Trying to decide whether to be excited about these numbers...

[bfinleyui]

Got a 10-gallon cooler for christmas, immediately made it a mash tun and attempted my first all-grain batch.

Grains were as such:

6.5# Pale 2-row
2.5# Flaked Maize
1.0# Flaked Rice

Mashed with 1.25 qts/lb (12.5 quarts), and sparged with two gallons of water.

Temps were a little iffy during the 75-minute mash. I didn't pre-heat my tun, so I was a little low on my temp after dough-in (151 vs 153 that i was aiming for), and lost about 4 degrees over the 75-minutes, ending at 147.

Drained that, sparged with 2 gallons of water heated to 165, let that sit for about 15 minutes, then drained into the original (wort? liquor?) that I'd collected, for a total pre-boil volume of 4.1 gallons. (I can't do a full boil in my apartment)

I took my pre-boil gravity, but I forgot to mix the sparge into the original liquor, so that number was awful, and by the time I realized, it was too late and I was already in the boil.

60 minute boil, .5 ounces of Willamette and .5 ounces of Hallertauer (recipe was for Crystal, but LHBS doesn't carry it), chiller into the boil to sanitize at 20 minutes, whirlfloc at 10 minutes, immediately started the (homemade) wort chiller with a crude pre-chiller and whirlpool. Got down to pitching temp in 14 minutes. Took gravity there, and it was 1.062 in 3.1 gallons of wort.

Used the Beersmith dilution calculator, which told me I needed two gallons of top-off to get to 1.040 (the target OG on the recipe), and so I added two gallons, took another gravity, right at 1.040.

Pitched US-05 at 68, and off into the Cool Brewing bag.

Putting these numbers into beersmith, it seems to tell me my mash efficiency was 64.2%, with an overall brewhouse efficiency of 56.6%.

How should I react to that? The brewhouse efficiency seems low. The mash efficiency seems fairly decent, for a first attempt, with some temperature issues.

What in my process seems off? Longer batch sparge? Two smaller batch sparges? My LHBS milled it for me this afternoon, as living in an apartment, i can't really pull off a mill in the 2nd bedroom (SWMBO would not be thrilled). I still have about 3.5 pounds of the 2-row left, if a close-up photo of the grain would help figure out if it was milled properly.

Thanks

 

[Varmintman]

I am thinking the crush is suspect here. I brew a similar 6 gallon brew with less grain and end up around 1.040

Another thing could be that you are leaving wort in your mash tun as well. I do a double sparge but have read that it is not needed so much or does not improve efficiency much. One thing that does help though is stir it like crazy when you add your sparge water. I beat mine like it owes me money and it pays with sweet sugars

 

[bfinleyui]

I am thinking the crush is suspect here. I brew a similar 6 gallon brew with less grain and end up around 1.040

Another thing could be that you are leaving wort in your mash tun as well. I do a double sparge but have read that it is not needed so much or does not improve efficiency much. One thing that does help though is stir it like crazy when you add your sparge water. I beat mine like it owes me money and it pays with sweet sugars

Ah, that's interesting. I didn't stir at all, figured I wasn't supposed to disturb the grain bed, so I just sort of tried to pour over the whole top of the grain.

I'll get a picture of the crush in a little bit. SWMBO just returned from a wedding shower, so I'm hearing about all the kitchenaid mixer attachments we have now.

 

[foxjosephi]

You can also make a weaker mash I usually do 1.5qt or even 2qt to lb of grain. Stir like mad then run ur wort through to set to grain bed.

If I'm not getting lazy ill do that twice

I brew outdoors so I spare till liquor comes out lighter

And if efficient is a problem just round up recipe, add extra grain.

 

[Ryush806]

Not being able to do a full boil is going to seriously affect your efficiency. The more water you can sparge with the more sugar you can get into the kettle (up to certain limits where you start extracting tannins etc). If you can't do a full boil due to stove restrictions I'd look into building a heat stick. I used a heat stick when I was apartment brewing and could get 7-8 gallons boiling when using my stove as well.

 

[charliefoxtrot]

A few things must have gone wrong. The low mash temp would only increase the fermentability (and thus yield), so that's not a problem. You probably overextracted from one part of the mash and missed sugar from the rest of the mash, if you were that careful not to mess up the grain bed. Also, as was noted, a partial boil means you effectively replaced part of your wort with an equal volume of water, and of course that'll affect your efficiency.

It may not be a big problem, though. I usually shoot for no more than 80 per cent efficiency when I mash because the early runnings are always the tastiest. If you don't mind the cost you can buy a little extra malt and factor in your low efficiencies (that is, if they continue to plague you). You may have to do this if you can't switch to a full boil soon.

 

[bfinleyui]

I got a 41000btu turkey fryer for Xmas, so once it's no longer 10 degrees outside, i'll give full boils a try. Until then, I'll either add a pound or two more pale per recipe, or even just a bit of dme. I'm just happy to have a full mash tun. The 5 gallon pot wasn't cutting it...