1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

[Yreval]

The beauty of 1 gallon brewing. .. 3 batches bottled in 1 day.

Pissentrough... now that's a name. Were those slender bottles once Dogfishheads?

 

[A1_Knucklehead]

Lol, thanks- a buddy of mine actually provided the name- BEFORE tasting, so I didn't take it personally. Slenders were wasatch brewery, the rest are uinta.

 

[itsratso]

(originally in all grain, someone suggested moving here)

i have also started a thread on beersmith's forums:

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,11688.0.html

but i get a lot more responses here, so i wanted to run it by you people. if you haven't clicked on the link, i just started doing one gallon batches as experiments for new ideas, and it hasn't been going well. my beer yesterday was a flaming disaster. I brewed a one gallon smash with 2.6 lbs of Vienna. going by beersmith's calcs, my pre-boil volume was 3.4 gal which I hit. OG on this beer is supposed to be 1.060, and my pre-boil gravity was supposed to be 1.039. I hit a preboil gravity of 1.020. that is not even close to the ballpark let alone near it. my efficiency for this brew was 35%. that's not even possible, the usual for me is 69%. why does beersmith show the estimated mash eff for this at 156%??? i know mash eff goes up as the batches get smaller, but can you really hit 156% efficiency in the real world? when i made this, the grain to water % was very low, the chance of having doughballs or something like that was none. it was a very very thin mash. something just seems off here.

one poster on beersmith questioned why my volumes are so high. it does look strange but it is correct. I have a 1.25 gal trub/chiller loss, and boil off 1.1 gallon an hour. so that's a 2.4 gallon loss out of a 3.4 gallon boil, leaving one gallon. all of this is in my equipment profile, so it should all be accounted for by BS correct?

 

[fuzzy2133]

(originally in all grain, someone suggested moving here)

i have also started a thread on beersmith's forums:

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,11688.0.html

What are you using for equipment? Are you trying to partigyle for a 1 gallon experiment? never mind you said smash. I use the BIAB technique on all gain brews from 1 to 5 gallons and your pre-boil gravity stands out (IMO).

 

[itsratso]

i have an 8 gallon brewpot. the reason my system losses are so high is on purpose, i have a bigger than normal dead space so more trub remains in my kettle and out of my beer. and that is my whole point, all the gravities seem way off to me. i don't understand how beersmith is giving me a 3.5 gallon beer at 1.060 with only 2 1/2 lbs. of grain?

 

[fuzzy2133]

DId you check for conversion? Vienna only has Diastatic Power of 50.0.

I was playing with Munich this spring a failed to get full conversion and ran into the same situation. Now I pay a bit more attention to the grain Diastatic Power.

 

[itsratso]

i did do an iodine conversion test. and again, not to beat a dead horse, but beersmith should also be accounting for this should it not? the only thing that i can think of and i'm not sure it would lead to a super low preboil gravity, but i am figuring out that 1 gallon batches lose heat in my igloo mash tun pretty quickly (another mystery that i am just starting to piece together) so my ending mash temp was low - start 148F, end 143F.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Yes mashing for a 1gallon batch in a 10gallon cooler leaves lots of dead air space. Sounds like you have the path for making changes and the why it happened on this brew.

 

[fuzzy2133]

BS makes so many assumptions for thing to go right to predict the numbers.

 

[itsratso]

sorry fuzzy, i should have made this part clearer. the temp problem is a mystery also because i have a 5 gallon mash tun for smaller batch sizes, not a ten gallon. and my one gallon batch size was really 3.5 gallons into the 5 gallon mash tun which doesn't seem like it should have lost temps like it did. i am going to be experimenting with pre-heating the tun but i really doubt that should be necessary. something else to get to the bottom of. i am still sceptical that this caused my miles off gravity numbers as the original question still remains and looks very fishy to me - does only 2.5 lbs of vienna in a 3.5 gallon beer really give you a 1.060 beer?

