Help with my efficiencies please? Notes included

Hello everyone, I've been AG brewing for a few years now and have always had very low efficiencies (55%) and am looking for ways to improve this.

I've read the sticky on efficiency improvement and believe I'm covering the bases.

My latest grain bill was 12lb pale 2row, 1 lb munich, 4oz cl60. I believe I got a good crush on the grain, but I'll buy some pre crushed to double check next time. This is a 5g batch where 4.5 made it into the fermenter after leaving some trub in the kettle.

My OG reading came to 1.052 which is around 55% according to brewers friend... Here are my mash notes:

15 Quarts strike water at 170F, stirred in water and grain at the same rate, leaving no clumps. Mash came to rest at 150F which I left for 30m, added a quart of 170F water and brought it up to 154F for another 30 minutes.

Recirculated a couple gallons before starting a fly sparge with 5gallons of 180F water (cools to about 170F by the end of the sparge). I matched the inflow and outflow to keep water just above the grain. Wort collection took 30 minutes to complete.

First Wort Runnings: 20 Brix or 1.083
Last Wort Runnings: 5 Brix or 1.02
Pre Boil wort: 11.5 Brix or 1.046

OG: 13 Brix or 1.052

I'd like to get this up to around 70% if possible. All suggestions are appreciated.

strahmhv said:

Hello everyone, I've been AG brewing for a few years now and have always had very low efficiencies (55%) and am looking for ways to improve this.

I've read the sticky on efficiency improvement and believe I'm covering the bases.

My latest grain bill was 12lb pale 2row, 1 lb munich, 4oz cl60. I believe I got a good crush on the grain, but I'll buy some pre crushed to double check next time. This is a 5g batch where 4.5 made it into the fermenter after leaving some trub in the kettle.

My OG reading came to 1.052 which is around 55% according to brewers friend... Here are my mash notes:

15 Quarts strike water at 170F, stirred in water and grain at the same rate, leaving no clumps. Mash came to rest at 150F which I left for 30m, added a quart of 170F water and brought it up to 154F for another 30 minutes.

Recirculated a couple gallons before starting a fly sparge with 5gallons of 180F water (cools to about 170F by the end of the sparge). I matched the inflow and outflow to keep water just above the grain. Wort collection took 30 minutes to complete.

First Wort Runnings: 20 Brix or 1.083
Last Wort Runnings: 5 Brix or 1.02
Pre Boil wort: 11.5 Brix or 1.046

OG: 13 Brix or 1.052

I'd like to get this up to around 70% if possible. All suggestions are appreciated.

Click to expand...

For that grain bill, I calculate (using grain potentials from BeerSmith) that your first runnings should have come in at 23.6 Plato (Brix) or about 1.100 SG if you got 100% starch conversion in your mash (this assumes that you didn't add more than your original 16 qts of water prior to vorlaufing.) So, your apparent conversion efficiency was 83/100 = 83%. This is the start of you efficiency problems, as a well conducted mash should get greater than 98% conversion efficiency. You don't give a pre-boil volume so it is not possible to calculate your into the BK (mash) efficiency. It's also not possible to calculate your lauter efficiency, which is: Mash_Efficiency / Conversion_Efficiency. Would need to know your lauter efficiency to know if that was an issue as well. For more info on diagnosing efficiency issues, check out my post here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6914382&postcount=13.

Brew on

Are you using a false bottom, manifold, or bazooka screen?

Im using the disc shaped false bottom in a cylander igloo cooler.

You are using 9 gallons of water in a 13.25 lb grain bill. Is this correct? You said 16 qts (4 gal) for mashing, then 5 gallons for sparging. That's 9 gallons.

If we accept an absorption rate of 0.11 gal/lb, that yields a post-mash volume of 7.54 gallons. Is this accurate to what you did? Perhaps you leave a bit of that behind in the mash tun, but it's still the amount of wort you produced, and it's the volume that needs to be used to calculate your mash efficiency.

If I use 7.54 as the boil volume in my calculator - i.e. no mash tun loss - I get your numbers (pre-boil 1.046 and OG 1.053) with a 70% mash efficiency value (assuming 1 gal/hr evaporation). Is 55% your brewhouse eff. figure or your mash figure? You're losing a lot of liquid throughout your process if you only end up with 4.5 gallons in the fermenter after starting with twice as much. Brewhouse efficiency takes those losses into account. Maybe that's your issue.

