Another very low mash efficiency

[cms]

I just finished my second AG brew and the mash went like the first. According to this calculator, I hit about 58% efficiency. That's maybe just a couple points higher than my first attempt.

This recipe was for an American Wheat (Oberon clone). And the grains were:
5# 2-row
5# white wheat
.5# Crystal 20L

I added 1 Tbsp of 5.2.

I mashed at 153 for 60 minutes (3.25 gallons), stirring every 15 minutes or so. Drained (very slowly) to vourlof and run into my kettle (took about 20 minutes to collect the firsts). Then I batch sparged/mashed out with 168° water (1.75 gallons) - held for about 15 minutes and ran that into the kettle. I was shooting to collect 3.5 gallons but got just shy of 4. My gravity at this point (pulled a sample out and let it cool to about 80° then temp-adjusted) was 1.062. Based on BeerSmith, I was expecting about 1.090. Some of that is certainly related to over-sparging (or too much strike water) but that's WAY off. Again.

It felt like it I did everything right this time. My first time was also bad - I thought because I didn't stir at all after doughing in. This time (unlike before) I added some DME to my boil to hopefully straighten things out (not enough DME - I still under-shot my OG: Note to self... Keep more DME on hand).

In case it matters, I'm using a 5Gal beverage cooler with a stainless braid. Very typical from what I can tell.

I don't have much experience, so I don't know what I should try to fix. I crushed my grains yesterday at the brew shop. The crush didn't look unusual to me. No whole kernels, not pulverized. I hit the temps and times according to BeerSmith.

After typing all of this, It's just now occurring to me that I should be searching rather than going on and on. But any suggestions are welcome... This is so frustrating.

 

[djsethall]

Was this a 5 gallon batch? If so, you did better than 75%, closer to 78.5% efficiency

 

[cms]

Was this a 5 gallon batch? If so, you did better than 75%, closer to 78.5% efficiency

Yeah - 5 gallons.

Am I not understanding the calculator? It says 58.53 when I put in my numbers (3.8gal at 1.062) or 60% if I estimate 3.9gal collected. BeerSmith seems to jibe with those numbers. if I adjust my efficiency to 58-60, the gravities fall in line with what I measured.

It was a partial boil (my pot is only 5G) so I had to top off with water before pitching. In the end, I only topped off to 4.75 gallons and even after the extra .25# of DME (all I had on hand), my FG came in at 1.052 - just about what I was after, so I am thinking that those two corrections will leave me with a pretty good beer.

 

[EBloom97]

For one thing you should be using more water in order to collect more wort. If you're doing a 5 gallon batch then you want to collect at minimum 6-6.5 gallons. Keep your initial mash infusion at whatever ratio you were using (looks like about 1.2 quarts per lb which is fine) and use more sparge water. The more water you use to rinse the grains, the more thoroughly they will be rinsed. Your efficiency will go up even further if you cut it into two separate batch sparges.

 

[turkeyjerky214]

Then I batch sparged/mashed out with 168° water (1.75 gallons) - held for about 15 minutes and ran that into the kettle.

I was struggling with efficiency for about 3 or 4 batches when I switched to all grain and it sounds like two things you're doing might be off. Not sure if it'll get you all the way there, but it should help get you closer.

1. The water you sparge with shouldn't be 168º. That's the resting temp you want. So just like how you heat your strike water to around 10-12º higher than your mash temp, you need to have your sparge water higher so that it settles to 168º.

2. When you add the sparge water, stir up the grain bed really well. At this point, the sugars are converted. You're just trying to get them all off. So stir it up, let it settle, vourlof a few times, and then drain.

 

[djsethall]

I used beersmith to calculate your efficency

 

[shortyjacobs]

djsethall, he's got it right. You need to calculate "efficiency into boiler" with 1.062 and 3.9 gallons, which gives around 60%.

cms, you are getting low eff because you aren't sparging enough. You aren't sparging enough because your pot isn't big enough, I understand that, but the point is you are getting the efficiency you should expect for not sparging out nearly enough water.

You can either live with this lower efficiency, (which, again, is actually pretty damn good for only collecting 3.9 gallons of wort!), or you can get a bigger pot, or you can do two boils, or boil in two pots.

If you were to collect the 6.5 - 7 gallons you should be collecting, your efficiency would probably be in the upper 70s, based on how much you got out for such an anemic sparge.

If you wanna buy a cheap pot, check this one out:
http://www.target.com/IMUSA-32-qt-Aluminum-Tamale-Steamer/dp/B001ARYXNW

Using FermCap-S and some careful watching, you should be able to do a full boil easily in this pot. Heck, if you are careful enough, (and have a spray bottle or fan on hand), you won't even need the fermcap.

 

[djsethall]

Yes, 62.5% into the boiler. into the fermenter which is the end product is 78.5%. I'd be happy with that any day of the week and twice on sundays

 

[shortyjacobs]

Yes, 62.5% into the boiler. into the fermenter which is the end product is 78.5%. I'd be happy with that any day of the week and twice on sundays

No, because he didn't have 1.062 into the fermenter, he had 1.062 *preboil*...he says in response to you up there that he got 1.052 into the fermenter with 0.25 lb of DME added to the boil and only 4.75 gallons. Punch in 1.052, 4.75 gallons, 0.25 lb DME (in addition to his mash), and you get 59.5% efficiency.

You can't use preboil SG and postboil volume in the same efficiency calculation. Either way you cut it, he got around 60%.

 

[mhenry41h]

1.090, that some kind of strong assed American Wheat!

