Help trying to improve my efficiency

CornyKegs 728
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Sherpa FE

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Ok I have been brewing for a lil while now. Here is my Process, please throw in suggestons for trying to improve it.

10 Gallon Batches
70 Qt Coleman Extreme cooler
Copper manifold with slits cut in it.
5.2 PH stabilizer is always used.

Barley crusher set to .037"

Brew according to Beersmith directions.
1.25 qt per lb of grain for sparge
Steep @ 153 degrees
sparge using equal batches @ 180 degrees

I stir after I pour in steep water
I stir after I pour Sparge water
I have tried waiting after pouring sparge water, I normally sparge right after I pour it in and stir.

I use both a hydrometer, and a refractometer. I take my hydo readings as close as 60 degrees as possible, and I Use the refractometer per the directions. They both correspond to eachother.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Bobby M, I try to follow you method for sparging as close as possible, It just doesnt seem to be working for me. I dont know, maybe I am doing something wrong....or my equipment is just a 70% level stuff...who knows.

Thanks in advance.
 
Have you thought of this.........

Wort left behind that the mash manifold and tun does not completly drain all the liquid?

Shallow grain depth because of the large rectangular cooler causes uneven temperatures in the mash tun and does not convert all the available starches to sugar?

Large area of the mashtun may cause uneven sparging?

Do you test for starch conversion with iodine?

I do use a round cooler/mashtun and a false bottom and you might borrow someones round 10 gallon cooler with false bottom to see if that helps. It looks like you have tried everything else. The 15 gallon ICE cube cooler work good with a stainless braid. It is square and so it has nice grain depth for 10 or 12 gallon batches.

I do a modified Fly sparge now like BierMuncher and that works well for me. I just keep the sparge water 2 to 3 inches above the grain and drain 1 Qt per minute until I have enough boil volume.
 
I'd be quite happy with 70% if it was consistent.

You are checking the hydrometer against the refractometer and vice versa, but have you checked your thermometer?

The only other things I can suggest is to check the grain temperature during the sparge to ensure it is between 165 - 170, and to check the gravity of your final runnings into the kettle. For optimum efficiency, this should be very close to 1.010, but when I batch sparge, they usually come out at about 1.025 which consistently gives me 80% efficiency.

-a.
 
WBC said:
Have you thought of this.........

Wort left behind that the mash manifold and tun does not completly drain all the liquid?

Yes, and I only leave a little behind, not too much. less that a quart.

Shallow grain depth because of the large rectangular cooler causes uneven temperatures in the mash tun and does not convert all the available starches to sugar?

True, I have used a round 10 gallon rubbermaid, ut it would be too small for 10 gallon batches, at least thats the way I look at it.

Large area of the mashtun may cause uneven sparging?

Do you test for starch conversion with iodine?

No, The only way I test is with the hydro.

I do use a round cooler/mashtun and a false bottom and you might borrow someones round 10 gallon cooler with false bottom to see if that helps. It looks like you have tried everything else. The 15 gallon ICE cube cooler work good with a stainless braid. It is square and so it has nice grain depth for 10 or 12 gallon batches.

I used the cooler that I have because it was free, it might be the cooler, but I know others are having great success with it. I might have to change though.

I do a modified Fly sparge now like BierMuncher and that works well for me. I just keep the sparge water 2 to 3 inches above the grain and drain 1 Qt per minute until I have enough boil volume.
Click to expand...
I would like to keep batch sparging, I read up on BierMunchers new method, and I want to try and keep it simple right now.

EDIT:
I THOUGHT IT WOULD SEPARATE OUT MY COMMENTS FROM YOURS... MY ANSWERS ARE IN THERE... CAPS ARE ONLY TO LET YOU KNOW.. I AM NOT YELLING.



Any other thoughts??
It might be the cooler...I hope not.

I might also have to live with 70 - 75 %.
I looked back at my past recipe's and it seems that I am indeed getting about 75% average...sometimes better, sometimes worse.
 
ajf said:
I'd be quite happy with 70% if it was consistent.

You are checking the hydrometer against the refractometer and vice versa, but have you checked your thermometer?

The only other things I can suggest is to check the grain temperature during the sparge to ensure it is between 165 - 170, and to check the gravity of your final runnings into the kettle. For optimum efficiency, this should be very close to 1.010, but when I batch sparge, they usually come out at about 1.025 which consistently gives me 80% efficiency.

-a.
Click to expand...

I have not checked the Thermometer, but comparing it to the other one I have they are pretty close to eachother, so they are either both wrong, or both pretty close.
 
I'd be quite happy with 70% if it was consistent
Click to expand...
+ 1 on this

I think efficiency is overrated.

Why do you want a better efficiency, is it to save money. The amount of money that is saved with a higher efficiency is minimal.

With that being said, are you calculating for 5 gallons and getting 5 gallons of wort post boil.
 
Bobby_M said:
I don't have a set of feeler guages to tell you what my mill is set at so I can't help there. How much preboil volume are you collecting?
Click to expand...


Pre biol volume was off yesterday, I stopped collecting at 13 gallons, but drained the MLT and collected an additional 2 gallons.

I am still trying to dial in my beersmith program, to my equipment, and get it just right. I am finding that a 60 min boil, I need 13 gallons and that gives me between 10 - 10.5 gallons post boil.
 
