Milling my own grains, hit all my mash/sparge temps - still only got 60%....

[tamoore]

..Which was fine for this recipe, since I ordered grains based on 60%, and hit all the numbers correctly.

But still, it's got me wondering why I'm only getting 60%.

Monster Mill set for .040" Here's the grain after crushing:

Mashed with 1.4 quarts of water per pound of grain, stirred the mash for 2-3 minutes or so. Hit the temp right at 154.

Here's my mash tun:

I let the mash sit for 1 hour (lost about 2 degrees) before mashing out, raising the grain bed to 165.

Stirred for another 2 or 3 minutes before letting it rest for 10 minutes.

Lautered 3 gallons of wort before adding the rest of my sparge water, Stirred, then drained the rest for 6.5 total gallons.

I ended up with less than 2 quarts of extra wort after hitting my volume, which tells me I still have to adjust something in my equipment calculations.

But the bottom line is, I'm still only getting 60% (less if you figure I had water left over).

I'm not sure why. I'd like to be in the 70% range, so I'm 10-15% low.

the beer is great, so I'm not sure why - I've done about everything I think I can do at this point. Any ideas?

 

[PinkyOFloyd]

Water Chemistry...... Read Palmer. It's a good starting place... http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

 

[tamoore]

Water Chemistry...... Read Palmer. It's a good starting place... http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

I adjusted my water chemistry. Measured my PH in the tun after strike and stir, was in the area of 5.0-5.5 (hard to tell perfectly with the strips I bought).

 

[snail]

Are the thermometer and hydrometer calibrated?

 

[Bobby_M]

..Which was fine for this recipe, since I ordered grains based on 60%, and hit all the numbers correctly.

But still, it's got me wondering why I'm only getting 60%.


Mashed with 1.4 quarts of water per pound of grain, stirred the mash for 2-3 minutes or so. Hit the temp right at 154.

No problem here.

I let the mash sit for 1 hour (lost about 2 degrees) before mashing out, raising the grain bed to 165.
Stirred for another 2 or 3 minutes before letting it rest for 10 minutes.

With the mashout addition, what was your new water/grist ratio before lautering?

Lautered 3 gallons of wort before adding the rest of my sparge water, Stirred, then drained the rest for 6.5 total gallons.

Was that 3 gallons all you could drain out or did you just stop the runoff for some reason?

I ended up with less than 2 quarts of extra wort after hitting my volume, which tells me I still have to adjust something in my equipment calculations.

You certainly don't want to end up with any extra wort. That's lost sugar.

You can answer the questions but another way to help diagnose is to list the exact grain weight you used as well as the volumes added and drained at each step.

 

[tamoore]

Are the thermometer and hydrometer calibrated?

Yea, Calibrated the Hydrometer in water, read right on. I have two to choose from, and one of them isn't as accurate, (by .002) so I didn't use it.

The thermometer was a new digital instant read that I checked at both freezing and boiling. Got numbers within .4 degrees on both ends.

 

[tamoore]

I stopped the Lautering at 3 gallons because someone had made the suggestion to add the last 2.2 gallons of sparge water with there was still wort in the tun, to avoid a too thin mash condition. It was the only part of the process I was unsure of, honestly.

Rundown:

11.5 pounds of grain.
4 gallons of strike water.
2.2 gallons of mashout water.
Drained 3 gallons.
2.2 gallons of sparge water.
Drained 3.5 gallons.
Ended up with 1.7 quarts too much wort.

 

[snail]

I'm thinking you left behind a lot of the best wort by not draining the mashtun completely. The 1st runnings are the most concentrated with sugar and a lot was left behind and diluted with your sparge water.

 

[suprchunk]

Just looking at that manifold I would take that long piece down the center and run it sideways. And triple the holes in it. And make it out of copper. I had one like that before, but was getting horrible results. Switched it around a bit and have been consistently hitting 80+ percent. Forget what I was getting with the PVC kind of like yours, but is was abysmal.

