All Grain Brewing Horrible Efficiency

Here is a short run down of my next brew, waiting on grains to arrive and a free fermenter.

Grain Bill:
3.4 lbs 6 Row
3.4 lbs Vienna Malt
2.66 lbs Flaked Maize
.66 lbs Crystal 60
.3 lbs Rice Hulls
.09 lbs Roasted Barley

Total Grains 10.51 lbs

Grain Temp/Mash Tun Temp 72deg (both are stored in my basement)

Heat 4 gal strike water to 170deg, pour into mash tun, allow mash tun to heat up
when water in mash tun is 168 deg, slowly pour in grains, mix vigorous for 2-3 min
mash for 60min @ 153 deg, stirring mash every 15-20min
preform voluraf 3 times
drain wort from mash tun, expected output is 2.75-3 gal
pour 4 gal 168 deg sparge water into mash tun, mix vigorous for 2-3 min, let sit 20 min
preform voluraf 3 times
drain mash tun, expected output is 4 gal

total expected boil volume of 6.75-7 gal

expected pre boil gravity 1.044

expect 1.75-2 gal boil off (it is a short wide brew kettle, and I tend to boil as hard as the wort will let me)

expected og 1.049


Does this seem correct?

Not quite. Don't time your stirring when you ma in...just stir until you get the same temp at any place or depth in your cooler. Make you sparge water more like 185. The object is to get the grain up to about 168 and 168 water won't do that. Don't let the sparge water sit after stirring it in. There's no benefit to it and you waste time. Vorlauf 3x is pretty much unnecessary. I vorlauf about a qt. or two and I'm good to go. The vorlauf doesn't need to be crystal clear....just free of chunks. See www.dennybrew.com for details.

Sweet...will do...UPS needs to hurry.

schiersteinbrewing said:

total expected boil volume of 6.75-7 gal

expected pre boil gravity 1.044

expect 1.75-2 gal boil off (it is a short wide brew kettle, and I tend to boil as hard as the wort will let me)

expected og 1.049


Does this seem correct?

Click to expand...

no...
Checking these numbers on the calculator on brewer's friend link (second calculator): http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

7 gallons of 1.044 boiled off to 5.25 gallons would give you OG 1.059
6.75 gallons boiled off to 4.75 gallons would give you OG 1.063

but maybe you are saying you will boil off say 1 gallon, and leave 1 gallon in the boil kettle...say start with 7 gal of 1.044, boil off 1 gallon, have 6 gallons of 1.051 in kettle, transfer 5 of these gallons to the fermenter... that puts you in the right ballpark.

I hate losing that much wort in the kettle and use my strainer to avoid it, normally my difference bettween kettle vol and fermenter vol is about 1 quart (depends on hop load but that would be for an ale with about 4 oz of pellet hops in the boil). Given this looks like a cream ale recipe I am assuming there will not be a whole lot of hops so you shouldn't need to lose that much in the kettle no matter how you transfer.

Your strike temperature also seems off to me.
If you are adding the strike water to the MLT and waiting for it to cool to 168F before adding the grains you are effectively pre-heating your MLT.
If you have a pre-heated MLT containing 4 gallons of water at 168F, and add 10.51 lbs grain at 72F, then according to my calculations you will achieve a mash temperature of 157F. If you are going to mash at 153F, I calculate your strike water should be 163F.

-a.

ajf said:

Your strike temperature also seems off to me.
If you are adding the strike water to the MLT and waiting for it to cool to 168F before adding the grains you are effectively pre-heating your MLT.
If you have a pre-heated MLT containing 4 gallons of water at 168F, and add 10.51 lbs grain at 72F, then according to my calculations you will achieve a mash temperature of 157F. If you are going to mash at 153F, I calculate your strike water should be 163F.

-a.

Click to expand...

That explains why my last mash was at 157 also.

eric19312 said:

but maybe you are saying you will boil off say 1 gallon, and leave 1 gallon in the boil kettle...say start with 7 gal of 1.044, boil off 1 gallon, have 6 gallons of 1.051 in kettle, transfer 5 of these gallons to the fermenter... that puts you in the right ballpark.

