Help with a few AG topics

[Boston85]

I have been brewing AG for a year or so, and have usually gotten terrible efficiency, in the mid 50s.

I know there are plenty of topics out there on improving this, and I have been reading them, but I had a couple of questions on some things that I could not find as easily.

1.) Water profile. My town's water profile is located in this PDF http://www.burlington.org/docs/WR2013.pdf. However, I am not really sure what I should be looking for here. I have never made any changes to my water when I brew, and not even sure where to start if I did have to make changes.

2.) Sparging procedure - The way I do it now is mash, recirculate once or twice, then drain first runnings into one of my plastic carboys. I do this because I need to track how much wort I am collecting. Also I only have 1 brew kettle, so while I am doing my first running, I am heating my sparge water. Once I collect first running, I dump in the sparge water, and then dump all of the first runnings from the plastic bucket to the boil pot. I then do the same process for sparge water. I run my sparge water through to check how much I need for my target pre-boil volume. If I need 6.5 gallons and collected 3 in first runnings, I let the second go until I have 3.5. Then I dump that into the boil pot. Is this a bad way to do it? Should I drain my runnings directly into my boil kettle rather than first into a plastic bucket?

3.) Cooling Wort - I have an immersion chiller, but my ground water is usually not that cold, so it takes about 25-30 minutes to cool wort down to 70 ish degrees. Once my boil is finished, I put the chiller in, let the water flow through, and gradually stir the pot every few minutes.

4.) Transferring to Carboy - again since I don't have a measuring device in my brew pot, I first transfer my wort to another plastic bucket to see how much I have post boil. Once I have my desired amount, I then transfer that into my glass carboy and pitch yeast.

I would appreciate some feedback on those few steps above, as I feel like the source of some of my off tasting beer/bad efficiency is somewhere in there. I used to use a rectangular cooler with a SS hose to mashing, but I am now changing to a round 10 gallon "gatorade" cooler with a false bottom. I am hopeful that that will help me a bit.

 

[Clonefan94]

How's your crush? The biggest change in efficiency I got was when I purchased my own mill and started crushing my own grains.

 

[twistr25]

Crush will make a big difference. I got a hand crank one off Amazon, just search grain mill for $20. Hit my recipe OG every time at 70%+ efficiency. Make sure you have a loose grain bed too when you mash in. If it clumps up the water won't be able to reach the grains as well and extract the sugars.

 

[bethebrew]

I have been brewing AG for a year or so, and have usually gotten terrible efficiency, in the mid 50s.

I know there are plenty of topics out there on improving this, and I have been reading them, but I had a couple of questions on some things that I could not find as easily.

1.) Water profile. My town's water profile is located in this PDF http://www.burlington.org/docs/WR2013.pdf. However, I am not really sure what I should be looking for here. I have never made any changes to my water when I brew, and not even sure where to start if I did have to make changes.

2.) Sparging procedure - The way I do it now is mash, recirculate once or twice, then drain first runnings into one of my plastic carboys. I do this because I need to track how much wort I am collecting. Also I only have 1 brew kettle, so while I am doing my first running, I am heating my sparge water. Once I collect first running, I dump in the sparge water, and then dump all of the first runnings from the plastic bucket to the boil pot. I then do the same process for sparge water. I run my sparge water through to check how much I need for my target pre-boil volume. If I need 6.5 gallons and collected 3 in first runnings, I let the second go until I have 3.5. Then I dump that into the boil pot. Is this a bad way to do it? Should I drain my runnings directly into my boil kettle rather than first into a plastic bucket?

3.) Cooling Wort - I have an immersion chiller, but my ground water is usually not that cold, so it takes about 25-30 minutes to cool wort down to 70 ish degrees. Once my boil is finished, I put the chiller in, let the water flow through, and gradually stir the pot every few minutes.