 

[tamoore]

I'm thinking you left behind a lot of the best wort by not draining the mashtun completely. The 1st runnings are the most concentrated with sugar and a lot was left behind and diluted with your sparge water.

That could be true, but I've done 5 AG batches, all using different batch/mash/sparge/water techniques, and have seen about 55-60% efficiency on each of them.

Some of them, I've drained completely, others I've left a bit of wort behind when I hit my volume. (I only have a 7 gallon brew pot, so I am forced to stop at 6.5 - although I suppose I could have boiled the leftovers on the stove in a smaller pot and recombined later in the boil after some boil off....)

 

[tamoore]

Just looking at that manifold I would take that long piece down the center and run it sideways. And triple the holes in it. And make it out of copper. I had one like that before, but was getting horrible results. Switched it around a bit and have been consistently hitting 80+ percent. Forget what I was getting with the PVC kind of like yours, but is was abysmal.

People are getting 70%+ batch sparging with those short braided hoses. I was almost sure that this manifold thingy would at least be as good as that, since it at least sits lower in the tun than the hose would, if I used it. I have a braided hose that I've never used. I wonder if I should try it for a batch and see what happens?

 

[Bobby_M]

I stopped the Lautering at 3 gallons because someone had made the suggestion to add the last 2.2 gallons of sparge water with there was still wort in the tun, to avoid a too thin mash condition. It was the only part of the process I was unsure of, honestly.

Rundown:

11.5 pounds of grain.
4 gallons of strike water.
2.2 gallons of mashout water.
Drained 3 gallons.
2.2 gallons of sparge water.
Drained 3.5 gallons.
Ended up with 1.7 quarts too much wort.

Ok, I'm glad this is an easy one.

You had 6.2 gallons of water in 11.5 pounds of grain. A full drain would have yielded 4.7 gallons of first runnings. If you wanted 6.5g preboil, the sparge volume would be slightly less than 2 gallons.

Some key points here. Grain absorbs 1/2 quart per pound. Start with preboil volume desired and figure out how much wort you'll get for first runnings. The leftover is how much you need to sparge with.

Two problems with your last batch were incomplete draining of first wort and a large inequality between first and second runnings volume. If you want to mash out, start with a thicker mash like 1.25qt/lb.

11.5lbs of grain x 1.25qt, call it 14 quarts, subtract about 6qts to absorption and you have about 2 gallons available for draining. Go ahead and add enough mashout water to get you to HALF of your desired preboil volume. In this case it's 1.25 gallons. Drain that 3.25 gallons completely.

Sparge with 3.25, vorlauf and drain completely.

The highest efficiency, given two runnings, is achieved this way.

Your manifold design is fine for batch sparging.

 

[tamoore]

Ok, I'm glad this is an easy one.

You had 6.2 gallons of water in 11.5 pounds of grain. A full drain would have yielded 4.7 gallons of first runnings. If you wanted 6.5g preboil, the sparge volume would be slightly less than 2 gallons.

Some key points here. Grain absorbs 1/2 quart per pound. Start with preboil volume desired and figure out how much wort you'll get for first runnings. The leftover is how much you need to sparge with.

Two problems with your last batch were incomplete draining of first wort and a large inequality between first and second runnings volume. If you want to mash out, start with a thicker mash like 1.25qt/lb.

11.5lbs of grain x 1.25qt, call it 14 quarts, subtract about 6qts to absorption and you have about 2 gallons available for draining. Go ahead and add enough mashout water to get you to HALF of your desired preboil volume. In this case it's 1.25 gallons. Drain that 3.25 gallons completely.

Sparge with 3.25, vorlauf and drain completely.

The highest efficiency, given two runnings, is achieved this way.

Your manifold design is fine for batch sparging.

Thanks a bunch, man! I'll give this a shot next batch!

 

[tamoore]

So, I can already see the problem with larger grain bills... Next batch has 14.5 pounds of grain (calculated for 60% efficiency).