I hate losing that much wort in the kettle and use my strainer to avoid it, normally my difference bettween kettle vol and fermenter vol is about 1 quart (depends on hop load but that would be for an ale with about 4 oz of pellet hops in the boil). Given this looks like a cream ale recipe I am assuming there will not be a whole lot of hops so you shouldn't need to lose that much in the kettle no matter how you transfer.

Click to expand...

I'm going if my last two sets of numbers. Pre boil vol was 6.5 gal and 4.5 gal - 4.75 gal made it into the fermenter. Some of the loss is the trub/hops junk left in the kettle, some to boil off.

What type of filter/strainer would be good to use? My fermenters are all better bottles and I have a 5 in SS funnel. Straining/filtering would probably increase my efficiency quite a bit.

A little unconventional but here is my strainer...
It is a 10" conical fine mesh kitchen strainer. Sanitize in pot of boiling water before transfer.

I didnt read through everything to see if you fixed your problem. I had the same problem as you and I fixed it by increasing my sparge temp to about 190 to bring my mash to about 170 in my 5 gallon mash tun batch sparring. It did the trick

schiersteinbrewing said:

For measuring in and out, I use an opaque white 5gal bucket from Lowe's with gallons in half increments on it as well as liter increments.

Click to expand...

Did you put the increments on the bucket or were they already there? You will be surprised how many times factory marked buckets are wrong. You may want to add water a gallon or half gallon at a time using something else to measure with and confirm that it matches the bucket.

The increments are pre-printed. I never thought to check and make sure they were correct.

Finally had time to brew, between work and being the general contractor on building my house time is hard to come by.

Brew went good but numbers didn't come out that great.

Grain Bill:
3.4 lbs 6 Row
3.4 lbs Vienna Malt
3 lbs Instant Grits
.7 lbs Crystal 60
.3 lbs Rice Hulls
.8 lbs Black Barley
.5oz Brewers Gold 9.6% aa
White Labs German Bock Lager (2l starter)

estimated sg 1.044
estimated og 1.053

Heated 4 gal strike water to 167deg, poured into mash tun, allowed mash tun to heat up
when water in mash tun was 162 deg, slowly poured in grains, mixed vigorously
mashed for 60min @ 152 deg, stirring mash every 15-20min
checked for complete conversion with iodine test
preformed voluraf
drained wort from mash tun, output is 2.5 gal, of 1.052 gravity
poured 4 gal 185 deg sparge water into mash tun, mixed vigorously for 2-3 min
preformed voluraf
drained mash tun, output is 4 gal, of 1.021gravity
boil volume 6.5gal
sg 1.036

brought wort to boil added hops
added wort chiller @ 45min
boiled 15 min
total boil time 60min
chilled wort with ice bath and wort chiller to 70deg
poured into fermeter and areated
total volume into fermeter 5.5gal
og 1.042
poured off most of liquid from starter
pitched starter slurry

I did check the pre-printed marks on my measuring bucket they were correct.
I did check my thermometers and made sure they were calibrated properly.

I thought well maybe my hydrometer is faulty and instead of ordering a new one ordered a refractometer instead.

Hi and welcome back...
Sorry you are still having troubles. I entered your recipe into my software and came up with a couple questions...
You are mentioning fractions of pounds, most recipes in english units use pounds and ounces, if your fractional pounds were really ounces that would make a difference. E.g 3.4 pounds or 6-row or 3 lbs 4 oz?

Assuming you really meant 3.4,
I end up getting a target pre-boil sg of 1.045 and OG of 1.051...pretty close to your targets. I assumed 6.5 gal into kettle, 5.75 gal post boil, 5.5 gal transferred to fermenter, 75% mash efficiency. Beer Alchemy doesn't get into brewhouse vs mash efficiency, I believe this is brewhouse efficiency.

Given you got 5.5 gal of 1.042 wort it looks to me like your efficiency was 62%. If you really meant 3 lbs 4 oz then your efficiency was 66%.

