First Shot at All Grain might be a bust

Hi Guys: Just got into brewing beer a couple months ago after making wine for a couple years. Anyway, started out with a couple extract brews, built rest of equipment and then decided to get into all grain.

That being said, my first all grain was the coldwater 420 recipe floating around here. I entered the info into beersmith. I got terrible efficiency of 52%. I'm setup to batch sparge 13 gal. square igloo with a bazooka screen.

I hit my pre boil volume and hit my mash temp perfectly. I'm confused? Being this is my first time, I'm wondering about the following:

1. Once I mixed the grain and strike water, how often should I be stirring during the initial 60-80 minute mash?
2. Once I add the sparge water, should I be mixing this up really good and then how long does it need to sit before getting the second runnings?
3. I started with 7 gallons pre-boil volume. I boiled for 60 minutes and ended with about 6 gallons. I think I was shooting for 5.5 gallons. Should I have boiled longer?

Anyway, let me know if you guys can add any other info to help get the efficiency up, I would appreciate it!

Here is the screen shot from beersmith....

I would rather see the design and mash pages, not the fermentation page. That would help more.

Here are the design and mash pages. I started with 3.75 gallons, then put in 4.75 gallons to sparge with all at once. Thanks for your help.

mrgobucks said:

I'm wondering about the following: 1. Once I mixed the grain and strike water, how often should I be stirring during the initial 60-80 minute mash? 2. Once I add the sparge water, should I be mixing this up really good and then how long does it need to sit before getting the second runnings? 3. I started with 7 gallons pre-boil volume. I boiled for 60 minutes and ended with about 6 gallons. I think I was shooting for 5.5 gallons. Should I have boiled longer? Anyway, let me know if you guys can add any other info to help get the efficiency up, I would appreciate it!

Click to expand...

1). To quote Yooper:
Once you dough in grain and mash water, "stir like it owes you money" for about 2 minutes. This ensures that it is well mixed and get most conversion.
On this topic, previous post about design page would be more helpful.
How much grain?
How much mash water?

2). See answer for #1 about stirring.
Once it is stirred, I wait about 2 minutes (not necessary though)
Vorlauf and drain

3). If you were expecting 5.5 gal post boil then you either sparged too much (less efficiency)
Or did not boil for long enough.

if you consider hitting your temps and volumes on your first try "a bust" i don't want to know what will happen to you when you do have a bust. :rockin: if i'm reading your post right you batch sparge, i always stir then let the grains rest for 15 min. after adding sparge water, but after looking at denny's instructions again http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/ i'm not sure where i got that from.

Like everyone else, when you dough in you need to stir the crap out of it and make sure all the grains are wet and you don't have any dough balls. That will kill effeciency because those grains will stay dry and not be converted in the mash.

Then I usually don't open my mash tun again until the end of the mash (usually 60 minutes). Sometimes I'll swirl the cooler around a few times, but I rarely open it up.

Then I do a single batch sparge. I add the sparge water, stir it up again, wait about 5 minutes or so for it to settle out a little, then vourlaf and drain. All you're doing in this step is rinsing the grains so there's no need to rest for an extended period because there isn't really anything going on enzymatically.

As for boil off, that's just something everyone has to figure out on their own equipment and then figure your number into your recipes and process. So when you make your next recipe you can put in 1 gal/hour and figure out mash and sparge water based on that.

Thank you guys! I don't think I stirred good enough. I'll keep plugging away at, making small changes in the process to see if that increase eff.

That being said, made a rookie mistake and didn't leave enough head space, even though it was a good 6 inches in the top of carboy. Checked on it this morning and it was starting to blow out of the airlock. As I was trying to come up with a blow off tube, the bung blew out and beer everywhere inside fermentation chamber. I'm on my way to work, so it will be a nice clean up tonight :rockin: Hopefully fermentation will completely, it's still bubbling!