So what really was my efficiency and how to improve my first extraction

[DuncB]

So yesterday I made a Smoked porter my first large grain bill in my Guten 70 litre one brew system like a brewzilla.

Aiming for 1.087 and 25litre in fermenter. Grain bill below, milled after conditioning at 0.5mm on the maltzilla. Total 10.53 kg.
Used 24 litres of mash water, doughed in at 63 on full power and then mashed for 90 mins at 64 with 700watts.
Slow wort flow during first 40 minutes of mash, temp up and down a bit and had to keep adjusting the flow to try and get the bed just covered.

Mashed out at 76 and then sparged with 14 litres of water at 76.

Pre boil I was at 28 litres so thought with a couple of litres of boil loss I would get to 26 litres and then about one litre of kettle loss. Didn't do a pre boil gravity ( idiot ).

Only managed 24 litres of 1.081 in fermenter. So BHE was 60 % with this.

BUT took malt pipe off after sparge and let it stand over ferment bucket ( it's a perfect fit ) later during boil saw 3.5 litre of runoff aided by a bit of a squeeze and this was 1.055. Thought maybe a small partigyle brew could be made.

So I poured 4.5 litres of boiling water over the grains ( 2nd sparge) and left it to drain (overnight about 6 hours).

Following morning 9.5 litres in the ferment bucket and 1.071 so I boiled this up and hopped it to same ratio and have put it in a separate fermenter with some kveik there was 8.4 litres and OG of 1.077 in the fermenter. Note open boil different boiler and just half hour boil.

So I'm puzzled using brewers friend BHE calculator and compensating for the gravity and volumes I got in the 2 fermenter suggests 32.4 litres at 1.080 and a BHE of 78.84 % .

Overall that's not bad for a highish gravity beer but the time frame for the full extraction not that practical. My problem seems to be at the sparge extraction stage. Certainly not a stuck sparge as the sparge ran through well, it was not a floating mash bed or covered with water all the time just sprinkling on the grains for about 15 minutes.

Therefore next time if I sparged 16 litres of hotter water perhaps after a really good squeeze and aimed for the same 25 litres I could be in the ball park and I'd need to boil off about 4 litres. But the time for the second lot of runoff was several hours so it's not that useful. Maybe just add the second runoff in increments during the boil?
Any ideas how to get a better one off extraction?

Finally I just noticed when I was grabbing the grain bill that I'd put the supernova down as an acidulated malt not a base malt. Correcting this suggested I needed 10.65 ml of lactic acid in mash water. But I'd added sodium bicarb as well ( not sure why ) and when I removed that from my water profile it was only wanting 3.5ml to get to a mash pH of 5.2. Was charging around and didn't check the pH ( lesson learnt) or my head as to why I added bicarb, I gave up using it in my profiles a while ago but the porter profile I was miles off for HCO3 so perhaps that was the reason.

 

[DuncB]

I thought someone would bite on this straightaway.

 

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I thought someone would bite on this straightaway.

It's a long post with a lot of craziness happening, and no gravity reading at a fairly important spot.

Crush well. Sparge well. Keep the method consistent from batch to batch. Record your #'s and put them into a calculator and work the % until it matches what you actually got. Then run with it.

 

[DuncB]

It's a long post with a lot of craziness happening, and no gravity reading at a fairly important spot.

Crush well. Sparge well. Keep the method consistent from batch to batch. Record your #'s and put them into a calculator and work the % until it matches what you actually got. Then run with it.

Thank you
Is that spot the pre boil gravity?

Using this
Preboil Volume x Preboil Gravity = Post boil Volume x Post boil Gravity
Therefore
Preboil Gravity = Postboil Volume x Postboil Gravity / Preboil Volume.
So 26L in the kettle... = a preboil gravity of ~1.075 (24 * 81 / 26)

Overall the biggest problem is my sparge method isn't good enough at getting the sugars out first time, perhaps I'm not getting the whole mash pipe full of grain to the mash out temperature and I saw this result in a very long mash for the second amount that was better washed out with the boiling water.

The grain bed seems to let the sparge water through very easily, maybe a squeeze to compact the malt a bit and then immerse as a batch sparge.

My fly sparging sprinkling over the top is done in about 15 minutes which doesn't seem right.

Appreciate the pH error might impact a little.

 

[doug293cz]

If you are sparging, then you need an end of mash SG reading (after aggressive stirring and before sparging) in order to calculate your conversion efficiency. Pre-boil SG just allows you to calculate your mash efficiency, which is conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency. The things that cause low conversion efficiency are different than the things that cause low lauter efficiency. If you want to know why your mash efficiency is low, then you need to know whether the problem is with conversion, or lauter, or both.

Brewhouse efficiency is not very interesting, as it is all about volume losses between the BK and fermenter, once you know mash efficiency.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

I thought someone would bite on this straightaway.