 

[BigRock947]

sorry fuzzy, i should have made this part clearer. the temp problem is a mystery also because i have a 5 gallon mash tun for smaller batch sizes, not a ten gallon. and my one gallon batch size was really 3.5 gallons into the 5 gallon mash tun which doesn't seem like it should have lost temps like it did. i am going to be experimenting with pre-heating the tun but i really doubt that should be necessary. something else to get to the bottom of. i am still sceptical that this caused my miles off gravity numbers as the original question still remains and looks very fishy to me - does only 2.5 lbs of vienna in a 3.5 gallon beer really give you a 1.060 beer?

You're right.....2.5 lbs of grain in 3.5 gallons of beer shouldn't give you a 1.060 beer. Here's is what i think happened. Now this is based on my testing Brewers Friend but I image Beersmith would be similar. Your OG gravity is based on the 1 gallon setting in BS. When I played around with BF's settings...ie.. a 1 gallon beer and various boil volumes the gravity didn't change because the final volume was the same...1 gallon. Now when I changed the final volume going into the fermentor the gravity changed.

I think BS is assuming your boil off is bringing you down to 1 gallon and thus a 1.060 OG....

Believe I'm not an expert so somebody else please chime in...

The efficiency question deals with 3 types of efficiency...Pre-boil, Post boil and Brew house efficiency. Your pre-boil gravity of 1.020 based on 3.5 gallons of wort is roughly 70%.

What was your post-boil gravity and volume?

 

[itsratso]

You're right.....2.5 lbs of grain in 3.5 gallons of beer shouldn't give you a 1.060 beer. Here's is what i think happened. Now this is based on my testing Brewers Friend but I image Beersmith would be similar. Your OG gravity is based on the 1 gallon setting in BS. When I played around with BF's settings...ie.. a 1 gallon beer and various boil volumes the gravity didn't change because the final volume was the same...1 gallon. Now when I changed the final volume going into the fermentor the gravity changed.

I think BS is assuming your boil off is bringing you down to 1 gallon and thus a 1.060 OG....

Believe I'm not an expert so somebody else please chime in...

The efficiency question deals with 3 types of efficiency...Pre-boil, Post boil and Brew house efficiency. Your pre-boil gravity of 1.020 based on 3.5 gallons of wort is roughly 70%.

What was your post-boil gravity and volume?

well, this is somewhat embarrassing to admit but... i checked the gravity, threw it into the carboy, added yeast and promptly umm forgot what the hell the gravity was. at this point i didn't really care much anymore to tell the truth. i had corrected the screwed up pre-boil gravity with DME (a lb and a half!!!) and collected just over 1 gallon of wort. it really doesn't matter anyways with the smash experiments i have been doing as i am more just checking out the hop profiles anyways. as for your calculation of my efficiency for this brew being 70%, my normal efficiency is 69.3% so that would be almost spot on with my usual efficiency. so what the hell?

edit: and yes i see what you are saying that the software assumes that you boil down to 1.060. however that does not tell me how i am supposed to get to a preboil gravity of 1.039 when i got 1.020 preboil (which, as you confirmed, was what i should have got with my normal system efficiency of 69-70%. how am i supposed to get all the way up to 1.039???).

 

[BigRock947]

well, this is somewhat embarrassing to admit but... i checked the gravity, threw it into the carboy, added yeast and promptly umm forgot what the hell the gravity was. at this point i didn't really care much anymore to tell the truth. i had corrected the screwed up pre-boil gravity with DME (a lb and a half!!!) and collected just over 1 gallon of wort. it really doesn't matter anyways with the smash experiments i have been doing as i am more just checking out the hop profiles anyways. as for your calculation of my efficiency for this brew being 70%, my normal efficiency is 69.3% so that would be almost spot on with my usual efficiency. so what the hell?

edit: and yes i see what you are saying that the software assumes that you boil down to 1.060. however that does not tell me how i am supposed to get to a preboil gravity of 1.039 when i got 1.020 preboil (which, as you confirmed, was what i should have got with my normal system efficiency of 69-70%. how am i supposed to get all the way up to 1.039???).