King of Cascade said:
+ 1 on this

I think efficiency is overrated.

Why do you want a better efficiency, is it to save money. The amount of money that is saved with a higher efficiency is minimal.

With that being said, are you calculating for 5 gallons and getting 5 gallons of wort post boil.
Click to expand...


It is just a matter of trying to make something better than it is, thats all.
 
It is just a matter of trying to make something better than it is, thats all.
Click to expand...
Is it better if you make the best beers at 70% efficiency or if you make bad beer with 85%?
I'm not trying to be argumentative but efficiency is not that important if you’re making good beer.
 
In my opinion it is very important. I really can't save much money in the equipment department of brewing, so I like to save it somewhere. Let's say that you pay an average of $1.50 for 2-row and the difference between 60% efficiency and 80% efficiency is 2# of grain. Even if I brew only once a month, it's $36 a year.

I like Bobby M's point when it comes to efficiency. Compare it to getting better gas mileage. Say you and your buddy had the same exact car and drove it in a similar fashion. Your buddy was getting 30MPG all of the time and you were only getting 26mpg. Wouldn't you want to figure out what was going on and how you could match him? Granted gas is a bit more expensive than grain right now, but I'm sure that even if gas was $2/gal you'd still want to improve your mileage.
 
I try to make the best beer I can each and every time. I try to improve my methods and equipment to help me do this. If the gravity is a bit low then usually I can figure what I did wrong. I do not get upset and try to correct gravity but let it go because It will be good beer anyway. If your SG is horrible all the time you need to find out what is the cause because that needs to be fixed. Just do the best you can to go online and look for answers and make good beer and the gravity will get better.
 
Are you measuring efficiency into the kettle or into the fermenter? Accounting for losses due to the chiller and any wort left in the kettle/boil trub will lower your brewhouse efficiency.

I prefer to measure efficiency into the kettle, because I like to scale recipes around my mash extract efficiency. Equipment losses don't seem that important to me.

In my equipment set up in BeerSmith, in the Boiler section, I have "0" entered in the field for "Lost to Boil Trub and Chiller" and "0" entered for "Top up Water." This forces Efficiency into Boiler to equal Efficiency into Fermenter, provided your actual volume is equal to your planned volume.

Figure out how much dead space you have in your tun and enter that into BeerSmith as well. Your actual volume sounds like it needs to be dialed in. This will help with stable efficiency readings.
 
Beerthoven said:
Are you measuring efficiency into the kettle or into the fermenter? Accounting for losses due to the chiller and any wort left in the kettle/boil trub will lower your brewhouse efficiency.
Click to expand...

I measure both, my pre-boil seems to always be higher, around 80 - 85%. Then I lose it in the boil somehow.


Beerthoven said:
In my equipment set up in BeerSmith, in the Boiler section, I have "0" entered in the field for "Lost to Boil Trub and Chiller" and "0" entered for "Top up Water." This forces Efficiency into Boiler to equal Efficiency into Fermenter, provided your actual volume is equal to your planned volume.
Click to expand...

I will look at my settings tonight, and try that.

Beerthoven said:
Figure out how much dead space you have in your tun and enter that into BeerSmith as well. Your actual volume sounds like it needs to be dialed in. This will help with stable efficiency readings.
Click to expand...

OK, I measured that, and put it in, I think you are right about the actual volume being dialed in. It's just a matter of learning where to do all that in BeerSmith, and getting it dialed in.
 
Is it better if you make the best beers at 70% efficiency or if you make bad beer with 85%?
I'm not trying to be argumentative but efficiency is not that important if you’re making good beer.

I think I make great beer, but I am a lil biased. My friends say its good.
Click to expand...

The reason I ask is I think I get more malt flavor in my beers than people who get better mash efficiency. I feel it's because I put more malt in my beer to reach a certain gravity than someone who gets 89% efficiency. I also think a lot of people miscalculate their efficiency – for example people either forget to calculate the wort in the bottom of the kettle or measure preboil amounts to calculate efficiency. Hope this helps...it works for me.
 
King of Cascade said:
The reason I ask is I think I get more malt flavor in my beers than people who get better mash efficiency. I feel it's because I put more malt in my beer to reach a certain gravity than someone who gets 89% efficiency. I also think a lot of people miscalculate their efficiency – for example people either forget to calculate the wort in the bottom of the kettle or measure preboil amounts to calculate efficiency. Hope this helps...it works for me.
Click to expand...

I was listening to a podcast today of the Jamil show and he said he shoots for 70% as above that efficiency and you start to get off flavour issues. astringency, tannins etc.
 
I think tannin extraction is another one of those brewing boogeymen because if I'm not getting it on beers that hit 94&#37; mash/lauter efficiency, it's just not happening. I don't know my PH so YMMV, but I'd have to make a conscious choice to stiffle my efficiency by dropping my sparge temps.

I'm not so sure about getting more malt flavor by using more grain less efficiently. Mash/lauter efficiency deals with exacting a certain percentage of available sugars, but why would you assume that malt flavor is separate from sugar?
 
but why would you assume that malt flavor is separate from sugar
Click to expand...

The husk of the grain is the kilned part of the kernel and is what adds the malt flavor.....so the more grain added to the mash the more malt flavor.
 

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