 

[mhenry41h]

I'm confused. 1.062 pre-boil and 1.052 post boil? This is theoretically impossible. It's also impossible to have a 1.090 pre-boil gravity using 10.25 lbs of grain. Are the proper temp corrections being made after a gravity reading? Anywho, if indeed the preboil grav was 1.062, you must surely have had around a 1.075 wort going into the fermenter.

 

[shortyjacobs]

I'm confused. 1.062 pre-boil and 1.052 post boil? This is theoretically impossible. It's also impossible to have a 1.090 pre-boil gravity using 10.25 lbs of grain. Are the proper temp corrections being made after a gravity reading? Anywho, if indeed the preboil grav was 1.062, you must surely have had around a 1.075 wort going into the fermenter.

No. No it's not.

He was only running off 3.9 gallons of wort. His kettle is small. So, he runs off 3.9 gallons wort, getting him 1.062 preboil. He then boils off some of the wort, (figure a gallon), and has to add probably close to 2 gallons water to get to 4.75 gallons.

Normally SG goes up when you boil, but if you boil, then end up with more water than you started with, SG goes down.

Put another way, 3.9 gallons / 4.75 gallons * 60 points gravity yields 49 points gravity. 1.049, plus the bit of DME, gets him up to 1.052.

 

[cms]

Thanks for all the responses - I really appreciate the input.

I had a feeling that I was really pushing the limit of 'good efficiency' with inadequate equipment. I guess it's really time to get a bigger pot. When I first built my tun, I figured I'm run a bunch of 2.5 gallon batches through it so I could do full boils. I probably got ahead of myself.

Since I'm doing this on a stove, I probably have to get a propane burner along with the bigger pot. I saw a turkey fryer at Home Depot for 70 bucks that should do the trick (did I read that it still requires a 'high pressure something or other?).

1.090 sounded high to me, too, but this is the recipe I started with:
http://www.brew365.com/beer_bells_oberon.php

After adjusting the recipe to a 5G batch and my 5G kettle, I saw that the projected FG was about 1.017 (I think). I know the final ABV of Oberon should land around 6% so I fiddled with the recipe to try and land there. Since then, I adjusted for my efficiency and volume and it will be more likely to hit around 5%, but then again, I've never had a beer finish fermenting that high before (but this is also my first wheat, so maybe that makes a difference). I'm not out to make rocket fuel, though. I just want it to taste like sweet, lovely Oberon. The only thing I still miss about Kalamazoo.

The more I try, the more it feels like I'm just flailing around. the funny thing is, every batch has tasted good. Gotta love beer...

 

[dbsmith]

Nothing more frustrating than a low efficiency! On my first partial mash, my efficiency was so embarrassing that I'm not even sure I want to admit to its exact value. But like you, I'm really limited with equipment, and can't sparge with nearly enough water. What I did to improve my efficiency was doing an initial sparge, while using another pot to heat up more water and doing a second sparge. After that, I take my bag of 7.5 lbs of grain and set it into this large mixing bowl. While continuing to start boiling my collected wort, I just repeatedly dump the drainings from the grain bag into the boil pot. It is pretty surprising how many times the bowl fills up with all that sugar that I used to neglect. This time, I bumped my efficiency up to 67% (my only brewing hardware is a 3 gal pot, a 2 gal pot, and a couple ordinary small kitchen pots and the plastic mixing bowl).

 

[cms]

That's interesting - I was thinking that the initial volume was the important part. This go-round I had 10.5 pounds of grain in my tun but there was tons of water (my first try had about an inch of water over the grain, this time, I had about 6 inches). Maybe I should add water while mixing and try to not do more than cover the grain by an inch or so - that way I would be able to sparge twice (maybe two smallish sparges) and not overflow my pot.

 

[mhenry41h]

No. No it's not.

He was only running off 3.9 gallons of wort. His kettle is small. So, he runs off 3.9 gallons wort, getting him 1.062 preboil. He then boils off some of the wort, (figure a gallon), and has to add probably close to 2 gallons water to get to 4.75 gallons.

Normally SG goes up when you boil, but if you boil, then end up with more water than you started with, SG goes down.

Put another way, 3.9 gallons / 4.75 gallons * 60 points gravity yields 49 points gravity. 1.049, plus the bit of DME, gets him up to 1.052.

Ok, I see. I was locked in on my system and simply could not figure this out!

 

[mhenry41h]

Thanks for all the responses - I really appreciate the input.

I had a feeling that I was really pushing the limit of 'good efficiency' with inadequate equipment. I guess it's really time to get a bigger pot. When I first built my tun, I figured I'm run a bunch of 2.5 gallon batches through it so I could do full boils. I probably got ahead of myself.

Since I'm doing this on a stove, I probably have to get a propane burner along with the bigger pot. I saw a turkey fryer at Home Depot for 70 bucks that should do the trick (did I read that it still requires a 'high pressure something or other?).

1.090 sounded high to me, too, but this is the recipe I started with:
http://www.brew365.com/beer_bells_oberon.php

After adjusting the recipe to a 5G batch and my 5G kettle, I saw that the projected FG was about 1.017 (I think). I know the final ABV of Oberon should land around 6% so I fiddled with the recipe to try and land there. Since then, I adjusted for my efficiency and volume and it will be more likely to hit around 5%, but then again, I've never had a beer finish fermenting that high before (but this is also my first wheat, so maybe that makes a difference). I'm not out to make rocket fuel, though. I just want it to taste like sweet, lovely Oberon. The only thing I still miss about Kalamazoo.

The more I try, the more it feels like I'm just flailing around. the funny thing is, every batch has tasted good. Gotta love beer...

If you are brewing good beer...who cares right! I know what you mean about equipment. I was all excited to get started and made a 5 gallon mash tun. Oops, wish like crazy it was a 10 so I can hold enough grain to make a 5 gal batch over 1.065! There's always Christmas!