People have jobs, families, and other things that occupy their time. Answering people on on-line forums is a hobby that seldom is first priority.

Brew on

 

[DuncB]

People have jobs, families, and other things that occupy their time. Answering people on on-line forums is a hobby that seldom is first priority.

Brew on

Thank you, I appreciate your time and wisdom. I use a one vessel system that heats and recirculates the wort through the grains, so should I lift the malt pipe and let it drain and take a sample from the bottom of the vessel plus note the volume?
It's not a cooler or BIAB setup so I'm not sure about the stirring although I do the odd stir during the mash more so at the front end.

I will do some reading about lauter and conversion efficiency effecting factors and realise that if you leave it in the cupboard you can't expect to eat it at the table.

 

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The gravity & volume calculations are correct, but if you leave a little protein coagulated hoppy wort behind your #'s are already off. If you dumped 100% into the fermenter then yes you are on the right track and can work that backwards to the # that was forgotten.

And as mentioned there are several #'s that can be calculated. I typically just go for mash efficiency, I find it to be the most useful even though it's kind of an aggregate of other things, but wasn't sure which one you were going for. It looks like you have it somewhat figured out though. For the next time, at least, if you want to track it.

As for the brew, it sounds similar to an Anvil if not actually one. Yes, lots of dead space underneath and on the sides of the malt pipe. Ideally, recirculate during the mash and occasionally stir and ALSO lift the pipe up and down a few times to get the stuff from the sides mixed in. Do that with a good grain crush (this is a subject unto itself), and of course let it go long enough (need not actually be an hour, but it doesn't hurt), and you're going to start off well.

As for the sparge, you have options. 1) Skip it and take an efficiency hit but just buy more grain next time. 2) Pour some water over it and collect it for boiling, it's better than nothing. 3) Move the whole thing to another pot w/ water and let it soak and be stirred a few minutes, then drain again.

I do #3, I use a bag in my malt pipe when I'm using the Anvil to brew, and after the mash I drain it and then move it over to a pot of sparge water. Let it soak a few minutes then move it back to the pipe to drain again, and of course dump in the collected sparge water as well. I was in the 80%'s my last brew without much work (mash efficiency).

Seems like you are set up for #2. And that's fine. Go with it, learn, get consistent, figure an efficiency and then use that to scale other people's recipes up or down if needed. If doing your own - it's the consistency that's important, screw the rest.

And yeah when doing a gravity reading it's gotta be..... homogenized isn't the right word, but something like that - all mixed, all the same. Basket movement to mix in the dead space from the sides is a part of it for sure.

 

[RufusBrewer]

The OP is a lot to sort through. I love the metric system and think The USA should have changed over to it 50 years ago. Still, publishing a complicated process using metric units in predominantly American forum will loose you some of your audience.

Efficiency. The home brewers hob goblin. There is a mentality that the higher efficiency, the better of a home brewer you are. Or the better your beer will be.

The only efficiency home brewers should be distracted by is pre boil volume and gravity. X gallons of wort at Y gravity points. The reason you want measure and calculate efficiency is so you can create consistent beer.

Once your boil starts, forget about efficiency. There is nothing you can do, your beers fate is determined by your rig. All you can do is understand the variables in play and allow for them accurately such that your pre boil volume and gravity are where they need to be.

Boil off rate. E.g. When you boil your beer for one hour, how much beer will you have left in your kettle. Boil off does not affect efficiency. If you calculate efficiency after boiling, it should the same efficiency as preboil. Know and understand what your boil off rate is. The closer the value used for calculation is to your actual rate the more accurate your volume in the fermenter will be.

The rest is knowing how much wort lost to your brew rig. Different for every brewer and every rig and recipe. How much wort is lost to trub, hops, dead spaces, pellets hoses, pumps, filters, etc. You are going to leave some wort behind, the question s how much.

If you look at boil off rate, brew rig loss as individual variables, you can measure each for your rig during your next brew day.

I started with 6.5 gallons, boiled for 1 hour and ended up wth 5.5 gallons. My boil rate is 1.0 gal/hour.

I had 5.5 gallons of wort after boiling and put 5.0 gallons in my fermentor, my rig dead space is .5 gallons.

 

[DuncB]

@RufusBrewer

Thank you for this as well. I realise that I don't need to fret so much about BHE as so many parts of that are fixed losses as you say.
Just need to concentrate ( literally ) on the variable factors and ensure that they are consistent and live with it.
I don't need to chase the end of an impossible rainbow.
I'm awaiting the end of fermentation to see how fermentable the wort was, initial readings suggested that the parti gyle batch was more fermentable via the ispindel. But all readings from that are off now that it is under pressure and I'll await a hydrometer sample when I transfer.
The first runoff is behaving as per the recipe plan.