4.) Transferring to Carboy - again since I don't have a measuring device in my brew pot, I first transfer my wort to another plastic bucket to see how much I have post boil. Once I have my desired amount, I then transfer that into my glass carboy and pitch yeast.

I would appreciate some feedback on those few steps above, as I feel like the source of some of my off tasting beer/bad efficiency is somewhere in there. I used to use a rectangular cooler with a SS hose to mashing, but I am now changing to a round 10 gallon "gatorade" cooler with a false bottom. I am hopeful that that will help me a bit.

1. Water. Do you have any kind of chlorine etc. filter?
2. I take the first gallon or so and let it run through, then add back into the top of my mash tun because that help clean up things, and improves efficiency to boot. Then from there I drain first runnings into the brew kettle. Then do a sparge addition and add for second runnings, drain to kettle, then again for a third.
3. Don't touch that cooling or cooled wort, or stir it. I put tin foil around the entire top and including my immersion cooler to COMPLETELY seal off the cooled wort from the outside.
4. Plastic is NOTORIOUS for holding infections and such that glass doesn't. You have a glass carboy, add your cooled wort directly to your carboy through a well sanitized hose or well sanitized funnel if you don't have a drain connection.

Trying to hit certain gravities and volumes is great, but in the end if you miss it's far more important to be SANITARY.

Sorry for the caps as a brewer it's so key to be sanitary. I wear rubber gloves dipped in the sanitizer if there is any chance of contamination. You gotta respect there are a kazillion bugs out there.

 

[twistr25]

1. Water. Do you have any kind of chlorine etc. filter?
2. I take the first gallon or so and let it run through, then add back into the top of my mash tun because that help clean up things, and improves efficiency to boot. Then from there I drain first runnings into the brew kettle. Then do a sparge addition and add for second runnings, drain to kettle, then again for a third.
3. Don't touch that cooling or cooled wort, or stir it. I put tin foil around the entire top and including my immersion cooler to COMPLETELY seal off the cooled wort from the outside.
4. Plastic is NOTORIOUS for holding infections and such that glass doesn't. You have a glass carboy, add your cooled wort directly to your carboy through a well sanitized hose or well sanitized funnel if you don't have a drain connection.

Trying to hit certain gravities and volumes is great, but in the end if you miss it's far more important to be SANITARY.

Sorry for the caps as a brewer it's so key to be sanitary. I wear rubber gloves dipped in the sanitizer if there is any chance of contamination. You gotta respect there are a kazillion bugs out there.

I use plastic buckets and haven't come close to an infection. Not to mention I also stir my wort while it is cooling and open to the air. I spray my mash paddle down with StarSan and am certainly careful, but I don't think it's necessary to go to those extremes. To each their own though.

 

[Clonefan94]

Oh yeah, I just want to add. It sounds like you are consistent with your efficiency and as bad as you think that number is, at least it's consistent. This way you will be able to detect your problem easier. But be sure and only change one thing per brew. I would look at the crush first. If you are getting it crushed somewhere else, try a double crush. That should improve your numbers a little bit and give you at least a little indicator of weather or not the crush could be the issue.

Worst case, at least with being consistent, you can always go ahead and buy the grain you need to hit your target gravities because you know where your numbers are at.

 

[chickypad]

4.) Transferring to Carboy - again since I don't have a measuring device in my brew pot, I first transfer my wort to another plastic bucket to see how much I have post boil. Once I have my desired amount, I then transfer that into my glass carboy and pitch yeast.

I'm a little confused on this step. Are you ending up with a lot more volume post boil than your target batch volume? If that's the case it sounds like you need to boil longer or sparge less. I wonder if that could be a reason you are losing gravity pts (i.e. left in the kettle). Sounds like it would be worth your while to get a plastic or wooden spoon and make notches for volume measurements in your kettle. As the others mentioned though definitely check your crush, seems the most common culprit.

