First time over 70% efficiency. Woot!

[wheatgerm]

Just calculated my effic. From yesterday's brew. I got 75.6% (6 gallons @ 1.070 - 15 pounds of Munich 10L). What I did was strike 26 quarts for a 154F initial temp. This was around lunch time. Then, I just left it in the cooler until the kids went to bed at 9:00. The temp had dropped to 143F by then. At that point I took the first runnings. I then did another infusion of 20 quarts that brought the temp up 167F. I let that sit for about15 minutes and took the second runnings. The gravity in the kettle at that point was 1.070 for right at 6 gallons.

I've never gotten close to 70% before. I'm usually down around 60%. Th only thing I changed was the water/grist ratio(higher than usual) and a very long mash(roughly 7 hours). Every thing else was the same as usual. My tun is a 52 quart rectangular igloo cooler with a braided stainless tube for collection. Nothing fancy.

So I guess my advice is if you just can't get over the efficiency hump, try a longer mash and up your ratio a bit.

 

[samc]

Congrats! - Report back if you remember on how the beer turned out. That of course is what is important.

 

[wheatgerm]

Congrats! - Report back if you remember on how the beer turned out. That of course is what is important.

I sure will. My only concern is not knowing how much of those sugars are unfermentable, seeing as the mash went through a broad range of temps. I guess we'll see.

 

[HeyNoPie]

I found I got a decent efficiency jump when I mashed with more water. Using around 1.5qt/lb worked better than 1.25. I expect that is due to some other deficiency in my water which I haven't figured out yet.

I'm sure the 7 hour mash didn't hurt your efficiency though either

 

[barleyhole]

Nice! As far as I can tell, my brew today got 86% efficiency from 9.1 lbs pale malt, 1 lb of crystal 60, 1/2 lb of victory, and 1/4 of chocolate (nut brown ale). had 7.5 gallons pre boil at 1.045.

This was my third all grain and I had really poor efficiency before...like 60% or so. I changed my crush a little, by making it more fine. Mashed for 1 hour at 151 F, which held really steady in my 10 gallon cooler. I raised the temp to 158 F and recirculated a a couple gallons, took the first runnings, then added more water to raise the temp to 170 F. I did three runnings (recirculating the second one), with the last being low volume.

I would attribute the gain in efficiency to the crush, but it could partly be from actually hitting my mash temp without having to add more hot (or cold water) to maintain the 1.25 qt/lb ratio. I am pretty psyched though. This was by far the easiest brew day I have had in a long time. Cheers!