Awesome efficiency! WTF!

Okay, maybe not awesome for some of you, but I hit 75% efficiency today. I actually had to add some water pre-boil because I didn't want a 7% amber ale. The only thing I really changed was I stopped spargin about halfway through (I fly-sparge) and stirred the bejeezus out of the mash, then added a bunch of water, kind of a hybrid fly/batch sparge.

Either way, if I can keep this up I can save a few bucks on brew day by reducing the grain bill a bit.:cross:

 

If you got higher efficiency by stirring, that would seem to suggest that your fly sparge is getting some serious channeling. Unless you've got tons of deadspace in your tun, you should be getting significantly higher efficiency than that with fly sparging.

 

That is kind of what I was thinking when I did it too. I made sure to vorlauf a couple quarts after stirring to avoid too much stuff getting into the kettle too. I try to keep plenty of sparge water on top of the grain while sparging, but sometimes you forget when you have several things going on at once. I may even switch to a batch sparge after this to see if I can improve a little more and gain a few more points.

 

No offense...but what is signifcantly higher? I can't seem to pinpoint the ranges for the different types of sparging....batch, fly...etc.

 

No offense?

There's nothing to pinpoint, unfortunately, as there are other, very important, factors than just sparge type. Batch sparging (on average) tends tends to land in the high sixties to high seventies, and fly sparging somewhere in the high seventies to high eighties. You can certainly land outside those ranges, though, for a number of reasons.

 

I am starting to think that my mash tun is better suited for batch sparging. I have a bazooka screen instead of a false bottom or manifold. I didn't really believe that I was getting that much channelling and affecting efficiency that much, but after this past brew, I am starting to see the light.

 

Bazooka screens aren't well suited to fly sparging, as all the wort drains from a relatively narrow point. Batch sparging is dramatically simpler, all told.

 

I don't know why, but batch sparging used to scare me. Now that I see what the possible effects are, I am sold. I also preheated my mash tun with water over my strike temp and let it cool to the proper temp before doughing in. These couple of changes may have saved me a bunch in upgrades or at least extra grain.

 

Batch sparging used to scare you? Man, there's virtually nothing that can go wrong with it next to fly sparging. You don't need to be terribly precise in preheating your mash tun, but getting it up to 130-160ºF will give you much less of a temp drop than starting at 50ºF.