It might help if I explain my system....I mash doing BIAB on my stove top in a 3 gallon kettle....my Brew House efficiency is 70%...

But my pre-boil efficiency is around 80%....BF adjusts my Brew House efficiency down based on my volume losses and low boil-off so my actual efficiency drops down to 70%

Most people say they are getting 70% or 75% or 80% efficiency which is probably true but that's more likely pre-boil efficiency and not into the fermentor or Brew House efficiency.

Here's a quote from the BF's FAQ page:

Brew House Efficiency: An all inclusive measure of efficiency, which counts all losses to the fermentor. This can be thought of as 'to the fermentor' efficiency.

So what I'm trying to say your actual efficiency is lower than what you think...your pre-boil is around 69% but your Brew House efficiency is probably around 55%.

In order to get the 1.039 gravity your pre-boil probably needs to be around 80%....

It took me awhile to wrap my head around Brew House vs. pre-boil vs. post boil.....hope it makes sense to you.

 

[brewfun]

(originally in all grain, someone suggested moving here)
my efficiency for this brew was 35%. that's not even possible, the usual for me is 69%. why does beersmith show the estimated mash eff for this at 156%??? i know mash eff goes up as the batches get smaller, but can you really hit 156% efficiency in the real world?

No. And Obviously no because your results didn't even come close. What you did was create a math error for your self by confusing brewhouse efficiency with mash efficiency.

BeerSmith doesn't dilute OG based on volume. It looks at the Brewhouse Efficiency simply as extracted sugar that makes it into the fermenter. When you raise the loss to trub, BS keeps the OG constant and simply raises the mash efficiency to compensate. Eventually the mash efficiency exceeds 100%, which should tell you that you made an error.

I brewed a one gallon smash with 2.6 lbs of Vienna. going by beersmith's calcs, my pre-boil volume was 3.4 gal which I hit. OG on this beer is supposed to be 1.060, and my pre-boil gravity was supposed to be 1.039. I hit a preboil gravity of 1.020.

So, just going through the numbers you posted, it looks like your system performed exactly as you expected.

You state an actual preboil volume of 3.4 gallons and SG of 1.020. That becomes a total of 68 gravity points, which divided by grist weight means you extracted 1.026/lb. This equates to 68% to 70% mash efficiency which allows some margin of error, but matches what you stated.

However, if you stated a BREWHOUSE efficiency of 69%, then that is simply not possible because your losses are just about equal to your yield. So, even if you have a mash efficiency of 100%, you still can't have a brewhouse yield of more than 51%.

The 35% efficiency number BS gave you is the calculated efficiency on the Fermentation tab, correct? Let's remember that this is the percentage or total available sugars that made it from the grain into the fermenter. Since you're already losing half the sugar to trub, the remainder is your mash efficiency difference.

A simplified version of figuring your brewhouse efficiency is the following formula:

BHE = (Sg x BV) / (Pg x GW)

BHE: Brew House Efficiency
Sg: Wort Specific Gravity, post chill (or post boil)
BV: Batch Volume, as measured in the fermenter
Pg: Potential gravity of grain
GW: Grain Weight

Based on the information you provided I estimated the post boil gravity. That means you got:

35% = (26.6 x 1.3) / (38 x 2.6)

 

[BigRock947]

Well said Brewfun!!!