So this is low but maybe not horrible. Probably some experience and a minor tweaks to your process will get you to a respectable efficiency. Here are some suggestions.

1. Work with a simple recipe while you figure out your issue...Something like a pale ale 10 lbs 2-row (US or British) and some C60 (8-16 oz depending on your preference). That should be a pretty reliable and repeatable mash, you can make a variety of beers by trying different yeasts and hops.

2. Look into your crush again. See if the supplier will double crush if you aren't crushing yourself.

3. Adjust your mash / sparge water so that you get equal amounts of run-off from first and second runnings. If you had added 3 quarts of hot water to the mash before running off first time you would have had 3.25 gallons of first runnings. Then you would have reduced your sparge water to 3.25 gallons to produce 3.25 gallons of second runnings for a total of 6.5 gallons into the kettle.

Good luck

eric19312 said:

You are mentioning fractions of pounds, most recipes in english units use pounds and ounces, if your fractional pounds were really ounces that would make a difference. E.g 3.4 pounds or 6-row or 3 lbs 4 oz?

I assumed 6.5 gal into kettle, 5.75 gal post boil, 5.5 gal transferred to fermenter, 75% mash efficiency. Beer Alchemy doesn't get into brewhouse vs mash efficiency, I believe this is brewhouse efficiency.

Given you got 5.5 gal of 1.042 wort it looks to me like your efficiency was 62%. If you really meant 3 lbs 4 oz then your efficiency was 66%.

So this is low but maybe not horrible. Probably some experience and a minor tweaks to your process will get you to a respectable efficiency. Here are some suggestions.

1. Work with a simple recipe while you figure out your issue...Something like a pale ale 10 lbs 2-row (US or British) and some C60 (8-16 oz depending on your preference). That should be a pretty reliable and repeatable mash, you can make a variety of beers by trying different yeasts and hops.

2. Look into your crush again. See if the supplier will double crush if you aren't crushing yourself.

3. Adjust your mash / sparge water so that you get equal amounts of run-off from first and second runnings. If you had added 3 quarts of hot water to the mash before running off first time you would have had 3.25 gallons of first runnings. Then you would have reduced your sparge water to 3.25 gallons to produce 3.25 gallons of second runnings for a total of 6.5 gallons into the kettle.

Good luck

Click to expand...

3.4 lbs or 3lbs 4.8 oz

I use BeerSmith for the recipe and estimates with the default 75% efficiency it has.

yes 6.5gal into kettle, post boil and into fermenter was 5.5gal (poured the entire kettle in)

I've been using brewers friend efficiency calculators and came up in the 59% for conversion/mash eff, and 58% for Brewhouse. Not horrible but could be better.

1. next couple of brews after the blue moon clone are going to be a blonde pale ale, to dial things in a little better

2. bought a corona mill to do a second crush myself (couldn't bring myself to spend the bucks on a barley crusher just yet)

3. I bought a false bottom for my mash tun and did away with the SS washer hose and looking at trying a fly sparge instead of batch sparge (losing 1.5gal to grain absorption/deadspace on a 10-11lb grain bill seams like a huge loss to me, which causes my sparge volume to be high to meet boil volume, which lowers my gravity)

schiersteinbrewing said:

I've been using brewers friend efficiency calculators and came up in the 59% for conversion/mash eff, and 58% for Brewhouse.

Click to expand...

OK I got the same thing now that I know you really meant 3.4 lbs and you ended boil with 5.5 gallons and dumped all into fermenter. 59%

schiersteinbrewing said:

3. I bought a false bottom for my mash tun and did away with the SS washer hose and looking at trying a fly sparge instead of batch sparge (losing 1.5gal to grain absorption/deadspace on a 10-11lb grain bill seams like a huge loss to me, which causes my sparge volume to be high to meet boil volume, which lowers my gravity)

Click to expand...

