Is 68% efficiency decent for batch sparging?

In the past I had some issues with my refractometer but this time I took measurements inside at room temperature and I think today's batch was arounc 68% efficiency. I plugged the numbers into BeerSmith and it did the calculation for me. But the numbers were 1037 pre boil (estimate was 1042) and 1045 SG (estimate of 1049).

My equipment is a 48qt square Igloo cooler for MLT with a SS valve kit and a mesh boil screen. I'm wondering if I'm getting decent numbers or if there is a way to improve without going to fly sparging.

I average between 72-73%. 68% isn't that far off.

sparge slower and stir the grist more often. that will get you another 10 %.

how long does it take you from the time your 60 min mash is over to when you obtain your pre boil volume?

i've gotten 65% and 78% on my 2 AG batches doing batch sparge. the difference was 1) a slightly finer crush, 2) stirring the batch sparge for about 5 min then letting it sit for 10 min, then draining it off. I think the big difference came from stirring, not the crush change.

68 is not bad at all i plan on 70 to 73 eff depending on my grain bill. I have found that the biggest factor for my system was evap rate getting the same amount of boil off each time witch is tricky when brewing out doors and in winter.

Looks like you where off 5 points preboil 4 after. So you made up 1 point in the boil. Did you get the right amount of wort at the end of the boil?

I think 68% is ok for batch sparging. Can you get higher than that? Yes. I went from mid 60's to mid 70's% just by slowing down my my mash drain.. I used to just dump all the water in and let it flow our into the kettle at full force. When I split my sparge into two equal "batches" and slowed down the drain off, my efficiency went up almost 10%. It takes me about 30 to 40 min to do a batch sparge.

The most important thing for good efficiency is your crush.. Are you crushing your own grains?

blackwaterbrewer said:

sparge slower and stir the grist more often. that will get you another 10 %.

how long does it take you from the time your 60 min mash is over to when you obtain your pre boil volume?

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I don't get this at all. You don't want to stir after you've vorlaufed. You certainly want to stir the sparge addition in well, but after that, run it off as fast as you want.

I get a consistent 67%. I've tweaked my crush, I've changed my batch sparge runoff volumes and speeds, I've used pH buffer, all in the name of trying to get a higher efficiency. It has remained at 67% through all of that. I've comfortably settled into the realization that my setup gets 67% efficiency.

I've also realized that I'd prefer a lower mean and lower standard deviation than a high mean and high standard deviation with my efficiency. In less nerdy speak, I'd rather have a low efficiency number that is consistent than higher efficiency with high variability batch-to-batch. A lot of us strive for a high number, but I think minimizing variability in your efficiency numbers from batch to batch is equally important.

That being said, I still wish my efficiency was higher.

So far I'm not crushing my own grains. I'm still ordering kits from AHS and NB and then I enter them into BeerSmith to try and get consistent results for my setup. Since I'm still doing pre-configured kits I don't have control over the grain amounts or the crush. I've also had a terrible time trying to collect stats using my refractometer so this might be my first real indication of my efficiency.

For the record, I did drain at full speed and I did mix well after I added my sparge water. I have read a few posts on mixing and from what I've gathered it's best to just mix at the start and after sparge additions.

I did debate if I should wait after adding my sparge water and mixing but that seems to be counter to the entire concept of batch sparging. The entire idea is to save time so why add time? I might add 10 or 15 minutes if someone convinces me it will help but I didn't read anything to indicate that yet.

I should say I'm concerned for two reasons. First, I want my product to be as close to perfect as it could be. That means hitting the gravity targets when possible. Second, I want to be as cost effective as possible. If I have to boil down to below 5g just to hit the SG then I'm going to be upset.

The key for me at this stage in my brewing is determining if my current equipment and methods will yield a decent return on the ingredient investment. If I'm only going to average 40 bottles per batch I might look into fly sparging to try and get my efficiency up.

I was getting horrible efficiency batch sparging. I did several things that increased it. And now I get on average 75%. I've had as high as 85%.

1. I bought a grain mill and crush my own grains.
2. I make sure to stir well after putting in my strike water. Like 5 minutes.
3. When I mash-out, I add enough water at 210F to increase the temperature of the grist to 168F. I make sure to stir well after this infusion and wait 10 minutes before the vorlauf (at valve 1/8 initially to 1/2 open) and collecting (at valve fully open). So the collection occurs quickly (like a few minutes at most).
4. I do almost the same thing as the mash-out for the sparge (I do only one; I don't split). I add enough water heated to about 185F (enough to get the temperature of the grist to 168F again) to collect my preboil volume. I mix well, wait 10 minutes, vorlauf in the same way, then collect in the same way.

Other things that help me:
I take gravity readings of the first collections, the second collections, the preboil volume, and the volume collected into the fermenter. I then calculate my efficiency with respect to the preboil volume and what I collected to the fermenter.

I also have a CPVC manifold with slits on the bottom that has served me well. I think I have about 1/10th of a gallon (~370mL) that is left in the mash/lauter tun and can't be collected (dead space).

I don't consider batch sparging a method to save time, just simpler if you have the space in your mash tun. Waiting 10 minutes after stirring gives the sugars time to migrate out of the grains and dissolve. Think about how long it can take to dissolve some sugar in a cup of tea, even hot tea. It isn't instantaneous.

