73% efficency without a HLT!

Ok, so I was reading THIS thread and thought wow! Over 70% brewhouse efficency without batch sparging or fly sparging? Just mix all of your preboil water together between the boil kettle and the MLT(plus add in what the grain soaks up)... Yeah right. Even after jkarp posted this, "I've NEVER dropped below 70%, and grist seems to have a bigger impact than gravity. I got mid seventies on the last barleywine I did, but 72% on my last wheat. I'm actually doing a raspberry wheat this weekend so it'll be interesting to see how it does." I was skeptical. Today I brewed a Cute Little Hunny Bunny Ale (16lbs 2row, 4lbs flaked corn, 1lb carafoam, 1oz Cascade 8.4 60min 2112 california lager) and got 73% BREWHOUSE EFFICENCY!!! 1.049!!! (post boil volume was 11 gallons, my gear soaks up a quart.) I couldn't believe it. To get that when batch sparging or fly sparging I have to collect 3ish gallons too much on a 5.5 gallon batch on my equpment and boil for 2-2.5 hours to get 79%. If I collect just enough to hit my target volume after the boil I sometimes get between 68% and 71% efficency. PLUS my brew day was about an hour shorter. Does anyone else use this meathod to brew? It's pretty sad that when I mix all the water together that's meant to be in the brew I get a better efficency than when I use fancy sparge techniques... HAHAHAHA!!! Thank you for the inspiration jkarp. I not so sure I would have tried it had you not posted your thread.

I have been working on something similar, but I haven't tried it yet.

And on that raspberry wheat, I tossed in a handful of rice hulls, did a 10 minute protein rest at 120 and then ramp mashed from 145-170 over 90 minutes. Got 74% mash efficiency, and that was with 2 lbs of flaked grains in a 6 lb grist! I'm happy.

Grimsawyer said:

Ok, so I was reading THIS thread and thought wow! Over 70% brewhouse efficency without batch sparging or fly sparging? Just mix all of your preboil water together between the boil kettle and the MLT(plus add in what the grain soaks up)... Yeah right. Even after jkarp posted this, "I've NEVER dropped below 70%, and grist seems to have a bigger impact than gravity. I got mid seventies on the last barleywine I did, but 72% on my last wheat. I'm actually doing a raspberry wheat this weekend so it'll be interesting to see how it does." I was skeptical. Today I brewed a Cute Little Hunny Bunny Ale (16lbs 2row, 4lbs flaked corn, 1lb carafoam, 1oz Cascade 8.4 60min 2112 california lager) and got 73% BREWHOUSE EFFICENCY!!! 1.049!!! (post boil volume was 11 gallons, my gear soaks up a quart.) I couldn't believe it. To get that when batch sparging or fly sparging I have to collect 3ish gallons too much on a 5.5 gallon batch on my equpment and boil for 2-2.5 hours to get 79%. If I collect just enough to hit my target volume after the boil I sometimes get between 68% and 71% efficency. PLUS my brew day was about an hour shorter. Does anyone else use this meathod to brew? It's pretty sad that when I mix all the water together that's meant to be in the brew I get a better efficency than when I use fancy sparge techniques... HAHAHAHA!!! Thank you for the inspiration jkarp. I not so sure I would have tried it had you not posted your thread.

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I get 69% eff. in ProMash with this... but still that is good for the process

BIAB uses one vessel where all of the water is placed there for the mash, the grain is in a grain bag. After the mash it is simply removed from the kettle and the burner turned on to start the boil. Thin mashes can improve the conversion eff... maybe even making up for more than is lost through the lack of sparge in some cases. BIAB has been pretty successful with eff. in the 70s

JKarp has a nice system there, if I were an apartment brewer, Id build that thing and buy some 3 gallon kegs.

I am confused though... you said when you fly or batch sparge you got 79% eff. then went on to say that using this method you get better eff., when you admitted that it went down to 73%??

The Pol said:

I get 69% eff. in ProMash with this... but still that is good for the process...

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Wierd, I adjusted beer smith to 10.75 gallons to account for what the gear soaks up and I still get 71% I plug in 69% and get 1.047. Do Beer Smith and ProMash use a slightly different equasion to figure that stuff out?

The Pol said:

...I am confused though... you said when you fly or batch sparge you got 79% eff. then went on to say that using this method you get better eff., when you admitted that it went down to 73%??

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Yeah, If I collect a CRAPLOAD of extra wort I can get up to 79%. Then I'm boiling for 2 to 2 and a half hours. If I just collect enough to hit my full ONE HOUR boil volume then I get 68-71ish%. I'm sure if I had enough propane I could get 90% brewhouse efficency, but who wants to spend that much on propane anyways? I figure a few pounds of grain is more cost effective than a full tank of propane. Besides, the more braindead I can make my process the less I have to screw up. Lets face it, does anybody brew without a brew in their hand anyways? LOL!!! I'll be curious on how low the gravity on this beer goes. It'll be a fun one for sure... Maybe I'll have to start adding more crystal malt to keep the gravity up... hehehehe

IF you guys are having that much problems with efficiency, I would highly recommend checking your mash pH. It seems to be something that is often overlooked and yet is oh so important.

That said, I think this goes along with what Kaiser has seen in his batch sparge analysis experiments. According to the results in this graph:



A no sparge batch should be able to achieve roughly 70% eff up to a gravity of about 1.065

I'd recommended reading what Kaiser has found, as it's very informing and might help give you the answer as to why a particular method works.

