BIAB = Big Bump in Efficiency!

Ho hum, another brew day. Today was the second time I have tried BIAB. I listened to a couple Basic Brewing podcasts on BIAB after trying my hand at it for the first time a few months ago. At that time I got worse efficiency than with my mash tun. I ran into a major problem with the amount of wort generated and the OG of that wort. My normal efficiency is 70% on average, although I would say I rarely achieve that.

This time I made some serious corrections to my BIAB process. I removed the brewpot from heat for the mash, I mashed out for 10 minutes and I sparged my grain.

The result was 74% efficiency according to BeerSmith and 82.5% according to TastyBrew.com. I actually overshot my OG by .013 and still hit 5 gallons on the head. THAT is the sort of problem I like to have!

Being a noob, I only partially know what you are talking about but way to go anyway!

Well, I have probably only done about 20 beers in my time and I am still learning a lot every week. So I probably don't 100% know what I am talking about either. I am sure I am confusing one sort of efficiency for another.

daddysu said:

Being a noob, I only partially know what you are talking about but way to go anyway!

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When you mash a malted grain it has a maximum possible sugar that can be extracted from it. By varying the thickness of the crush, the mash temperature and the sparge and mashout, you try to get as close to this a you reasonably can. Anything over 70% is good. If you go over 80, pat yourself on the back and have a cold homebrew to celebrate.

it's good that you increased your efficiency but i think it matters more to big brewers who are saving thousands or million of dollars in grain. what am i saving by bumping up my efficiency? a couple of dollars in grain? i don't sparge at all so i'm sure i leave a bit of sugar in the grain i throw in the compost (i get somewhere around 58-60% efficiency) but the beer is so rich and flavorful i don't care about the numbers. anyway, not trying to poo poo anybody here but i see lots of new brewers (i've only been brewing since jan of this yr myself) worried about their low efficiencies and i wonder why they don't just add another pound of grain until they get their system down right.

Nice to hear your efficiency is up. But I am confused by.

I am sure I am confusing one sort of efficiency for another.

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@ eastoak

In my mind, increasing efficiency just means I'm doing it better. I don't obsess over it, but I do try to maximize it, and anything that I can do to improve it is at least worth looking at. Two thing come of it:

1) I can use less grain and get a (admittedly small) savings in grain cost.
2) I up my ABV for a given grainbill.

Either of these 2 outcomes is good in my book, so at least paying attention to efficiency, in the hopes of increasing it, is important to me. It is definitely lower on my list of priorities than, say, sanitation or fermentation temps, but it is something I like to try to improve on.

djfriesen said:

@ eastoak

In my mind, increasing efficiency just means I'm doing it better. I don't obsess over it, but I do try to maximize it, and anything that I can do to improve it is at least worth looking at. Two thing come of it:

1) I can use less grain and get a (admittedly small) savings in grain cost.
2) I up my ABV for a given grainbill.

Either of these 2 outcomes is good in my book, so at least paying attention to efficiency, in the hopes of increasing it, is important to me. It is definitely lower on my list of priorities than, say, sanitation or fermentation temps, but it is something I like to try to improve on.

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+1... why not try to save a buck here and there! Brew 20 beers and save 2.00 per brew and you just bought yourself almost two new batches of beer or whatever you want to reinvest into your hobby!

Good one you for trying to brew as efficient as possible. I know I do

Cheers!

Nice job, OP. I also recently experimented with the dunk-sparge BIAB method and got a consistent rise in efficiency in regular conditions. I'll continue to use this method for any beer that can be brewed single infusion at 150F-155F for 60 min with a 1.25 quarts/lb ratio. Outside that wheelhouse I find it's difficult to predict efficiency on my system.

Remember that the MAIN thing professional brewers use efficiency for is as a control variable, and the goal isn't to particularly get it as high as possible, the goal is to be able to consistently hit the same efficiency on the same equipment batch after batch.

If you can consistently hit, say 75% efficiency on the same equipment over and over, then you can brew the same batch you brewed in 1982 at 75% efficiency with the same measured ingredients and produce the exact same final product. Brew the same beer with the same measured ingredients, same process, etc., and get a 85% efficiency, and you have not brewed the same beer - it'll taste different.

It's nice to get high efficiency, but if you can't replicate the same efficiency % batch after batch then you are kinda missing the point.

If I recall correctly there are at least two different measures of efficiency listed on Beersmith. I think one was for total process and one was for mashing. Therein was the confusion regarding possible multiple types of efficiency.

TopherM said:

Remember that the MAIN thing professional brewers use efficiency for is as a control variable, and the goal isn't to particularly get it as high as possible, the goal is to be able to consistently hit the same efficiency on the same equipment batch after batch.

If you can consistently hit, say 75% efficiency on the same equipment over and over, then you can brew the same batch you brewed in 1982 at 75% efficiency with the same measured ingredients and produce the exact same final product. Brew the same beer with the same measured ingredients, same process, etc., and get a 85% efficiency, and you have not brewed the same beer - it'll taste different.

It's nice to get high efficiency, but if you can't replicate the same efficiency % batch after batch then you are kinda missing the point.

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agreed. you can't taste efficiency and taste is what it's all about.

