If it was an anomoly and your process hasn't changed. Then it was probably a crush problem, or maybe incomplete conversion. Did you do an iodine test?
Click to expand...
no i dont use a iodine test, i usually mash 70 and it holds temp great so i just let it ride and have never encountered this before.

Yankeehillbrewer said:
I don't use wheat myself, but have read that a handfull of rice hulls can help with lautering and could thus increase your efficiency.
Click to expand...

i used a few handfuls of rice hulls on this brew for this reason.

i guess the only true way to narrow it down would to be the same brew again with spring or brita water. but, brita does nothing for pH. unless the hardness of the water comes into play. i think i'll just buy a few cases of spring for my next brew and knock up the HLT temp to 195....meaning that i would have to bring the temp to just under boiling in the kettle, transfer to the HLT and with heat soak should rest at 195.

thanks for all the replies guys, i've been waiting to get on here all day and praying to the beer gods for some answers :mug:
 
RCCOLA said:
The names of your brews are disturbing at the very least.I would never say I'd had a rusty trombone in my mouth.
Click to expand...

:off:
Do you know what a rusty trombone is?

Words cannot express the awesome for naming a beer after this. (Although I would be hesitant to drink it)
-Me
 
I like the idea of naming beers with some random theme. Mine would be violent military like Daisy Cutter IPA, Kalashnikov Red Ale, and Thousands of Dead Innocents 4 Bush Imperial Stout.

I've got a million of 'em. :ban::ban::ban::ban:
 
JoeMama said:
:off:
Do you know what a rusty trombone is?

Words cannot express the awesome for naming a beer after this. (Although I would be hesitant to drink it)
-Me
Click to expand...
Yes I do but not from experience.I think the names of your brew should make you want to put them in your mouth,ya know like my"Tiuhuana Donkey Show Island Lager" or my "Monicas Blue Dress Cream Ale":D
 

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