Officially frustrated...really need help

I've posted a few things now about efficiency and have gotten some good advice...but my efficiency is literally worse on every batch I brew. This last time I only got 56%...56! My recipe called for 8lbs American Two Row Pale, to make up for the bad efficiency I got last time, I bought 10lbs instead.
What I don't understand is that I've gotten 75% before, granted it was on lower abv session ales. On this last one I did all the things I was supposed to do. Here's the run down
-13.5 lbs of grain for an IPA. The projected OG range was 1.065-1.076, with 1.072 being 75% efficiency (I built a recipe on Hopville).
-Used 4.55 gallons strike water, mashed at 155 in Cooler MLT, didn't lose temp.
-Mashed for 90 min because I'd heard this would help efficiency.
-Yielded about 3.5 gallons.
-Used the .5lbs of water per pound rule for my sparge. As it turns out my pot wasn't quite big enough, so could only sparge with 5 gallons.
-My sparge when added to the grains was exactly 170. I let it sit for about 5-10 min. (Single Batch Sparge)
-Drained into kettle, took pre-boil OG, which was 1.0443.
-Used the a/b x (c-1) + 1 formula which for my purposes was 8.5/5.5 x (1.0443-1) + 1 = 1.068. I thought well hey, that's about 70%, not so bad.
Well then I ended up with 1.055 which is not so great. It will still taste pretty good, IBUs are at 53, and i'm on track to end up with a 6.5%-6.9% or so so it's not going to be a hopeless mess or anything, but what the hell is going on?
What I should've done was just gone with what I was doing before, and done a 7 gallon boil since I had bought the extra grain to make up for my less that desired efficiency last time. This time though, I did a little trial and error with boiling down 8.5 gallons to 5.5 in hopes of better efficiency,and using all the rules with the 1.4 quart per lb of grain for the mash, and .5 gallon per lb for the sparge. When all was said and done, I was left with nearly 6.5 gallons because I underestimated how much would burn off in the boil. I boiled for an hour before my first hop additions, so it was two hours total on the propane burner, but I guess that wasn't enough. Is it a safe bet that the main reason it was so low here is because I was left with a gallon extra of wort that didn't boil off that I had counted on boiling off?
My actual original recipe called for an OG range of 1.055-1.064, and as I said, I bought two extra pounds of grain in hopes of hitting that range. When I entered that into hopville though, it upped the OG range, so I missed the mark. If I'm adding grains to try and make up for efficiency loss (I am only about a month and a half into All Grain, by the way) should I not count that extra grain in my calculations? THis is the longest post ever, so I'm stopping now. Any words of wisdom would really be appreciated.

Are you getting the grain crushed at the store? How does it look?

A lot of homebrew stores have a pretty coarse crush, which has a negative impact on efficiency.

If you are crushing it at home, what is your gap setting?

Here's what you do:

Get a pre-milled batch from brewmasterswarehouse.com I know their crush is good, I always get over 80% from him usually in the mid 80's. I'd recommend a nice basic brew like Ed's Haus Pale ale. Mash 1.25 quarts per lb of grain for at least 60 minutes. Double batch sparge @185*F to get your volume needed for the boil.

Also test your thermometer, if its off then you're screwed.

Oh yeah good point about the thermometer. I had a couple of batches with horrible efficiency when my thermometer broke and was reading 10-20 degrees off.

I recommend a Thermapen. It's expensive but it is quick and accurate and I've been using the same one for 3 years now and it's still perfect.

I starting to wonder about the mill at the store. The gap in the mill does seem a bit far apart, to be honest. Can I throw them in a blender or something at home? haha.
My thermometer is digital and is the type that has a metal spike on a wire that can go in the oven while the part that tells the temp is outside.
As for the sparge, I thought it had to be 170. No? I bring the water to about 193 so when it's added to the grains it becomes 170.
I know in this case I goofed because I ended up with a whole superfluos gallon of wort that I'd counted on to be boiled off, so I know that's part of it, but still.

Someone may have suggested this already, but try draining your MLT or LT slowly... Last brew i drained my MLT too quickly and lost about 25% efficiency... was around 55%-ish.

Have you checked the hardness of your brewing water?

My thermometer is digital and is the type that has a metal spike on a wire that can go in the oven while the part that tells the temp is outside.

Click to expand...

This is exactly the type I had that started reading bad.

Are you temperature correcting your gravity samples?

Have you read Kai's stuff at braukaiser.com?

You need to determine where you are "losing" efficiency. If you are getting poor conversion efficiency, then it doesn't matter how your sparge/lauter. If you are getting good (~90+%) conversion efficiency, you can trouble shoot your sparge/lauter process.

Taking a gravity of your initial runnings (and temp correct it) can get you started...

Crush?? Are you stirring the mash thoroughly prior to each drain to help release the sugar from the grain?

185*F is the temperature of the sparge water I use, 170* is the grain bed temp you want during the second sparge. Test your thermometer in both an ice water test and a boiling water test.

You hit your target of 70% efficiency. You just ended up with 6.5 rather than 5.5 gallons post boil. Had you boiled down to 5.5 you would have had a 68 gravity beer. In other words you did quite well, just didn't execute your plan as intended.

8.5 gallons is a lot of preboil wort for a 5.5 gallon beer. I'd recommond no more than about 7 gallons otherwise you'd be boiling for half the day. Typically you want half of you preboil volume from each running.

Also, if you want a brew calculator to use other than hopville let me know. I would be willing to send my excel spreadsheet which would allow you to keep a brew folder on your computer with all of your brews archived etc...

Hey, a couple things.
First, I'm sure you are doing this right because youcorrected for your sparge temp but, your actual mash temp is 150-155? In a cooler your water going in needs to be about 15* higher than your desired strike temp which needs to be 12-14* higher than your desired mash temp.