Doog_Si_Reeb said:

I've also realized that I'd prefer a lower mean and lower standard deviation than a high mean and high standard deviation with my efficiency. In less nerdy speak, I'd rather have a low efficiency number that is consistent than higher efficiency with high variability batch-to-batch. A lot of us strive for a high number, but I think minimizing variability in your efficiency numbers from batch to batch is equally important.

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This guy is right on! Consistency is far better than occasionally spiking the numbers really high.

Have a look around http://www.braukaiser.com. There are some great articles as well as a spreadsheet to help calculate/explain your losses.

david_42 said:

I don't consider batch sparging a method to save time, just simpler if you have the space in your mash tun. Waiting 10 minutes after stirring gives the sugars time to migrate out of the grains and dissolve. Think about how long it can take to dissolve some sugar in a cup of tea, even hot tea. It isn't instantaneous.

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I suppose that is true but every article I read recently said the same thing, that being you lose efficiency but you gain time.

I'm not sure I'd agree with it being more or less simple. I've seen someone fly sparge and it's way more simple than what I do with a batch sparge. But the difference is he has a great steel tiered gravity fed system with nice burners and great kettles all with valves and thermometers. I find his system much easier but the cost is of course much higher.

I have considered a cheap version that could use another cooler for HLT, a homemade wooden stand, some cheap valves and tubes, and some cpvc. In theory it should work and be pretty cheap, and it would be simple, but it's still more equipment.

In my opinion, batch sparging has one immediate advantage in the very minimal equipment requirements. I'm able to pull it off with a cooler with a valve kit, a work bench, a 5g pot (no valve) and a 8g pot (no valve) and a 1 qt Pyrex measuring cup. If I can also speed things up that is a nice advantage too.

But, next time I might give it 10 minutes after the sparge water is added to see if that helps. I agree with you that it should help. But if I start to run into the time it would take to fly sparge, then I need to consider adding to my equipment.

If you crush your own grains, move the space between the rollers from 12 o clock to 1 o clock. My first AG, I got 75%. My second and third I got 81%. My fourth and fifth I got 86% and 87%. Then I did a high gravity beer and only got 68%ish, but I pretty much figured that would happen. Couldn't help it because I only did a single sparge, had mash hops (so I didn't want to add any extra boil time to add more hop utilization than I calculated), and didn't have any more room in my pot for more wort so.. I did a 1 gallon parti-gyle and made a willamette IPA with the second sparge instead! The beer still ended up being 9.99%.

Edit: oh, yeah, and I batch sparge if you didn't figure that already.

I've also realized that I'd prefer a lower mean and lower standard deviation than a high mean and high standard deviation with my efficiency. In less nerdy speak, I'd rather have a low efficiency number that is consistent than higher efficiency with high variability batch-to-batch.

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I'm right with you on that i really don't care what my eff is into the BK as long as i can repeat it every time.

I also have a CPVC manifold with slits on the bottom that has served me well. I think I have about 1/10th of a gallon (~370mL) that is left in the mash/lauter tun and can't be collected (dead space)

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I think this a major factor for poorer eff a good amount of dead space at the bottom of the mash tun say 1/16" would be a Substantial amount of higher gravity wort not being collected. Would it not stand to reason that higher gravity wort would settle out to the bottom.
like that old high school experiment where you placed different color oils in a test tube mixed then let it sit then watch it settle out then layer into the indival colors again.

this thing increased my efficiency by +20%



I had big problems trading between finer crush and stuck sparges. Finally, I did a crush coarse enough not to cause stuck sparge, and than mixed the sparge with this drill.

In the end, I can say that I'm more than satisfied, getting from 85 - 90% efficiency. Now I have to lower my OG sometimes by adding some top up water before pitching the yeast....

paint mixer rocks!

68% isn't bad, with a few changes you may be able to improve it. I generally get between 70-73% and I think that is about as well as I can do with my current system. As long as it is consistent, and decent, I am happy.

Seriously think about investing in a grain mill if you have the money and space. I went from upper 60's% from grain milled at the LHBS, to low-mid 80's% milling at home.

I'm new to all-grain, but I've decided that I have the time before the boil begins to simply figure out how much I have and what the gravity of that is. From this, I'm figuring out what volume I can get down to to hit my recipe's OG. Screw the volume, I don't care if I get 4.5 or 5.0 gallons; not here for the quantity.

So, once I know the target post-boil volume, I can set the boil time and change up the hop addition amounts. This should get me to where I wanted to be, flavor-wise, while totally ignoring the volume component. Others may choose to figure out how far they are off by and add DME to make up for it. Similar idea here, but I'm keeping the recipe constant and just scaling it up or down (usually down).

For efficiency, I'm getting about 65% but I realize that I made some mistakes. One is the crush from LHBS is coarse; my corona mill does better but takes forever. Next batch will be double crushed. Second is my sparge time isn't long enough and I need to stir more. We'll see what ends up happening. I can always top-up the water to make how ever much I'll have to have to get the right OG and IBUs as I have a 7.9 gallon primary but only do 5 gallon batches.

400d said:

paint mixer rocks!

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You must have a false bottom in your tun? That thing would tear up my manifold:cross:

85% is my usual. 68 seems like you'd be wasting a ton of grain.