Finally increased my efficiency!

So I brewed my 7th all grain batch today. I have consistently been getting 58-61% efficiency, which has been frustrating me. Today is different! After a number of changes in my set-up and process I have finally increased my efficiency. I hit 79% today, and I'm pretty darn happy about it!

I got a lot more accurate with my water volume measurements than I have been in the past. I used rice hulls for the first time. I mashed in my new 52qt Coleman Extreme MLT, with a 12" by 1" water heater SS braid at 154F for 90 mins after pre-heating it. I used 5.2 stabalizer for the first time (I know people say it doesn't always work, but I wanted to try it anyway). I infused boiling water to achieve a 168F mash-out and held it for 10mins for the first time ( I usually don't mash-out). I batch sparged at 170F with a single infusion, held it for 7 minutes, and then drained it slow (Even though most people say to drain fast for batch sparging). Lastly, I better compensated for my boil off amount this time.

I'm sure my better efficiency came as a result of a combination of all of these things, but at least my process is nice and tight now. I really liked using the cooler MLT instead of my keg MLT.

Raising a pint to my fellow homebrewers out of jubilation

Changing so many things in your process will make it hard to determine where your deficiencies were before, but I'm glad you've come up with a process that works for you.
Congrats!

Bull

bullinachinashop said:

Changing so many things in your process will make it hard to determine where your deficiencies were before, but I'm glad you've come up with a process that works for you.
Congrats!

Bull

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I thought about that, but if I stay with this new system and maintain the high efficiency I won't look back.

Stauffbier said:

I infused boiling water to achieve a 168F mash-out

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I always get freaked out by this. Dumping 210+ degree water directly into grains violates the “No >170 rule”. Verboten, right? Husk tannins and all that. (Some say it’s 172, others 168. I don’t know what the current accepted number is.)

Unless of course someone is using a recirculation system where they just heat outbound up to 170 and reintroduce it until the whole thing is 168. (Damn cheaters.)

That said, of all the things you mentioned, I suspect raising the mash temp is 90%+ responsible for your higher efficiency, lower wort viscosity and all. I’ve always had this conflicting conundrum/understanding – to nuke the mash or not to nuke the mash (with water well above 170) to get those sugars out and into my pot.

But I’m a helpless 72% guy. Don’t listen to me.

Congratulations!

ipso said:

I always get freaked out by this. Dumping 210+ degree water directly into grains violates the “No >170 rule”. Verboten, right? Husk tannins and all that. (Some say it’s 172, others 168. I don’t know what the current accepted number is.)

Unless of course someone is using a recirculation system where they just heat outbound up to 170 and reintroduce it until the whole thing is 168. (Damn cheaters.)

That said, of all the things you mentioned, I suspect raising the mash temp is 90%+ responsible for your higher efficiency, lower wort viscosity and all. I’ve always had this conflicting conundrum/understanding – to nuke the mash or not to nuke the mash (with water well above 170) to get those sugars out and into my pot.

But I’m a helpless 72% guy. Don’t listen to me.

Congratulations!

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You can only extract tannins if you have the high temperature AND a high pH. Your mash will always be low pH unless you have extremely alkaline water (which would show up in bad flavors anyway) so you can boil your mash if you want. The problem of getting the astringency from extracting tannins comes from over-sparging where each sparge raises the pH until it goes over 6 and then you still have to sparge with hot water to extract the tannins.

For what it's worth, the boiling water dropped in temp almost immediately upon hitting the cooler (say 149ish) grain bed. I dumped quick and got to stirring it right away to avoid hot pockets. It got exactly to 168F like the calculator I used said it would. As far as my sparge water goes, I actually put about 30% of the total 1T of 5.2 in it. I'm hoping everything I did worked as planned, and didn't extract tannins. The wort tasted wonderful, but I don't know if that means anything or not.. As far as hitting higher eff. because of the mash temp, I've mashed at that same temp many times and never got good efficiency. All I know is I will keep using this exact process and see if my efficiency stays this high or higher. If it does, I'll take it without questioning it..