As far as your water, there seem to be a couple important things missing in the report namely calcium and magnesium levels. The alkalinity looks okay. I notice the sodium and chloride seem on the high side. To my knowledge that won't affect pH but could be an issue with taste. You don't mention what your off flavors are. I don't know what the taste threshold is for chloramines but I know it's low. You may want to consider treating with campden tablets. I had a problem with plastic off flavors at my new house until I started using campden.

 

[bethebrew]

I use plastic buckets and haven't come close to an infection. Not to mention I also stir my wort while it is cooling and open to the air. I spray my mash paddle down with StarSan and am certainly careful, but I don't think it's necessary to go to those extremes. To each their own though.

Your OP specifically mentions "off tasting beers". Where do you think those are coming from if not infections? Plastic is hard to get sanitized, especially if scratched. But to each his own as they say.

It's hard to imagine the five minutes you save in cooling time by stirring the wort as it cools, while oxygenating it at the worst possible time, which is when it's hot or very warm, is helping your beer. This regardless of the added risk of contamination.

 

[chickypad]

Your OP specifically mentions "off tasting beers". Where do you think those are coming from if not infections? Plastic is hard to get sanitized, especially if scratched. But to each his own as they say.

Now come on, lots of us use plastic routinely without infections (agree it's harder to eradicate from plastic once you get an infection). I think it's pretty premature to assume the OP's off flavors are from infection. There's a whole list of other things I could think of that would be more common, at least on these boards. It would help to get a description from the OP.

 

[Yooper]

I have been brewing AG for a year or so, and have usually gotten terrible efficiency, in the mid 50s.

I know there are plenty of topics out there on improving this, and I have been reading them, but I had a couple of questions on some things that I could not find as easily.

1.) Water profile. My town's water profile is located in this PDF http://www.burlington.org/docs/WR2013.pdf. However, I am not really sure what I should be looking for here. I have never made any changes to my water when I brew, and not even sure where to start if I did have to make changes.

2.) Sparging procedure - The way I do it now is mash, recirculate once or twice, then drain first runnings into one of my plastic carboys. I do this because I need to track how much wort I am collecting. Also I only have 1 brew kettle, so while I am doing my first running, I am heating my sparge water. Once I collect first running, I dump in the sparge water, and then dump all of the first runnings from the plastic bucket to the boil pot. I then do the same process for sparge water. I run my sparge water through to check how much I need for my target pre-boil volume. If I need 6.5 gallons and collected 3 in first runnings, I let the second go until I have 3.5. Then I dump that into the boil pot. Is this a bad way to do it? Should I drain my runnings directly into my boil kettle rather than first into a plastic bucket?

3.) Cooling Wort - I have an immersion chiller, but my ground water is usually not that cold, so it takes about 25-30 minutes to cool wort down to 70 ish degrees. Once my boil is finished, I put the chiller in, let the water flow through, and gradually stir the pot every few minutes.

4.) Transferring to Carboy - again since I don't have a measuring device in my brew pot, I first transfer my wort to another plastic bucket to see how much I have post boil. Once I have my desired amount, I then transfer that into my glass carboy and pitch yeast.

I would appreciate some feedback on those few steps above, as I feel like the source of some of my off tasting beer/bad efficiency is somewhere in there. I used to use a rectangular cooler with a SS hose to mashing, but I am now changing to a round 10 gallon "gatorade" cooler with a false bottom. I am hopeful that that will help me a bit.

As was mentioned, crush is usually the cause of lower-than-expected efficiency, so I'd take a good look at the crush next time and make sure each grain is cracked.

1. As far as water, the chloride level looks too high. If you're not treating for chlorine or chloramine, that could be where an issue lies- but also with the chloride being over 130 and the sodium is really high as well (110)! That is probably the bigger issue. Still, use campden tablets in your brewing water to treat the chloramines (a form of chlorine that doesn't boil off) and then consider diluting the water to reduce the sodium and chloride levels with distilled water or reverse osmosis water.