 

[itsratso]

i'm trying here brewfun, really i am. i got the 35% efficiency by simply adjusting the tot. efficiency number on the top of beersmith downward until i got 1.020 (what i actually got) for estimated preboil gravity on the mash page. that turned out to be 35% tot. efficiency.

edit: ok so i read through this enough times until my head hurt. so if i get what you are saying than my tot. efficiency actually was 35% for this brew, and my mash eff was 69%. usually my tot. efficiency is 69% so i was getting the two confused because the mash eff here happened by blind luck to be the same as my usual tot. efficiency. is this correct? or am i way off base here and if i am explain it to me like i'm a kindergartner please.

the big question in my mind still is why did this happen? other than missing on my mash temp nothing out of the ordinary happened here to account for why i would only get a 35% total efficiency?

also i don't understand this: "When you raise the loss to trub, BS keeps the OG constant and simply raises the mash efficiency to compensate. Eventually the mash efficiency exceeds 100%which should tell you that you made an error."

what i don't understand is what error did i make? that IS my loss to trub, i can't change the deadspace on my kettle? it is 1.25 gal. trub loss.

 

[fuzzy2133]

"edit: ok so i read through this enough times until my head hurt. so if i get what you are saying than my tot. efficiency actually was 35% for this brew, and my mash eff was 69%. usually my tot. efficiency is 69% so i was getting the two confused because the mash eff here happened by blind luck to be the same as my usual tot. efficiency. is this correct?"

Yes

"also i don't understand this: "When you raise the loss to trub, BS keeps the OG constant and simply raises the mash efficiency to compensate. Eventually the mash efficiency exceeds 100%which should tell you that you made an error."

what i don't understand is what error did i make? that IS my loss to trub, i can't change the deadspace on my kettle? it is 1.25 gal. trub loss."

Probably not a mistake you directly made. For me when the Mash efficiency is 100% or more I have to go into the mash tab and correct the pre boil volume. For some reason my BS likes to use a 5 gallon pre boil volume.

 

[itsratso]

thanx for that. and so what do you correct the preboil volume to? until the estimated efficiency is under 100%? until it matches your true brewhouse eff (in my case 69%?) to something else? and should i be routinely doing this to all recipes or only those that go over 100%?

edit: just read that palmer says the sweet spot for mash eff is 75% so I guess shooting for that would be a good place to start?

 

[fuzzy2133]

I take what I want in the fermenter and add in what I am expecting to loose in trub and boil off.
So in your case 1gal in fermenter + 1.25 loss in kettle + 1.1 boil off = 3.350 pre boil

In the mash tab: what is happening for me is BS calculates the correct pre boil volume. But in the box where you enter you're measured pre boil, it defaults to a 5 gallons making the measured mash efficiency 245%.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Couldnt attach image for some reason.

 

[itsratso]

ah I see fuzzy, it's difficult to do this online at work without beersmith running in front of me to reference. I thought you were talking about something I was unfamiliar with. I also do what it sounds like you do, or something similar. I look at the estimated preboil volume and then I make sure that I collect that exact amount. so in your picture above I would collect 1.79 gallons. if there was still more runnings at that point I simply turn off the valve and stop. that way I know that my volume is always correct and only have to worry about the gravity part of the equation.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Yea I was wondering what was up when you already know the system losses. One thing I am still confused on and it is a stupid question; in BS what did you enter for the batch size?

The BS mobile app has gotten better however if there is any entry error's it is easier to find where and what on the desktop.

 

[itsratso]

1 gallon batch size. when i get home later (at midnite ) i will post the recipe file and try to recreate this.

 

[brewfun]

i got the 35% efficiency by simply adjusting the tot. efficiency number on the top of beersmith downward until i got 1.020 (what i actually got) for estimated preboil gravity on the mash page. that turned out to be 35% tot. efficiency.

That's an accurate number. Once you saw the correct gravity, the efficiency number was correct.

mash eff here happened by blind luck to be the same as my usual tot. efficiency. is this correct?

Correct. coincidence. That's a red herring that's clouding the concept for you. In this case the mash efficiency of 69% is correct.

the big question in my mind still is why did this happen? other than missing on my mash temp nothing out of the ordinary happened here to account for why i would only get a 35% total efficiency?

also i don't understand this: "When you raise the loss to trub, BS keeps the OG constant and simply raises the mash efficiency to compensate.

Again, you didn't make a brewing mistake. You made a data mistake.