4.5 gallons of strike
1.8 gallons for absorption
2.7 gallons for drain.
0.5 gallon for mash out (would that even do anything? )
3.2 gallons for first runnings
3.2 gallons for sparge/second runnings.

 

[Bobby_M]

To be honest, the mashout is just not necessary for batch sparging since you'll be heating the wort in the kettle shortly after draining. In the batch you mentioned, I'd just strike with 5 gallons right away, skip the mashout and your two runnings will be equal.

 

[tamoore]

To be honest, the mashout is just not necessary for batch sparging since you'll be heating the wort in the kettle shortly after draining. In the batch you mentioned, I'd just strike with 5 gallons right away, skip the mashout and your two runnings will be equal.

Gotcha. Thanks again.

 

[mikeysab]

To be honest, the mashout is just not necessary for batch sparging since you'll be heating the wort in the kettle shortly after draining. In the batch you mentioned, I'd just strike with 5 gallons right away, skip the mashout and your two runnings will be equal.

Sometimes the more I read, the more confused I get, and this is one of those times. The way I understood Mashing and lautering was that the temp needs to be as close to 170 when lautering to dissolve the sugars and make the wort more easily lautered. In a previous post, Bobby, you stated that first runnings are the most concentrated wort. Isn't this only possible by doing a mashout? Or can you raise the temp with sparge water and even though it's not as concentrated, you're still dissolving the sugars and lautering as good as you're going to?

I think in ASKING a question, I just ANSWERED it. I guess I'd rather here it from a pro

 

[Bobby_M]

Nope. The liquid wort that is sitting in the mashtun along with the grain at the end of the mash is already full of sugar. It already diffused out of the grain over all that time. Raising the temp of the mash to 170F will not make that liquid any more dense. It may make the wort just a bit more fluid but seriously, it's not going to matter much because we're talking about a 15-20F difference. Kaiser has also shown that a relatively cold sparge is nearly just as efficient.

The temp rise (mash out) is primarily to denature the majority of the enzymes so that you can lock you sugar profile in during a 60 minute long fly sparge. This is not a concern in batch sparging when you're about to start heating the wort to a boil in less than 30 minutes.

 

[mikeysab]

thanks for clearing that up. So mash, drain, sparge drain. So with batch sparging it's not even necessary to raise the temp of the grain before draining? One less thing to worry about

 

[Bobby_M]

Correct. You can "overheat" the sparge water to about 185F so that you're getting some of the fluidity benefit also but the separate deliberate mashout infusion prior to the first running isn't needed.

 

[Gilbey]

Thanks Bobby, your layman's explaination helped me a TON!!!

Alan

 

[balvey]

good stuff there. I'll add one thing, take it as grain of salt though, I'm no pro.

I had a few batches when I started doing all grain & batch sparging that I too had horrible efficiency (50% - 60%) and couldn't figure it out quite right. Then I tried doing two sparges and saw a great improvement to about 80%. Just split the sparge water in half and do it twice.

Also, if you over shoot the volume, it is important to not waste it and boil it down on the stove if your kettle is too small to handle all of it, then add it back to the kettle once it fits. You also have to be mindful of IBU's if you do that though.

 

[mikeysab]

I've only done three all grain batches and the first two were BiaB. I didn't know how to calculate eddiciency so I didn't bother. The last batch was with my new cooler and manifold so I figured out beersmith to calculate efficiency. I got 72.55 efficiency with a mashout and single sparge. I like the new setup and it's easy to use. I got an acceptable efficiency, so I'm happy. I'll definitely try skipping the mashout and double sparging next time. Thanks for all the help

 

[tamoore]

Thanks for all the help. I brewed yesterday, and ended up at 70% just following Bobby M's directions. I think I'll be able to do even better on a smaller beer as well. 14.5lbs of grain is a lot for a 5 gallon batch of beer..

I'm going to try the Sierra Nevada clone next weekend again, and see if I can give 'er hell.


Thanks again!