You could send a water sample to Ward Lab and for $26, get a "household minerals test" and find out for sure. Otherwise, you could purchase some reverse osmosis water from the big water machines at the grocery store, and that would be a blank slate to start with.

2. That sounds fine. When you stir in your sparge water, stir like it owes you money. Then vorlauf and drain.

3. Yep! Stirring the pot gently helps to move the wort around to aid cooling and avoiding hot spots and cool spots. That sounds exactly right.

4. How about this? Make a "measuring device" for your boil kettle. That would help with both measuring the first runnings and the final wort. All I did was take an etcher and a great big spoon and etch marks on the spoon at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc gallons- all the way to 12 gallons (my normal starting volume for my 10 gallon batches). You can mark the 1/2 gallons, too, but I'm good at eyeballing that. Then you don't have to transfer to measure and you can still eyeball where you're at during the boil. I had an older pot and I marked the outside with nail polish, but the spoon trick (or a dowel, or whatever) is easier!

 

[Yooper]

Your OP specifically mentions "off tasting beers". Where do you think those are coming from if not infections? Plastic is hard to get sanitized, especially if scratched. But to each his own as they say.

It's hard to imagine the five minutes you save in cooling time by stirring the wort as it cools, while oxygenating it at the worst possible time, which is when it's hot or very warm, is helping your beer. This regardless of the added risk of contamination.

Stirring the wort during cooling helps prevent cold spots and hot spots, and aids in cooling. If you're using a water bath, stirring the water bath helps also.

I think your guess is an incredible long shot as to what's going wrong here, as the sodium level and chloride level is very high, and I suspect it's water (and mash pH) causing the issues. The idea that contamination is coming from plastic in the brewhouse might not be a bad idea, but it's not likely in most cases. And covering during cooling isn't a great idea, as DMS presursors continue to form until the wort gets below 140 degrees, so DMS can convert during chilling in a tightly covered kettle. (I don't even HAVE a lid for mine, and I have yet to have an infection from cooling in over 300 batches, so I wouldn't say it needs to be covered!)

 

[tooldudetool]

I agree with chickypad, it's not fair to assume plastic fermenters are a problem. I brew exclusively with bucket fermenters (basically every week) and I've had no infections or off flavors in over 100 batches. As long as you aren't scratching it up heavily inside I this is really a non issue. My AG process is pretty similar to the OP, I have one 10 gallon kettle, I drain my first runnings into a bucket fermenter, add my heated batch sparge water to the mash tun, then dump my first runnings into the kettle, drain second runnings into kettle, and I'm good to go. I agree that the crush would be the first thing to look at. I don't have a mill, and when I first started AG I was getting precrushed grains from morebeer, and getting right around 70% mash efficiency. I then discovered brewbrothers.biz, which is fantastic, they will mill your grains at no extra charge, sell grains in .1# increments, and they even bag all of your recipe grains together, which makes it way easier on brewday. They also have a much tighter crush. I now regularly get 85-90% efficiency with the same setup. I also do nothing to my mash water, all I know is my water is "moderately hard". I also agree that you need to get a big spoon and make 1/2 gallon marks on it so you know the volume in your brew kettle. Also, now that I reread your post I think I see the basic problem. You say you just dump your sparge water in and drain it until you hit your boil volume, which means you are leaving wort behind in the mash tun. You should be either calculating your sparge water volume (for example: assume .15 gallons of water lost per pound of grain: 12 lb x .15 gal = 1.8 gallons. 5 gallons mash water - 1.8 gallons absorbtion = 3.2 gallons in BK ~ 8.25 gallons starting volume - 3.2 gallons = 5.1 gallons sparge water) or you should be collecting your first runnings, subtract that number from your starting boil volume, then only dumping in the amount of sparge water necessary to hit that volume. The grains will not absorb any more water after the mash. Use a half gallon pitcher to measure the correct amount of sparge water into your mash tun. Otherwise you are diluting the sugars with extra water, then only using part of the water, leaving sugary wort behind. That would explain your dramatic loss of efficiency.