Another way of looking at this is that the less volume you have in relation to the inevitable loss, the less efficiency you have. In this case, no matter what the gravity is, you had about a 50/50 volume split between batch and trub.

 

[itsratso]

so once again, lets see if this sunk in to my rather dense skull here. I guess this means that I ALWAYS have this trub loss. in a larger batch, say 5 gallons, it would not be as noticeable because it's a smaller percentage and although I may not hit my gravities exactly it will be close enough. but as batches get smaller, it becomes a larger percentage and more noticeable and when I hit a one gallon batch it became a huge deal. yes?

if so, the same two questions as always. doesn't beersmith account for this? I guess you indirectly answered this earlier as you said it does but not by altering gravity but by changing your mash eff. so skip question number one.
number two though: how do I fix this, compensate for this? I can't be forever 25 points short on a one gallon batch? don't do small batches? dump in huge amounts of dme to compensate every time? throw away my kinda expensive kettle and get one with less dead space? none of these sounds too good to me, I am hoping you have a trick up your sleeve? oh and btw as always, thanx to you brewfun and everybody for the help. I hope in my own stupid way that someone else is gleaming some knowledge from this too.

 

[itsratso]

here is the bsmx file

View attachment smash 1.bsmx

 

[brewfun]

I guess this means that I ALWAYS have this trub loss.

No guess. It does because you have measured it. It exists.

in a larger batch, say 5 gallons, it would not be as noticeable because it's a smaller percentage and although I may not hit my gravities exactly it will be close enough. but as batches get smaller, it becomes a larger percentage and more noticeable and when I hit a one gallon batch it became a huge deal. yes?

YES!!! The higher the percentage of trub vs. the yield, the lower the brewhouse efficiency.

if so, the same two questions as always. doesn't beersmith account for this?

Yes, but counter intuitively. It's always about sugar concentration in the fermenter. In BS, if you add volume to the batch size, BS lowers the gravity. If you add trub loss, BS increases the mash efficiency.

Since BHE is naming the percentage of sugar that makes it into the fermenter, the remainder MUST be in the trub loss. Therefore, the only way you'd get that amount of sugar into the loss AND the batch volume is to have better mash efficiency.

number two though: how do I fix this, compensate for this?

Brewing is full of choices. Here are just a few.

1) Simply accept the fact that to have that amount of trub loss is to have low efficiency. Thus, just make a profile with 35% BHE.

2) Unless it really affects your core values ...or ************... you need a smaller pot. It's cool. Every guy who has a 4x4 truck has at least one day a year he'd like to have a motorcycle. You need options to get the most out of life... and beer.

3) Leave the damn computer off and just make beer. You know how.

 

[itsratso]

WOOO HOOO JACKPOT!!!! i was working a double shift and saw this post at like two in the morning. i went to bed with a smile on my face. NOW i see the light. i actually use a lot of different batch sizes on a regular basis - 2 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon and now 1 gallon. i haven't really thought about my efficiency since i first started all grain and originally calculated it, i just locked in my efficiency number and never thought about it again. i will start keeping track of it for the various size brews and make adjustments for 1 gallon batches, 2 gallon, etc. i also have a smaller size pot that i will start using for small batches to help with this problem. so maybe this will be of use to somebody else out there - in a small batch thread i'm sure i'm not the only one who noticed there efficiencies were screwy with the smaller volumes - re-check your efficiencies! brewfun you are truly THE MAN, i have really learned something here although i feel like i had to climb a mountain to get there.

 

[Steadfast707]

Thanks for your for your post. I am new to Brew Smith and to home brewing and am having trouble calculating pre-boil volume and BHE for one gallon batches. This has given me a much better understanding of the math involved and how to improve my brew results.

 

[HomebrewCraig]

Aw yeah... Wife decided to leave the house for 3 or 4 hours.. I told her that upon coming back home, she may smell "a little wet grain in the air". >

Just mashed in 7 pounds of grain for a 2.25 gallon Baltic Porter recipe.. This one should warm the tummy