Drop in efficiency

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Emc

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2011
Messages
54
Reaction score
3
Location
Cotati
Hoping for some suggestions. Recently switched from round igloo coolers to a keggel set up for my mash tun. In the cooler I was getting upper 70's to low 80's for my efficiency. Ever since the switch, 5th batch was last night, I've dropped to mid to high 60's. Thoughts? I'm going to double check the thermometer accuracy this weekend, maybe I hit the probe stirring and now it's off? Draining the tun to fast?
 
I should add, I'm using beersmith to formulate recipes and batch sparging.
 
How much total water are you using in the mash and sparging?
How much wort are you ending up with pre-boil?
Does the ratio match up with your old process?
 
So I don't have my laptop here at work, so I can't give exact numbers at the moment. Using the water amounts beersmith gives for the recipe, which was what I was doing before the drop in efficiency. Only difference, now with the keg I can do a single sparge, with the cooler I would batch sparge. Conversion temp ranges have stayed the same ( 149ish for belguims, 154 is what I aim for for my ipa, did the porter and 158) and always sparge with 168 water. Water seems to be about the same, preboil volumes match what beersmith says, I have never trusted my preboil gravity readings so that didn't strike me as weird when that didn't match up. Final boil volume is correct, and same as in the past. After the second batch was under gravity I increased my crush thinking a finer crush might be needed in the keg, still off, now it's consistent in how much it's off, but off from what the computer thinks I should get.
 
Not sure what I hit, but should say porter at 158, not the whole happy face in sunglasses thing.
 
Back
Top