So if i used less water id come closer to my target OG?

strahmhv said:

So if i used less water id come closer to my target OG?

Click to expand...

Sure. It's a concentration thing. A given grain bill has a finite amount of sugars to release. If you dissolve that amount into 10 gallons of water, it's half the sugar concentration as if you dissolved it into 5 gallons of water.

If your pre-boil gravity is much lower than you desire, you can boil for longer to evaporate more and further concentrate the wort (hence raising gravity).

I see. Thanks for the help everyone. I thought if i used more water to leach out all the sugars and then boiled the water off id have a higher efficiency. I lost alot of volume to hops also, its an 80 ibu ipa... and left over a half gallon in the kettle.

I think i may also have some mash inneficiencies. Ill try a finer crush and check my water minerals next brew. I use Yosemite drinking water that is delivered to our house (100gallon tank) since were on ditch water out in the country. Maybe i need to add calcium?

Your mash efficiency is determined by how much sugar you get from the grain. Again, it's a fixed amount of potential sugar. Let's say you defy all odds and get ALL of it (100%). It still doesn't guarantee your desired gravity. That's going to be based on water volume. The more water you mash and sparge with (and collect as wort), the lower the gravity will be at a given mash efficiency percentage. So you could have 100% mash efficiency but still have lower gravity than you desire if you use too much water.

You can certainly raise this gravity in the final wort (OG) by boiling longer and evaporating more liquid, and that is a legitimate approach to correcting the situation. But when you boil off a lot of extra liquid - or leave a lot in the kettle - those are considered volume losses that lower your brewhouse efficiency. So decide what matters more - efficiency or gravity? To me it would be gravity, since that's a major recipe element.

I'd take a close look at your sparge volume and only use enough of it to collect the "right" amount of wort, rather than planning to collect extra and boil off more.

P.S. I have also used untreated bottled spring water with no efficiency issues, so I doubt that's related.

McKnuckle said:

You are using 9 gallons of water in a 13.25 lb grain bill. Is this correct? You said 16 qts (4 gal) for mashing, then 5 gallons for sparging. That's 9 gallons.

If we accept an absorption rate of 0.11 gal/lb, that yields a post-mash volume of 7.54 gallons. Is this accurate to what you did? Perhaps you leave a bit of that behind in the mash tun, but it's still the amount of wort you produced, and it's the volume that needs to be used to calculate your mash efficiency.

If I use 7.54 as the boil volume in my calculator - i.e. no mash tun loss - I get your numbers (pre-boil 1.046 and OG 1.053) with a 70% mash efficiency value (assuming 1 gal/hr evaporation). Is 55% your brewhouse eff. figure or your mash figure? You're losing a lot of liquid throughout your process if you only end up with 4.5 gallons in the fermenter after starting with twice as much. Brewhouse efficiency takes those losses into account. Maybe that's your issue.

Click to expand...

If the 70% mash efficiency is close to correct, then your lauter efficiency would be:This would be a reasonable lauter efficiency. So, your low brewhouse efficiency is due to low conversion efficiency along with post boil volume losses.

You don't want to use less water to increase your OG, but rather improve your conversion efficiency (convert more of the starch to sugar.) Some things to look at:

1. Finer crush
2. Longer mash
3. Thinner mash (more strike water and less sparge water)
4. Mash pH control
5. Make sure no dough balls at mash in

Brew on

doug293cz said:

For that grain bill, I calculate (using grain potentials from BeerSmith) that your first runnings should have come in at 23.6 Plato (Brix) or about 1.100 SG if you got 100% starch conversion in your mash (this assumes that you didn't add more than your original 16 qts of water prior to vorlaufing.) So, your apparent conversion efficiency was 83/100 = 83%. This is the start of you efficiency problems, as a well conducted mash should get greater than 98% conversion efficiency. You don't give a pre-boil volume so it is not possible to calculate your into the BK (mash) efficiency. It's also not possible to calculate your lauter efficiency, which is: Mash_Efficiency / Conversion_Efficiency. Would need to know your lauter efficiency to know if that was an issue as well. For more info on diagnosing efficiency issues, check out my post here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6914382&postcount=13.

Brew on

Click to expand...

These efficiency discussions always just blow my mind! Within my first year of brewing so help me out here…..I punched his recipe into beermith, where do I find the first runnings gravity?

I have never measured my first runnings. I think im going to now!

Thanks for this insight!

Baldy246 said:

These efficiency discussions always just blow my mind! Within my first year of brewing so help me out here…..I punched his recipe into beermith, where do I find the first runnings gravity?

I have never measured my first runnings. I think im going to now!

Thanks for this insight!

Click to expand...

I've only been brewing for a little more than a year. I have an engineering background, so am pretty good with math, and have been reading a lot about technical aspects of brewing.

I don't think BeerSmith will provide first runnings gravity projections (I could be wrong, there's a lot about BeerSmith I don't know yet.) Max possible first runnings gravity is calculated based on the amount of water added prior to any run off, and the maximum sugar potential based on the grain bill. If you look at "Grains" under the "Ingredients" menu in BeerSmith you will see a column labeled "Potential" for each item. This number represents the maximum possible SG of 1 gal of wort produced from 1 lb of this grain. You can then use these numbers, along with your grain bill, to calculate what your first runnings should be, if you got 100% conversion efficiency. If you compare this to your actual first runnings gravity you can calculate your conversion efficiency as:I give more detail on the calculations here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6893477&postcount=36

Let me know if you have questions.

Brew on

That make sense. What kind of % do you normally see on your first runnings? I'm assuming if I am seeing poor numbers from my conversion, first step would be to check my crush, then mash temp?

Thanks!

Baldy246 said:

That make sense. What kind of % do you normally see on your first runnings?

Click to expand...

I don't know. I just figured this stuff out myself, and haven't brewed since I did. Got a brew day coming up soon.

Baldy246 said:

I'm assuming if I am seeing poor numbers from my conversion, first step would be to check my crush, then mash temp?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Yes, and also mash time, and making sure you are stirring adequately at mash in (no dough balls), and before run off starts (before vorlauf if you do that before run off.) You can check the progress of your conversion by checking the wort SG in the mash against the calculated max SG.

Brew on

This has been great! I'm excited about checking this out. My efficiency is terrible and I'm looking forward to attempting to tweak it a little!

Thanks man!

Baldy246 said:

This has been great! I'm excited about checking this out. My efficiency is terrible and I'm looking forward to attempting to tweak it a little!

Thanks man!

Click to expand...

You're welcome, and good luck.

Brew on

On first runnings gravity, there's a theoretical relationship between first runnings gravity and water to grist ratio. Regardless of the size of the beer or the grain bill, an ideal mash should provide first runnings close to the target for that water to grain ratio.

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency

He's got a handy chart there. My first runnings are usually ~20 Plato for bigger beers, and closer to 17 Plato for smaller beers, where my big beers are mashed at 1.35 qt per pound and my session beers at 1.5 qt/lb (each with 2 qt deadspace addition, so closer to ~1.5 and ~1.7 qt/lb actual water added). By my math, the OP is closer to 1.1 qt/lb, which does indeed point to a conversion issue.

Possible issues:

First would be grain crush. If the crush isn't good, and starch stays locked within the grains, you're obviously going to extract less of it. If you don't have your own mill, buy one. Brewing all grain beer with store crushed grains is never a good idea, as if nothing else store crush is rarely consistent, and pre-crushed is rarely fresh enough. Then there's pH and temp and all that. That ought to help your conversion.

Second, you need to slow your sparge down. Fly sparging should take about an hour. If you want to move more quickly, move to batch sparging.

And then increase the water to grain ratio in your mash.

Wouldn't boiling off extra water affect the flavor contributed by the hops? I know we can remove the hops from the kettle with the bags, but I'd assume the oils stay behind and will boil off aroma/flavor and leave more bitterness.


Also, as far as fly sparging for a longer period of time... How is this done? we had the valves barely opened and the sparge arm was just kind of sprinkling/dripping.

strahmhv said:

Wouldn't boiling off extra water affect the flavor contributed by the hops? I know we can remove the hops from the kettle with the bags, but I'd assume the oils stay behind and will boil off aroma/flavor and leave more bitterness.

Click to expand...

Yes, if you boil an extra hour after your late hops, you're going to boil off the flavor and aroma and instead develop bitterness.

The trick is to confidently know your boiloff rate, and then do the extra boiling before you add hops, not after. When I use Pilsner malt and do a 90 minute boil, I boil 30 minutes unhopped, then add hops and boil for 60 (I don't like the flavor of 90 minute hop additions). In a more extreme example, if i boil my wort for 3 or 4 hours (which I do when doing Lamebic or Scottish Ale) I still won't add any hops until the last 60 minutes (or later- with Lamebic boiling debittered aged hops for hours is traditional, I just use a very low alpha noble or noble type for 20 minutes to keep the IBUs low since I don't care to age my own hops).

Qhrumphf said:

On first runnings gravity, there's a theoretical relationship between first runnings gravity and water to grist ratio. Regardless of the size of the beer or the grain bill, an ideal mash should provide first runnings close to the target for that water to grain ratio.

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency

He's got a handy chart there.

Click to expand...

The relationship that Kai (aka Braukaiser) gives assumes all the different grains have the same extract potential. Most base malts are pretty close to the same, but there slight differences between them. Specialty grains can vary quite a bit (potential is usually less than base malts), but since their percentages are usually fairly low, the error due to treating them the same as base malts is not too large. However, if you have data for the actual malts you use, then you can increase the accuracy of the calculation of maximum potential for the grain bill.

Brew on

doug293cz said:

The relationship that Kai (aka Braukaiser) gives assumes all the different grains have the same extract potential. Most base malts are pretty close to the same, but there slight differences between them. Specialty grains can vary quite a bit (potential is usually less than base malts), but since their percentages are usually fairly low, the error due to treating them the same as base malts is not too large. However, if you have data for the actual malts you use, then you can increase the accuracy of the calculation of maximum potential for the grain bill.

Brew on

Click to expand...

Very true. His chart also assumes 100% conversion efficiency. For me, it's a "target" where a hair below is typical, but significantly below indicates a problem. Beyond that, as long as it's within my normal range I don't worry too much about it. If it's a hair low, I'll sparge boil a little longer (with or without increased runnings). But I do make sure that I've got as close to accurate figures for my malts as possible (I don't update a given malt for each crop year, but I make sure that the numbers match at least once, because BeerSmith doesn't always have the right numbers. Beyond that, experience is my guide. Only when I start trying to break down a partigyle or something like that, where individual runnings gravities become very important, that I start cranking out the math.

Qhrumphf said:

Very true. His chart also assumes 100% conversion efficiency. For me, it's a "target" where a hair below is typical, but significantly below indicates a problem. ...

Click to expand...

Knowing what 100% is is fundamental to calculating efficiency. So, Kai's chart gives us an approximation of that for a mash based on water to grist ratio. If you don't know the value that represents 100%, you can't calculate efficiency, as efficiency is defined as:The 100% value almost always represents a target that cannot actually be achieved, as there are almost always losses, even if they are infinitesimal. The interesting thing is that 100% mash efficiency can be achieved, as this is the value that was actually achieved in a "Congress Mash" used to determine the grain potential.

Brew on

doug293cz said:

I don't know. I just figured this stuff out myself, and haven't brewed since I did. Got a brew day coming up soon.

Yes, and also mash time, and making sure you are stirring adequately at mash in (no dough balls), and before run off starts (before vorlauf if you do that before run off.) You can check the progress of your conversion by checking the wort SG in the mash against the calculated max SG.

Brew on

Click to expand...

Ok, I tried to apply this new found data to my brew day on Saturday and I am more confused now than before. My potential for all the grain was 1.036. My first runnings were 1.082, my pre boil gravity way 1.050, and my OG was 1.070. Here is my recipe from beersmith. Where should have my first runnings been as a gravity reading? Beersmith shows my measured mash eff at 57.3. What am i doing wrong?

Thanks!

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 62.8 %
2 lbs 8.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 16.5 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.6 %
12.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.0 %
6.1 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.5 %
1 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 6 6.6 %
0.75 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60. Hop 7 28.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 8 16.4 IBUs
3.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 16.2 IBUs
3.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 11 -
3.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 15 lbs 2.1 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 17.66 qt of water at 167.5 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.77 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baldy246 said:

Ok, I tried to apply this new found data to my brew day on Saturday and I am more confused now than before. My potential for all the grain was 1.036. My first runnings were 1.082, my pre boil gravity way 1.050, and my OG was 1.070. Here is my recipe from beersmith. Where should have my first runnings been as a gravity reading? Beersmith shows my measured mash eff at 57.3. What am i doing wrong?

Thanks!

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 62.8 %
2 lbs 8.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 16.5 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.6 %
12.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.0 %
6.1 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.5 %
1 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 6 6.6 %
0.75 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60. Hop 7 28.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 8 16.4 IBUs
3.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 16.2 IBUs
3.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 11 -
3.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 15 lbs 2.1 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 17.66 qt of water at 167.5 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.77 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click to expand...

Since you don't list your measured pre-boil volume (and the temperature at which the volume was measured) I can't double check the mash efficiency. Since you do list your strike volume we can calculate your conversion efficiency. Let's run thru the math for figuring conversion efficiency:

1. Subtract the dextrine from your total BeerSmith grain bill, as it doesn't figure into the mash.
   15 lbs, 2.1 oz - 1 lb = 14 lbs, 2.1 oz = 14.13 lbs​
2. Calculate total available gravity points
   14.13 lbs * [(1 - 1.036) * 1000 pts/lb] = 508.725 pts​
3. Determine the weight of sugar represented by 508.725 pts. We do this by assuming an arbitrary volume of wort (5 gal in this case) containing that many points, determining the SG for that wort, converting the SG to Plato (which is equal to the wt% sugar in the wort), and then using that and the assumed volume of wort to figure lbs of available sugar @ 100% conversion.
   508.725 pts / 5.0 gal = 101.745 pts/gal => 1.1017 SG
   1.1017 SG => 24.21 Plato (using the BeerSmith calculator) = 24.21 wt% sugar in 5 gal of wort
   1.1017 * 8.329 lbs/gal * 5 gal = 45.882 lbs of wort
   45.882 lbs * 24.21 wt% sugar = 11.108 lbs of sugar @ 100% conversion​
4. Then using the max available wt of sugar and the wt of the strike water we figure out the max Plato of the wort in your MLT, and then convert that to max first runnings SG
   Strike water weight = 17.66 qt / 4 qt/gal * 8.329 lbs/gal = 36.773 lbs
   Max Plato = 100% * 11.108 / (11.108 +36.773) = 23.20
   23.20 Plato => 1.097 SG (using BeerSmith calc) of first runnings @ 100% conversion​
5. Calculate conversion efficiency using actual first runnings SG and max SG
   Conv Eff = (1.082 -1) / (1.097 -1) = 0.845 => 84.5%​

Note that the BeerSmith SG <=> Plato converter doesn't use the most precise equation available, but given the other approximations in the method, it doesn't introduce a lot of additional error.
Brew on

Good night! Thanks! I need to go lay down after reading that! My pre boil volume was 6.75, by the way.

So with a conversion efficiency of 84.5%, obviously not where we wanted it to be, but where does your average homebrewer end up at on conversion efficiency?

So, now we look at grind, temp, and time? Should I mash longer?

Where does my grist to water ratio come into play? I always mash at 1.25qts/lb.

Thank you so much for your help!

Baldy246 said:

Good night! Thanks! I need to go lay down after reading that! My pre boil volume was 6.75, by the way.

So with a conversion efficiency of 84.5%, obviously not where we wanted it to be, but where does your average homebrewer end up at on conversion efficiency?

So, now we look at grind, temp, and time? Should I mash longer?

Where does my grist to water ratio come into play? I always mash at 1.25qts/lb.

Thank you so much for your help!

Click to expand...

I'll assume your pre-boil volume and pre-boil gravity are before adding the dextrose. If this is incorrect, let me know.

Ok, for pre-boil gravity of 1.050 and pre-boil volume of 6.75, we get the following:Since we had 508.725 pts avail from the grain:Lauter efficiency then becomes:Your lauter efficiency isn't too bad, but could get a little better (maybe mid 80's.) Thus, your big efficiency problem is you conversion efficiency. Conversion efficiencies of 98% - 99% are achievable by home brewers. If your conversion efficiency was 98% with a lauter efficiency of 78.5% then your mash efficiency would have been:Your strike water to grain ratio is typical for fly spargers, and since many of them get higher efficiencies than you, that is not the root of your problems.

Your mash temp is not near the high or low ends of the useful range, so no problem there either.

Crush (grain particle size) and mash time interact since smaller particles can be converted faster because required diffusion distances are smaller. A lot of what happens in a mash is diffusion limited. If you are crushing your own grains (or can control how your supplier crushes), then you should look at tightening up your crush. Since you are fly sparging, there is a limit as to how fine you can crush before you start getting stuck sparges. I don't fly sparge, but from what I've read, you should be able to go down to a mill gap of about 0.032" safely. If you cannot control your crush size, then you need to look at longer mash times to compensate for the larger grain particle size. Try one or the other on your next brew day.

Another possibility is that your mash pH may be out of range, which would slow down the conversion. If your room temp mash pH is much less than 5.1 or much greater than 5.6, then that could be part of your problem. To fix mash pH you will need to understand what your brewing water mineral content is. To learn more about this, read the water threads in the "Brewing Science" section of the HBT forums.

Are you sure the 57.3% efficiency from BrewSmith is mash efficiency and not brewhouse efficiency? If it really is the calculated mash efficiency, then either you didn't enter the correct measured volumes into BS, or BS is not handling the dextrose addition correctly.

Finally, a note on measuring first runnings gravity. You should measure this on the first runnings after you complete the vorlauf. If you have a false bottom, prior to vorlauf it's likely that the wort under the false bottom is a lower gravity than the wort in the bulk of the mash. I suggest you give the mash a good stir, vorlauf, and then take the gravity sample.

Brew on

Fantastic synopsis! Makes perfect sense. Thank you so much for your time and help with understanding this. Next brew day is Saturday. I will post results based on your teachings following my day.

Thanks again!

Glad you found it helpful. I have found that it helps me understand things better if I try to explain them to others.

One additional item: It is important to be as accurate as possible with your volume measurements, as small errors in volume will lead to significant errors in calculated efficiencies.

Hope you find something in your upcoming brew session that works better.

Brew on

Here is a screen shot of beersmith from the fermentation tab. I checked all my volumes and everything looks good. Not sure why my pre boil gravity reading was so different. It says my measured efficiency was 66.6%. Not sure where I got that last number. Of course you were spot on about the effect of the volume measurements. I changed my batch size to 6 gallons instead of 5.5 and my efficiency went from 66.6 to 73.5. I never really pay too much attention to what goes in the fermenter as long as its close to the top! Am definitely going to watch that going forward because im sure it was closer to 6!

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1435272656.064463.jpg

Make sure I am right here. Still not sure I achevied the results I am looking for.

1. 14lbs of grain * 1.038- 1 = 532 pts
2. 532 / 5 gallons = 106.4 / 1000 = .1064 = 1.1064 ( is this correct?)
3. 1.1064 = 24.82 plato
4. 1.106 x 8.329 lbs/gal * 5 gallons= 46.076 lbs of wort
5. 46.076 * 24.82 wt% sugar= 11.43 lbs of sugar @ 100% conversion

Strike water weight
1. 18.06 / 4 * 8.329= 37.605

Max Plato = 100% * 11.43 / (11.43 + 37.605) = 23.3

23.3 plato= 1.096 Max SG

Conversion efficiency= 1.090 ( actual measured first runnings) / 1.096= 99.45% conversion efficiency!!!!! Boooo Yah!!!!

I mashed for 90 minutes instead of my normal 60. Seemed to make the difference. But hold on……..

pre boil volume of 6.75 gallons.

pre boil gravity of 1.046 = 310 pts into the BK

mash efficiency= 310 / 532= 58.36 conversion efficency

lauter efficiency= 58.36 / 99.45 = 58.68

So this data now tells us that my problem is in my lautering, or sparging process. I think I may revert back to a batch sparge on my next brew and see if I see positive results.

Let me know if you see any inaccuracies in my calculations. Thank you so much for all of this help!













Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 64.3 %
5 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 35.7 %
0.75 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 3 10.5 IBUs
0.25 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 4 1.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg Weihenstephan Weizen (Wyeast Labs #3068) Yeast 5 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 14 lbs
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 18.06 qt of water at 165.4 F 150.0 F 90 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.40 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

Baldy246 said:

Make sure I am right here. Still not sure I achevied the results I am looking for.

1. 14lbs of grain * 1.038- 1 = 532 pts
2. 532 / 5 gallons = 106.4 / 1000 = .1064 = 1.1064 ( is this correct?)
3. 1.1064 = 24.82 plato
4. 1.106 x 8.329 lbs/gal * 5 gallons= 46.076 lbs of wort
5. 46.076 * 24.82 wt% sugar= 11.43 lbs of sugar @ 100% conversion

Strike water weight
1. 18.06 / 4 * 8.329= 37.605

Max Plato = 100% * 11.43 / (11.43 + 37.605) = 23.3

23.3 plato= 1.096 Max SG

Conversion efficiency= 1.090 ( actual measured first runnings) / 1.096= 99.45% conversion efficiency!!!!! Boooo Yah!!!!

I mashed for 90 minutes instead of my normal 60. Seemed to make the difference. But hold on……..

pre boil volume of 6.75 gallons.

pre boil gravity of 1.046 = 310 pts into the BK

mash efficiency= 310 / 532= 58.36 conversion efficency

lauter efficiency= 58.36 / 99.45 = 58.68

So this data now tells us that my problem is in my lautering, or sparging process. I think I may revert back to a batch sparge on my next brew and see if I see positive results.

Let me know if you see any inaccuracies in my calculations. Thank you so much for all of this help!













Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 64.3 %
5 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 35.7 %
0.75 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 3 10.5 IBUs
0.25 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 4 1.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg Weihenstephan Weizen (Wyeast Labs #3068) Yeast 5 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 14 lbs
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 18.06 qt of water at 165.4 F 150.0 F 90 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.40 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

Click to expand...

All your math looks good, except for the conversion eff calculation. Your conversion efficiency should have been:In that case your lauter efficiency would be:Still nothing to write home about.

How long did your sparge take? Unless you did a very fast sparge, my best guess for the low lauter eff is that you somehow got significant channeling during the sparge.

Trying a batch sparge to compare is a good idea. In that case you should increase your strike water and reduce the sparge water to get equal volume for the first runnings and sparge runnings (as that gives you the theoretical maximum efficiency.) I calculated your grain absorption as 2.165 gal or 0.1546 gal/lb. You want 6.75 / 2 = 3.375 gal in each running, so strike water would be 3.375 + 2.165 = 5.54 gal and sparge water 3.375 gal.

Brew on

I brewed the famous Centennial Blonde recipe yesterday. It didnt go well, had several major screw ups but the data ended up better.

Conversion eff- 95.24%- 90 minute mash- I supposed this is going to become SOP with my brew shops crush, until I decide to crush my own.

Mash eff- 75.5%

Lauter eff- 79.27%

It was your text book bad brew day. Forgot to heat up my sparge water!! How does someone miss that!? I batch sparged with cold tap water, it wasnt till I filled up my MLT with it that I realized what I did. Oh well, chalk it up as lesson learned. I screwed up my volume calculations, so my cold sparge water was several qts less and had to add that back in later. Then to top it off i forgot to get my OG sample prior to pitching. Oh well, it will still turn out delicious!

Ouch, youd be better off letting the mash go longer while you heated the sparge water up. Next time

Calculating sparge water more precisely, and heating it more got me over 80% eff. I now heat the sparge water to 180 and the mash bed still doesnt get above 165.

Baldy246 said:

I brewed the famous Centennial Blonde recipe yesterday. It didnt go well, had several major screw ups but the data ended up better.

Conversion eff- 95.24%- 90 minute mash- I supposed this is going to become SOP with my brew shops crush, until I decide to crush my own.

Mash eff- 75.5%

Lauter eff- 79.27%

It was your text book bad brew day. Forgot to heat up my sparge water!! How does someone miss that!? I batch sparged with cold tap water, it wasnt till I filled up my MLT with it that I realized what I did. Oh well, chalk it up as lesson learned. I screwed up my volume calculations, so my cold sparge water was several qts less and had to add that back in later. Then to top it off i forgot to get my OG sample prior to pitching. Oh well, it will still turn out delicious!

Click to expand...

Sparging with cold water is not a screw up. Kai has shown that if you have essentially complete conversion, that sparge water temp has no effect on mash efficiency. In your case, since your conversion was not quite complete, a hot water sparge might have helped you get slightly better conversion, because of longer time at temp, and additional agitation. Also, having the proper sparge volume would have increased your lauter efficiency somewhat.

I'd call it a successful, if not perfect, brew day.

Brew on