Terrible Efficiency with Braumeister

[caps_phisto]

All,

I apologize if this is in the wrong place, but this is where I thought it might fit.

It seems that I have gotten poor mash efficiency from my Braumeister 50L unit. I have never had this issue before and I am looking for possible causes.

Here are the stats:

I am using the half malt pipe for 5 gallon batches.
I used 8 gallons of mash water to start
I sparged with 1.5 gallons of water

My grist:
6lbs of German Pilsner malt
4lbs Flaked, Wheat from NB
0.5lbs Briess Cherrywood smoked malt
1lb Light Candi Sugar
0.5lbs Rice Hulls

Mash pH was 5.2

Mash Schedule

98F for 20 minutes (Acid Rest)
122F for 20 minutes (Protien rest)
149F for 60 minutes (Sac Rest)
170F for 10 minutes (Mash out)

60 minute boil

Wort volume: 5.25 gallons.

Everything about the operation went as normal, no issues there. I ensured I stirred up the post-boil wort to ensure no stratification. I did not take a pre-boil gravity reading (I know, cut corners )

I took both readings in Brix on my Refractometer (10.4) and on my hydrometer (1.042), they are the same. If I were to get the expected 70% efficiency I normally get, I should have hit 1.053 or 13 Brix, I did not. It appears that I was lucky to get 55%.

Can anyone give me any insight as to why?

Thanks to any advice you can give and Cheers!

 

[rnarzisi]

Did you ever get this figured out? I noticed the same thing when I switch over to the shorter malt pipe in the 50L. Right around 55% efficiency, 1.046 with 11.5 pounds of grain.

In the past, when I used the normal malt pipe, I would get between 73% and 78% without sparging.

WTF?

 

[caps_phisto]

Wow. I forgot I posted this. Yes I did figure this out and there were many moving components.

First is the difference between the two malt pipes. The full malt pipe can get around 23 pounds of grain and still get good efficiency. However, anything above 11 pounds in the half pipe kills efficiency. So if using the half pipe max the grain bill at 11 pounds and DME the rest of the way if needed.

The second was a bit trickier. Boil off seems to be about 1.25 gallons per 60 minutes. However that is based on what seems to be a secret on the machine. Once 100F is reached you can actually tap the up arrow on the panel and up the temp to 102F which yields a harder boil. A side note is I also found my beers clear up better as well.

Next came grain absorption. I find that my system is right about at 0.15 gallons per pound of grain.

Next was tun loss. As the spigot is higher there is a bit of wort left behind. I tip my Brau up and lose about 0.37 gallons.

Chill loss comes in right around 0.23 gallons.

So taking all that into account I was pretty spot on with my starting water Volume of 8 gallons. But I was way off on sparge. For brewing with the half pipe I never sparge anymore. The added water kills the efficiency big time and is 100% unnecessary.

So the whole fix was all these tweaks to my recipe formulation and process.

I still don't get into the 78% range but I can almost always get 72-75%.

Hope that helps you!

 

[mjwitz]

Wow. I forgot I posted this. Yes I did figure this out and there were many moving components.

First is the difference between the two malt pipes. The full malt pipe can get around 23 pounds of grain and still get good efficiency. However, anything above 11 pounds in the half pipe kills efficiency. So if using the half pipe max the grain bill at 11 pounds and DME the rest of the way if needed.

The second was a bit trickier. Boil off seems to be about 1.25 gallons per 60 minutes. However that is based on what seems to be a secret on the machine. Once 100F is reached you can actually tap the up arrow on the panel and up the temp to 102F which yields a harder boil. A side note is I also found my beers clear up better as well.

Next came grain absorption. I find that my system is right about at 0.15 gallons per pound of grain.

Next was tun loss. As the spigot is higher there is a bit of wort left behind. I tip my Brau up and lose about 0.37 gallons.

Chill loss comes in right around 0.23 gallons.

So taking all that into account I was pretty spot on with my starting water Volume of 8 gallons. But I was way off on sparge. For brewing with the half pipe I never sparge anymore. The added water kills the efficiency big time and is 100% unnecessary.

So the whole fix was all these tweaks to my recipe formulation and process.

I still don't get into the 78% range but I can almost always get 72-75%.

Hope that helps you!

I agree with you. when you stuff the malt pipe with grain your efficiency goes way down. I also saw you used some flaked adjuncts also which will slow the recirculation. I just had a similar issue with a weizenbock with 6 lbs of wheat malt. For big batches I split the grain and mash twice in the same wort. I abort the program after the first mash and start it again.