I don't lose much if any to deadspace in my system and don't believe you did either. Most of the 1.5 gallon difference between the water that went into the batch and the wort that was collected was absorbed by the grain... 0.125 gal / lb is number I see used most often but understand others use as low as 0.1 or as high as 0.2. You had 11.5 lbs grain bill, that would absorb just about 1.5 gallons...you used 8 gallons and collected 6.5...so just about no deadspace in your system.

Anyway good luck with the false bottom and fly sparging. Guess I'd consider the same thing in your shoes but want to point out that a lot of people seem to be getting very good results with the batch sparge / braid system. My efficiency is averaging right about 75%.

I'm starting to get this down, made some big changes to my brewing. Added a mill, false bottom to kettle and mash tun, added a plate chiller, and fly sparging. My last batch a Blue Moon Clone, mashed at 150 deg, I was able to hit 70% efficiency. One or two more batches I am hoping for 75%-80% numbers. Going to do an even finer crush and insulate my HLT for the next batch.

Also, playing with PH levels. "Sierra Springs" bottled water was 6.0 added Five Star PH and was right at 5.2. The next batch was tap water, had a PH of 6.5 added five star PH and was at 5.2. I've always added Five Star PH but now in seeing if it really works, so far so good.

I'm on well water here so not really concerned with chlorine levels, but I did send off a sample for analysis.

My thoughts are this;

Too fine a crush will cause more channeling to occur in the grain bed. This may be controversial and I'm good with that, I can tell you from my personal experience, opening my gaps made my efficiency jump up 4%.

Someone I don't know from parts unknown did a study on it;
http://509899.cache1.evolutionhosting.com/wp-content/uploads/ImprovingBrewhouseEfficiency-Havig.pdf



I didn't hear anyone mention length of time in sparging. Fly sparging too fast causes a large interface between wort and water. The larger this interface, the less effective the sparge. Ideally I like the sparge to take at least 40 min. The longer the sparge, the higher the efficiency ( there are, of course, diminishing returns).

Unless you have unbroken kernels in your grist, consider opening your mill gaps( assuming you are milling your own)

If you fly-sparge, run it as slow as you can stand.

These two things raised my mash efficiency to an average 77%

I have been ordering my grains milled, my last brew was ordered crushed then gave them a "light once over" in the corona mill.

My next brew the grains are unmilled, so I'll be tossing some pics up with grain crush, for approval before brewing, when the time comes.

For fly sparging, I sparged with 170 deg water over 50min. I did not do a mash out this time, but planning on doing it with the next brew.

My last brew session a Blue Moon Clone

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
1.00 tbsp Five Star PH 5.2
5 lbs American 2-Row
4 lbs White Wheat Malt
1 lbs Oats, Flaked
1.00 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 4%AA
1.25 tsp McCormick Ground Coriander Seed
0.33 tsp McCormick Ground Orange Peel, Sweet
1.0 pkg Safale American #US-05

Notes:
------
Ran the milled grains (ordered milled from AHS) through the corona mill (with very little to no change in crush)
Heated 13.5 quarts of strike water to 175 deg
Poured the strike water into mash tun, ph was 6.2
Allowed mash to to heat up
Stirred in 1 tbsp PH 5.2, ph now 5.0
Mashed in at 160 deg
Mashed for 60 min at 150 deg
Iodine test for starches was negative
Voluraf x 2
Heated 6 gal of sparge water to 170 deg
Fly Sparged with 170 deg water over 50 min to boil volume of 6.5 gal
sg 1.038 / 9.5 brix
heated wort to boil
added hops in muslin bag
boiled 45 min
added coriander and orange peel
boiled 15 min
flame out and covered pot
connected plate chiller (circulated ice water through plate chiller with it submerged in ice water)
drained kettle through plate chiller
wort was 200+ deg going in and 70 deg going out
cooled 5.5 gal wort to 70 deg in 30 min
og 1.50 / 12 brix
oxygenated wort and pitched yeast

Brewed up a blonde ale today. Very happy with the results.

10lbs pale 2 row
1 lb crystal 10l

75% Conversion Efficency and 86% Brewhouse Efficency

Changes for this brew
1. Ran unmilled grains through my new corona mill
2. Did a mash out