I'm very intrigued by this process, I learned about it just a few weeks ago and it seems pretty straightforward.

How do you go about the sparging process? Maybe I'm missing something but it looks a little difficult.

Also, I have struggled hitting the low range of OG for styles in the past so this is really good news for me.

Are you all saying that achieving 72% efficiency in mashing will somehow taste different from 85% efficiency, even if that 85% is later diluted down to a point where its OG appears the same as at the 72% mash?

If you took a batch with a measured efficiency of 85% and diluted it down to 72% efficiency, then the net result is a beer that has a net 72% efficiency.

I'm talking if you took the same exact measured ingredients for a Sam Adams, put it through the same exact processes EXCEPT, let's say you milled your grain almost to flour and they had a course mill, so you get 85% mash efficiency and they get a standard 72% efficiency, then you follow the same exact boil, fermenting, bottling, conditioning, etc. schedule from there on out, then your beer is going to be different than theirs. Obviously, you are going to at least have a higher ABV, which will change the flavor profile, but you will also have more yeast flavor contributions, your beer will be "younger" after the same amount of conditioning due to the higher ABV, etc.

The point is that efficiency was created as a control variable. If you do everything exactly the same every time in your process, like pro brewers do, then you can repeast a consistent brewhouse efficiency %, and you can repeat recipes exactly over and over again.

I personally take notes on my beers, and if I REALLY like them, I'm very strict about repeating the process and hitting target numbers, including efficiencies.

If I'm making a new beer for the first time, I'm way less strict about my process, but still make sure I note all of the major variables in case it turns out to be a keeper!

I'm still mostly focused on new creations, but I do have 3 A+ keepers so far that I'll remake from time to time, and I want them to be the same as the last batch I made, so then it's time to really focus on controlling all the variables and hitting efficiencies exactly to spec from the last batch.

If you don't care about repeating previous batches, or getting the EXACT same result some other guy did from a recipe you find online, then efficiency isn't really a big deal as long as you are up over about 70.

TopherM said:

Remember that the MAIN thing professional brewers use efficiency for is as a control variable, and the goal isn't to particularly get it as high as possible, the goal is to be able to consistently hit the same efficiency on the same equipment batch after batch.

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Perhaps true with some craft brewers and people just starting out. The goal of most Pro brewers and companies is to make $$$ and they dial in as high an efficiency as they possibly can while maintaining an exact product from batch to batch.

Brew_4iT said:

I'm very intrigued by this process, I learned about it just a few weeks ago and it seems pretty straightforward.

How do you go about the sparging process? Maybe I'm missing something but it looks a little difficult.

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are you referring to no sparge brewing?

eastoak said:

are you referring to no sparge brewing?

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From the threads on here I've read so far on BIAB they didn't seem to do any sparges or just didn't go into detail.

When the mash is done would you just transfer the inner pot to a seperate one to sparge the grains? From my understanding which is probably wrong, after the mash it would be already up to boil volume so their wouldn't be enough space for the sparge water.

Brew_4iT said:

From the threads on here I've read so far on BIAB they didn't seem to do any sparges or just didn't go into detail.

When the mash is done would you just transfer the inner pot to a seperate one to sparge the grains? From my understanding which is probably wrong, after the mash it would be already up to boil volume so their wouldn't be enough space for the sparge water.

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depends on the size of the kettle. for a 5 gallon batch in a 10 gallon kettle you have plenty of room.

Brew_4iT said:

From the threads on here I've read so far on BIAB they didn't seem to do any sparges or just didn't go into detail.

When the mash is done would you just transfer the inner pot to a seperate one to sparge the grains? From my understanding which is probably wrong, after the mash it would be already up to boil volume so their wouldn't be enough space for the sparge water.

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I have BIAB the last 5 batches. I have basically been doing a double batch sparge. I mash in a 5 gallon igloo with half my total water requirement. While heating the other half of the water in the brew kettle up to mashout strike temp. After conversion I lift grains and squeeze all I can get into the igloo cooler, then I dunk into kettle for 10 min. I then lift grains from kettle and squeeze above igloo cooler, while beginning to bring kettle to boil. Once I get tired of squeezing I pour the contents of the cooler into kettle.

Oh ok, that actually seems a lot easier than stove top.

Thanks for the info carrolte!

Here's the process I used. I heated about 5 gallons of water in my brew pot to 162F. I dropped in my grains (10lb, 8oz total) and it dropped the temp to about 158F. I removed from the heat, covered with blankets and left for 45 minutes. I checked at 45 minutes and it was at 152-153F. Fifteen minutes later it was 148 (note for future batches, don't bother checking on that temp as it will only decrease upon opening!)

While the grains were mashing I heated about 3 gallons (at least) of water in a separate pot to 190-200 degrees and let it set. This is my sparge water.

After the first hour of mashing I brought up the temperature to about 172 and shut off heat for ten minutes. Then I placed a strainer across the top of the brew pot and hoisted the grains onto the strainer. I used my glass quart measuring cup to scoop hot sparge water out and dump it into the grains sitting in the bag in the strainer. I did this until the wort in my brew pot reached the 6.5 gallon mark that I carved into one side of the pot.