Batch sparging gets way more efficient with 2 or 3 small sparges, stirring and letting rest 10 min each time. I do 2 gal, 1.5gal, 1.5gal and always hit high 80s.

Are tou correcting your ph at the begining of the mash, after dough in?

Are you being careful to break up all doughballs that may form at dough in?

Yes an extra gallon of wort will lower your gravity, in your case by about 1.009. To correct that you need to figure out your water losses in equipment and grains add that to your desired post boil volume, and add to that your normal hourly evaporative rate. That will give you the real volume of sparge water you need.

After all that, the next thing to look at is the quality of your grain crush.

Good luck.

Okay this is helpful. I suppose you're right, CPooley, I guess given the circumstances that had I actually boiled down to 5.5 gallons, that I would've been closer.
To answer some questions: yes, I do temperature convert my OG readings.
The reason I went 8.5 is because I'd read on here that I needed 0.5lbs of water per pound of grain for the sparge.
I did stir and make sure they were no grain pockets or anything like. So you are suggesting smaller sparge sizes then? The first would be to get the grain bed to 170, and then the other two would be at 170, correct?
My thermometer seems to be working from what I can tell. I've tested it in boiling and freezing water.
What kind of thermometers to people use besides the one I have? I like mine because I can set it for a certain temp, and once that temp is achceived it will beep, so I dont have to obsessively check my strike water as it heats, haha

I should have said that differently. Your lauter from the mash should yield half of your boil volume with the other half coming from your sparge. At least that is how I do it and it's been working for me. I have read that some people have success with doing two sparges rather than one. My opinion is if it works for you then that is all that matters so experiment and tie down your process as you go. My brew spreadsheet calculates all of this (strike volume/sparge volume) for me which makes it a bit easier.

I do generally get about 3.5 gallons from the mash, so that would make sense.
OH and I would love to get my hands on that spreadsheet, if you're offering!
my email is [email protected]
feel free to use that for all things beer, HBT buddies.

Why did I read a posting on here about this .5gallons per pound for the sparge? I thought that seemed extreme to sparge with that much, but I went for it anyway.
Oh, and I have no clue how to correct the PH, and I don't take PH readings ever either.

Just sent you the spreadsheet. You'll have questions, don't hesitate to contact me with them. Once you understand how to use it it's quite simple.

Good luck.

Cory

Moody_Copperpot said:

Why did I read a posting on here about this .5gallons per pound for the sparge? I thought that seemed extreme to sparge with that much, but I went for it anyway.
Oh, and I have no clue how to correct the PH, and I don't take PH readings ever either.

Click to expand...

You can go up to .5 gallons for the sparge- any more than that is oversparging. Not a big deal with 13 pounds of grain, but if you were making a batch with 7 pounds of grain, you'd have to not go over .5 gallons/pound for the sparge. Does that make sense?

You can optimize efficiency by using .5 gallons/pound sparge water, also. But the key is then to boil down to your batch size, which takes more gas/electricity so really isn't a great idea.

Most of us use enough sparge water to get to our desired preboil volume. In my case, I start with 7 gallons. I end with 5.5 gallons. So if I get 3 gallons of out of my first runnings, I sparge with a total of 4 gallons no matter what my grain bill size.

Thanks so much for clearing that up! I too go with 7 gallons and end with 5.5 normally.
CP, I'll check out that sheet. Thanks again!

I would bet money your Volumes are off. Volume trumps gravity.

How are you measuring your preboil volume, and is it accurate.

if you indeed got 8.5 gallons of 1.045 pre-boil, then your problem isn't your mash/sparge, it's going from kettle to fermentor.

Well I didn't boil it down enough, that was my issue here. I calculated 8.5 to 5.5 in the equation, and i only boiled it down to 6.5 gallons so it wasn't where it needed to be, volume wise.

IMO this is all just shots int he dark.

Do another beer and use Kaiser's efficiency spread sheet. Measure everything as exactly as possible, and you will know where you are losing efficiency points.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency

the spreadsheet to use is in the calculating efficiency section.

Did you stir really well when you added sparge water?

Yeah I stirred the hell out of it. I have been opening my valve all the way and just letting the wort flow, I realize now that I need to let the tun drain more slowly.

1. Those remote thermometers are nice, but if the wire gets wet it will read high.
Double check with another thermometer.

2. Your grain has 13.5 x 36 = 486 gravity points.
Your wort has 6.5 X 55 = 357.5 gravity points.
Your brewhouse efficiency is 73.6 percent.

HairyDogBrewing said:

Those remote thermometers are nice, but if the wire gets wet it will read high.
Double check with another thermometer.

Click to expand...

+1 on this, my fancy remote probe thermometer has been demoted to timer duty, I now use a Taylor digital thermometer, and cross check that one with 2 calibrated dial thermometers.

Hmmm how did you arrive at those numbers for the grains and gravity points and all of that? Hopville is all I'm going on for what my efficiency was.
As for the thermometer, on the probe there is the part where the wire attaches to it. I've been careful about not getting that part submerged, but it's happened. So I might have to get another thermometer to double check the temps.

My probe would read correctly until it was in the steamy mash tun, it would start reading high, if I were to go back to using a probe thermometer again I would follow Bobby_M's thread to wort-proof the probe.

Oh wow! That's helpful, I'll definitely be doing that. Thank you!!!

Moody_Copperpot said:

Hmmm how did you arrive at those numbers for the grains and gravity points and all of that?

Click to expand...

I assumed that the grain was all 2-row, which has a yield of 1.036 per pound per gallon.
Pilsner and wheat malt have higher yield, crystal and roasted malt have lower yield.
I use BeerSmith for my recipes.

Well the bulk was 2 row, then I had some crystal malt in there and dextrine and stuff like that.