Batch Sparging Analysis - German Brewing Techniques

I do think one thing that helps a bit with this system is there's always a fully complete mashout. Palmer explains a mashout as the difference between pouring warm and cold honey. The mash is quite thin and hot so the wort more easily flows out.

More importantly, I'm 100% with Lonnie on efficiency. My beers are tasting great and even if I was getting 60%, I'd be happy. The additional grain to make up the gravity points between 60% and 80% is pocket change in this small batch system.

I seem to recall someone here doing tests on cold sparging... I want to say Kaiser was looking into it?

I never saw the outcome, but the idea was being pushed around that the hot vs cold sparge only produced a couple eff. points at best in testing.

My sparges pre HERMS resulted in a grain bed at 150F for the sparge.

Post HERMS it is about 166F and the eff. never changed.

The only noticeable difference I have seen in my own eff. was CRUSH and in MASH THICKNESS. I am sure that my process improvement has in fact resulted in some increases, but those were much less noticeable.

The Barley Crusher helped a lot, and thinner mashing as well.

I speculate the any real gains found when doing a mashout or hot sparge is really related to that short period of supercharged enzyme activity just before they get denatured. It finishes up the conversion and boosts efficiency. I won't say that hotter mash doesn't make for easier lautering/draining and maybe a couple points of efficiency, but I think it's more related to how it affects conversion.

Pol, I wish a thinner mash boosted my efficiency. It really did drop it by about 5% but I had to do it to be able to recirculate my mash for any length of time.

Bobby_M said:

I speculate the any real gains found when doing a mashout or hot sparge is really related to that short period of supercharged enzyme activity just before they get denatured. It finishes up the conversion and boosts efficiency. I won't say that hotter mash doesn't make for easier lautering/draining and maybe a couple points of efficiency, but I think it's more related to how it affects conversion.

Pol, I wish a thinner mash boosted my efficiency. It really did drop it by about 5% but I had to do it to be able to recirculate my mash for any length of time.

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Yah, a thinner mash will NOT always increase eff. It depends on what your conversion eff. is already. This is because by increasing the amount of water in the mash, you are losing sparge water... thusly potentially reducing your lauter eff. If your conversion eff. is already maxed, a thinner mash will do nothing but reduce your lauter eff.

Another potential benefit to a thinner mash is that you have more FIRST wort... typically longer and higher volume sparges reduce the quality of the wort. So, by increasing the first wort volume and reducing the length/volume of the sparge, you can better your overall wort quality.

The Pol said:

I seem to recall someone here doing tests on cold sparging... I want to say Kaiser was looking into it?

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Yeah kaiser did an experiment with a schwartzbeer and saw a minimal drop in efficiency. I think he measured 3%. You can read about it on his site:

My Brewing Log | Cold Water Sparging

I am betting he didn't put it on his other site because the grain bill was slightly different. Maybe he'll chime in. And yes, I've read everything on both of his sites, lol.

This is an intriguing perspective here.

So in a nutshell, you're doughing in with your full complement of water for the batch, not just 1.25 or 1.5 quarts/pound?

I think so, this is also how BIAB works.

MarkSheffield said:

This is an intriguing perspective here.

So in a nutshell, you're doughing in with your full complement of water for the batch, not just 1.25 or 1.5 quarts/pound?

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Not quite. You mash as usual, but recirculate the system with the full pre-boil volume to mashout. Full details here.

I mashed as usual for 45min then started recirculating all of the water. I did that for another 45 min. It was some clear wort going into the boil kettle!

You COULD mash with the full batch volume including absorption makeup but that only works well on really big beers so that the mash isn't so thin that enzymes are too diluted. I think it's more common to mash normally at 1.5 to 2qts/lb and then the rest of the volume is is infused prior to any drainings. It's kind of like the laziest possible batch sparge, one infusion, one running.

Bobby_M said:

...It's kind of like the laziest possible batch sparge, one infusion, one running.

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Yeah... Kinda like a fully automated mash system with mind boggling commercial controllers and switches not to mention the painstakingly mind numbing task of programing the software to run it minus the really crazy gear(that I am extremely jealous of btw. :rockin that only gets 73% brewhouse efficency. Sure you can get more but man, this way gets my vote. Braindead and easy. 8% abv at 5.5 gallons takes 15.5lbs of grain at 80% brewhouse efficency. 8% abv for 5.5 gallons at 73% brewhouse efficency just takes 1.5lbs of grain more. That's one dollar and fifty cents. (I pay at my LHBS $50 for 50lbs of 2row). 69% takes only 18lbs to get 8%, that's $2.50 more. If I were a brewery pumping out hundreds of gallons of "product" I'd nitpick more. If I had a background that involved tig welding and fabrication with maybe a touch of engineering I'd be INSANE about squeezing every last % point out of a batch(btw, again I am jealous of those who work with tig welders with fabrication backgrounds... have you seen their breweries? man, they are more beautiful than the hunk of wood with burners screwed on a crude cart on casters in my garage!!!). But this meathod seems to be right up my alley! It definately isn't for everybody, but I'm stoked about it. I can drink beer and BBQ while brewing now with less attention spent obsessing about how much water is on top of the grainbed during a sparge. WOOOO!!!!!!!! :rockin: