Hey guys I am having issues with my efficiency and was curious to get your thoughts on my process. I have now lowered my efficiency in my recipes to 75% because I cannot seem to master the fly sparging technique with the electric brewery we have which is pretty much based off of Kal's system from The Electric Brewery site except we have 15g HLT, 15g MT and 20g BK.
No matter what I do I cannot seem to get my pre-boil volume with staying above 1.010 when sparging!?! It's driving me crazy! I have gone down as low as 1.008 and still not been able to reach my pre-boil volume. We do 90min. mashing and as much as 60min. sparging with sparge water below 6pH. Like I said, we started out with 85% efficiency and now down to 75% and still cannot pull off the sparge process.
The only thing I can think of at this point is my mash temps. I have seen that most of the recipes and examples on here call for anywhere from 149F-150F, however I make some beers pretty low in ABV like 3.9%-5.5% and it seems if I mash in low like 149F by the time fermentation is done and the beer is ready to drink it seems real watery or less flavorful, so I have been mashing in at 154F-156F. I am pretty sure this is my problem with not getting the most out of my grain but is there a way to get flavorful session beers when mashing in at 148F-149F without them coming out real watery and dry? Thanks for the help!
No matter what I do I cannot seem to get my pre-boil volume with staying above 1.010 when sparging!?! It's driving me crazy! I have gone down as low as 1.008 and still not been able to reach my pre-boil volume. We do 90min. mashing and as much as 60min. sparging with sparge water below 6pH. Like I said, we started out with 85% efficiency and now down to 75% and still cannot pull off the sparge process.
The only thing I can think of at this point is my mash temps. I have seen that most of the recipes and examples on here call for anywhere from 149F-150F, however I make some beers pretty low in ABV like 3.9%-5.5% and it seems if I mash in low like 149F by the time fermentation is done and the beer is ready to drink it seems real watery or less flavorful, so I have been mashing in at 154F-156F. I am pretty sure this is my problem with not getting the most out of my grain but is there a way to get flavorful session beers when mashing in at 148F-149F without them coming out real watery and dry? Thanks for the help!