 

[fmr_army]

I'm in pretty strong agreement with most of what's been said above. I will not comment on water chemistry because I figured out my municipal profile and promptly forgot all that stuff.

Three things I would add to this:
1) If you have your own mill, you can condition your grains, which means you can have a much tighter crush. I double crush my grains after conditioning and have seen major improvement in my efficiency. Crush until you're scared.
2) USE SOMETHING TO GET RID OF CHLORAMINE!!! I use campden tablets because they're cheap and easy, and I'm cheap and lazy. My first AG batch tasted like bandaids (which taste blissfully has diminished over time), to which I attribute a lack of chloramine removal. My subsequent batches have been awesome (if I do say so myself).
3) Sparge enough to get enough of the sugars out that you're happy. Then boil the bejeezus out of it. I brew outdoors and use a floor fan to help with evaporation. After a couple of brews I got it pretty much right - I start with about 8.5 gallons of wort and 1.5 hours later have 6.5 - I do First Wort Hops to bitter, so that makes life a bit easier for me, calculation-wise.

I hope this helps.

PS - I don't think plastic is the issue. I've always fermented in plastic and done a second in a glass carboy. Sanitize that puppy and keep everything clean.

PPS - I'm good about sanitizing stuff, but I'm not freakishly. People have brewed beer for a bazillion years. Well before 5 Star opened up shop...

 

[Boston85]

Thanks for all of the great replies here. This past weekend I used my new round cooler with false bottom. I also decided to pick up some campden tablets and threw it in with my water. Well something went right, because my efficiency went through the roof. Per beersmith I was shooting for 6.8 gallons at 1.047 pre boil but actually collected 7 gallons at 1.05. Then after boil I was going for 5.5 gallons at 1.053 but wound up with 5 gallons at 1.059. Pre boil efficiency was measured at 84% and total brewhouse efficiency was at 71.

I changed my process a little bit. I brewed EdWort's bee cave pale ale https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/

I had upped the 2 row to 9 lbs in case I lost some efficiency, so i started with 11.5 lbs of grain.

Mashed with 4 gallons or 16 quarts or about 1.4Q/Lb which is higher. As I was bringing those 4 gallons up to temp I threw in half a crushed campden tablet. Then mashed right around 152 for the hour. As the hour was coming up, I heated another 3 gallons with the other half campden tabled crushed to about 185 and put that in a cooler so I could drain my first runnings directly into brew pot. Once first runnings were complete, I poured hot water from cooler into mash tun and stirred like crazy for a couple of minutes then let it sit for 10. Drained that running and only had just over 5 gallons in my brew pot. I panicked a little and heated about another 2 gallons of water and threw that into mash tun and stirred again. When all was said and done I had 7 gallons in my boil pot.

After the boil and cooling I wound up with exactly 5 gallons in my fermenting bucket. I lost a bit to the cooling junk in the brew pot. While I overshot my OG (probably partly due to the extra grain), I am still pretty happy with the results. I am wondering if the campden tablet really made that much of a difference, or if I just did a better job with sparging and making sure I collected much more sugar.

Either way, thanks for the help and tips provided. The increased efficiency makes me want to get right back out there tomorrow and brew again.

 

[duboman]

Glad to hear things worked out! The camden tablets wont help with efficiency but they will remove the chloramines/chlorine issue if there was one creating phenolic off flavors.

As for buckets, if you keep them clean, in good shape and properly sanitize they will provide great service for a long time. My buckets are easily over 4 years old, look new and not one infection!

As for your improved efficiency it sounds as though you did a better job sparging and you increased the grain bill. You also got closer to your desired volumes which is a big plus in pinning down your processes.

Keep taking good notes, measuring things properly, get a good crush and your ability to be consistent will improve with each batch! Cheers!