Diagnosing Efficiency Issues….

Last night I did my 10th all grain brew and ran into some efficiency issues again. My preboil OG was supposed to be 1.062 at 70% efficiency instead it ended up at 1.052 which put me in the low 50’s. I did a 60 minute mash at 152, and batch sparged. I’m using a keg mash tun that held the temperature quite well. The initial temp was 153 and final temp after 60 minutes was 151.5.

I batch sparged with 10L then 5L of water.

I’m worried since I was planning on a DIPA this coming weekend and the way things have been going it doesn’t look like I’ll hit any of my targets.

My recipe for last nights mash was

10 lbs Maris Otter
1 lbs 4 oz Caramel 20
12 oz Cara-Pils
8 oz Melanoidin

Thanks for the help!

 

How well is your grain crushed???

 

Fairly well I think I have a brand new (well 10 brews old) barley crusher set to factory settings

 

Have you tested your measuring devices against a known control? It's always good to know that your tools are accurate. Testing your thermometer in boiling water and make sure it reads where it should. Make sure your water volume measurements are correct. Make sure your hydrometer reads at 1.000 in the proper calibrated temperature.

 

At what temp did you measure your pre-boil OG? Anything over 100F is really not accurate, even with corrections.

I too am curious about the volumes on the sparge as Yooper mentioned.

Did you stir like crazy when you sparged/vorleufed to knock all the sugars loose?

Did you stir during mash, at least once?

I find my Barley crusher gives me a better crush at .036, factory is .039mm, maybe tighten up a bit.

Did you hit your pre and post boil volumes properly?

 

Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate all the help.

It seems like my sparging method may not be the best for two reasons, smaller volume sparges and lack of vigorous stirring. I didn’t do a mash out with this recipe, I was following a mash from a recipe I found in the database and it didn’t mention mashing out.

As for my temperature probes I have the brewmometer on the side of the MLT / Boil Kettle as a quick reference but for my actual measurements I use a pen thermometer that has been accurate the two times I submerged in boiling water, but I also double check with a laser thermometer to make sure its in the ball park. I use both a refractometer and a hydrometer, I calibrated the refractometer a few weeks ago but will double check.

The temp I measured at was high but I did a reading before I added the yeast at 70F and it was the same (proportionately taking into account the reduced volume post boil)

Can anyone point me in the direction of some solid sparging resources, I have read all the books I can find (How to Brew, Joy of Home Brewing, Designing Great Beer…etc) but sparging has always seemed to be my weak point.

 

Www.dennybrew.com
Batch sparging made easy!

 

I use brew365.com and their tool for my water volumes and the thing is usually spot on. Just figure out all your dead space amounts and leftover water in the kettle. It did take me a couple of brews to get the numbers perfect, but the last two brews I got out every last drop and hit my pre-boil volume perfect.

It's usually pretty close to what Beersmith says, but this one has been a little more accurate for me, especially since every once in a while I forget to select my system for Beersmith. I can just use this right from my phone on brew day.

 

First off, you need to ditch percentage-based efficiency calculations that are based on static look-up table values. Quick frankly, one doesn't know the maximum extract that can be achieved for any given malt unless one has a full analysis of the actual malt being used. Malt isn't a manufactured product. The maximum amount of extract that can be produced for any given grain changes from harvest to harvest and malting to malting.

With that said, the calculation that you should be using is points per pound, as it is a concrete metric that can be used to track extraction rate. One should shoot for an average brew house extraction rate of 26+ points per pound.

points_per_pound = (O.G. - 1.0) x 1,000 x wort_volume_in_gallons / grist_weight_in_pounds

With that said, there is no substitute for continuous sparging when one wants achieve a high extraction rate (continuous sparging requires one to have a proper false bottom in one's lauter tun). In my humble opinion, "batch sparging" is a dead-end street. It's the brewing equivalent of trying to rinse a paint brush out with paint saturated water. Continuous sparging is not difficult. I had not brewed a batch of beer in eleven years until last week. I used a completely new brewhouse, a thick mash, and far less than two quarts of hot liquor per pound to sparge. Yet, I still obtained an extraction rate of 28 points per pound. Had I used my normal mash/sparge liquor ratios, I would have easily achieved 30+ points per pound.

 

Isn't points per pound the same as percentage of maximum yield when you get down to it? It doesn't matter what form you put the number in, it's still the same thing. Both are max limited by the same value.

And as they say, "not for nothin" but batch sparging is not a dead end street. It's a wholly acceptable way to achieve the same results (even superior results one might argue as there is less danger of tannin extraction from over sparging) the only difference is the few bucks more per batch spent on grains, no pun intended. I'd much rather spend the few bucks than mess with fly sparging, why add another variable and 45 minutes to an already long brew day.

 

Learning to use points per pound (points per kilogram for those who use the metric system) allows one to quickly and easily scale a recipe up and down in size as well as adjust any given recipe for actual brew house efficiency. If a recipe was based on an extraction rate of 27 points per pound and I know that my average extraction rate is 30 points per pound, then adjusting the recipe for actual brew house efficiency is as simple as calculating a scaling factor and applying it to the grain bill (something that can be performed with pencil and paper).

Example 1

recipe_extraction_rate = 27 points per pound
my_average_extraction_rate = 30 points per pound

grist_scaling_factor = recipe_extraction_rate / my_average_extraction_rate

grist_scaling_factor = 27 / 30 = 0.9 (10% reduction in the grist mass)

Furthermore, one can adjust any given recipe for one's brew house using only the recipe's O.G., wort volume, grist composition, and one's average brew house extraction rate in points per pound.

Example 2

ACME Pale Ale has an O.G. of 1.052 and a grist that is 90% 2-Row malted barley, 5% 60L crystal malt, and 5% carapils malt. We want to brew a batch of this beer and keg 5 full gallons from the secondary. In order to achieve that result, we need to formulate a recipe that yields a primary volume of 5.5 gallons while leaving 0.25 gallons with the break and hops in the kettle; therefore, our target volume will be 5.75 gallons. Our average brew house extraction rate is 27 points per pound.

original_gravity = 1.052
wort_volume = 5.75 gallons
extraction_rate_in_points_per_pound = 27 points per pound

grist_weight_in_pounds = (original_gravity - 1.0) x 1,000 x wort_volume / extraction_rate_in_points_per_pound

grist_weight_in_pounds = (1.052 - 1.0) x 1,000 x 5.75 / 27 ~= 11.1lbs

2-Row malt = 0.9 x 11.1 ~= 10lbs
60L crystal malt = 0.05 x 11.1 ~= 0.56lbs
carapils malt = 0.05 x 11.1 ~= 0.56lbs

I did not need a whirling deterministic finite automaton (a.k.a. a computer) to formulate this grain bill for my brew house. All I needed was a pencil and a piece of paper.

Batch sparging is a dead-end street. It's not used in commercial brew houses for a reason. Continuous sparging produces more extract per pound of grain. Properly performed, wort produced from continuous sparging is also much cleaner than wort that is produced from batch sparging, which isn't sparging at all--it's multiple mashing/lautering. Wort from a properly performed continuous sparge will have less particulate matter and far less tannins than the runoff from a multiple-lautered mash because the grain bed is left undisturbed during mashing and lautering. Contrary to what most forum members believe, performing a continuous sparge properly isn't rocket science.