Efficiency Issues

My last three batches have been way off and I have tried a few different methods of troubleshooting. For instance today I brewed a pale ale with an estimated starting gravity of 1.035 and I hit 1.033. I collected 8 gallons of wort fly sparging over the course of about and hour and fifteen minutes. After a 120 minute boil the gravity was 1.044. Final collection was around 5 1/4 gallons.

I have had similar issues over the past three. Sometimes the pro-boil gravity is low and the original is high. I do properly stir the wort and my hydrometer reads .999 with clean water... which isn't too bad. In the past I have been getting 75-80% efficiency now it is between 65-70%.

Things that have changed in my setup.
-Stopped measuring mash and sparge water with ale pale and started using a long dowel marked off in gallons that I am 90% sure is accurate.
-Purchased a Malt Mill and the crush appears seems to be nice and a bit finer than what I get at the brew shop.
-New triple scale hydrometer... didn't have any issues before this hydrometer and I think it is the issue even though it appears to read ok with pure water.

I am really frustrated and even more so since I am sitting on 100lbs of Breiss Malt. I don't want to waste any of that potential sugar.

If you need more info let me know and I can go step by step with my process and go into detail about my rig.

Matt

ya know - anything 65+ isn't bad at all....it's all about consistency....

seems like you're looking at the obvious things (crush, temp, accurate measurements, etc)

what kinda lauter vessel are you using? maybe getting channelizing with the fly sparge?

what kinda lauter vessel are you using? maybe getting channelizing with the fly sparge?

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Yeah if you're fly sparging, I'd be curious as to what your manifold/false bottom looks like.

Try batch sparging one time, that will clear up if you're sparge is channeling. Be careful, you might switch to batch sparging forever when you find you get the same efficiency in 15 minutes.

Bobby_M said:

Try batch sparging one time, that will clear up if you're sparge is channeling. Be careful, you might switch to batch sparging forever when you find you get the same efficiency in 15 minutes.

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Yeah def a +1.

+2 Denny is the man!:rockin:

Fender230 said:

Things that have changed in my setup.
-Stopped measuring mash and sparge water with ale pale and started using a long dowel marked off in gallons that I am 90% sure is accurate.
-Purchased a Malt Mill and the crush appears seems to be nice and a bit finer than what I get at the brew shop.
-New triple scale hydrometer... didn't have any issues before this hydrometer and I think it is the issue even though it appears to read ok with pure water.
Matt

Click to expand...

Perhaps your efficiency hasn't really changed very much.
If your Ale Pale measurements were inaccurate, you have now eliminated that inaccuracy.
If you old hydrometer was wrong, you have now got one that is right
Between them, they could explain the apparent 12% drop in efficiency.

Trying a batch sparge once could help to identify channeling problems.

-a.