I follow the same procedures as Stauffbier without the use of 5.2 stabilizer and typically get 80-85% efficiency. When I first started batch sparging I was not doing a mashout and was getting around 70% efficiency. So I believe that the mashout is a great way to increase your efficiency. And I've never had any tannin extraction issues in over 20 batches using the mashout.

RM-MN said:

You can only extract tannins if you have the high temperature AND a high pH. Your mash will always be low pH unless you have extremely alkaline water (which would show up in bad flavors anyway) so you can boil your mash if you want. The problem of getting the astringency from extracting tannins comes from over-sparging where each sparge raises the pH until it goes over 6 and then you still have to sparge with hot water to extract the tannins.

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You see, right there – that – new information that comes up, out of nowhere, after 20 some years+ of brewing. I love that that can happen, and HATE that that can happen, in not so equal measures.

(So many things about homebrewing remind me of golf. I was talking to the LHBS guy last week and mentioned I had been brewing for over 20 years, and he looked up with a “you’re full of itt” smirk, and I say “Hey, I’ve been golfing for over 30 years too, and my game still blows.” Moral = you have to brew more than once every other season to get any better.)

I’m going to nuke that mash on Wed (I’ll call it a mash out, my first “mash out”) and see what the numbers and taste say.

My very high Alkaline tap water will be changed out with Sparkletts.

Thanks for the info guys!

(Stauffbier - I have to add, your avatar is one of the most interesting ones I've ever seen. Even after looking at the larger image in your gallery I still can't identify anything except the bottle opener part, but don't see how it's all supporting itself. Very odd. Brilliant! Great gallery too.)

wow that high of a jump in efficiency is going to get you pretty strong beer unless you bought your grains for 80 effic.

Dhruv6911 said:

wow that high of a jump in efficiency is going to get you pretty strong beer unless you bought your grains for 80 effic.

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I thought about this, which is why I used a kit for this experimental batch. I'm not too sure, but I think the kit was designed with a variance of about 73% to 79% eff. The kit gave an OG range of 1.042-1.046... My post boil OG turned out to be 1.047, so not that different. In the future I'm going to design my recipes at maybe 75%-77% for now and see how that works....

Are you using pre-crushed grains? If so, I'd like to see the crush. I set my recipe for 70%Saturday and hit it, but felt like I did everything right, mostly, and should have exceeded it with the slightly finer crush I gave the grain (first time using my Corona). I too would like to get into the mid-to-high 70's.

ipso said:

(Stauffbier - I have to add, your avatar is one of the most interesting ones I've ever seen. Even after looking at the larger image in your gallery I still can't identify anything except the bottle opener part, but don't see how it's all supporting itself. Very odd. Brilliant! Great gallery too.)

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Thanks! It's a picture of an antique bottle opener that has been passed down to me from my grandparents. The bottle opener sticks to the cat via a magnet.

tre9er said:

Are you using pre-crushed grains? If so, I'd like to see the crush. I set my recipe for 70%Saturday and hit it, but felt like I did everything right, mostly, and should have exceeded it with the slightly finer crush I gave the grain (first time using my Corona). I too would like to get into the mid-to-high 70's.

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Right now I am using pre-crushed grain. On this particular batch it was a Midwest kit, so I'm not sure what their crush is set too.. I have some grain from Austin waiting to be brewed. I'll take a picture of it when I open it in a couple weeks. To bump up efficiency in the past I've tried taking a pound or two of my pre-crushed grain and crushing it a bit more under a rolling pin. It seemed to have gotten me 2-4% increase on eff. I too, plan on getting a Corona mill. Can you share your resource on the mill?

Amazon, grizzly branded, 29.99 shipped US. Did the ugly junk bucket mount (last few pages). Will take pics of crush