Biab efficiency

[brewmaster101]

Looking to improve the 62-64% efficiency I get with biab. Any tried and true methods people are using?

 

[mudarra]

I run my grains through my malt mill twice. Usually get eff around 80%.

 

[duboman]

I run my grains through my malt mill twice. Usually get eff around 80%.

Why don't you just tighten up the gap a bit? And to the Op, fist thing to check is the quality of your crush

 

[Skipper74]

I agree that you should check your crush. I do BIAB, use a Barley Crusher at the factory setting and regularly get effeciencies of 82-84%. I do squeeze the hell out of the bag between the mash and sparge and again after the sparge, which may increase my efficiency. FWIW, I hve never had a hint of tannins due to the squeezing.

 

[flipfloptan]

I agree with the above. If you are buying grains pre crushed over the internet, leave them a note in comment section and they will do a finer crush for you. At least Brewmaster and AHS does.

The only other thing I would add is stir, stir, stir. I stir every 20 minutes. I am hitting 80-82% on BIAB regularly now.

 

[tjash]

I run my grains through my malt mill twice. Usually get eff around 80%.

Did this the other day at my LHBS and it bound up the mill and backed up the line for 30 mins! I've done it several times before with the same mill with no issues, so I'm not sure what the problem was. FWIW I was crushing about 6 lbs of Maris Otter when it got stuck. Previous double-crushes were with American 2-row

 

[brewmaster101]

Ok. I will try crushing tighter and/or a second milling.
I do a 90 minute mash and a 10 minute mashout at 170. Then I squeeze the Hell out of the grain bag and let it drain for 20 minutes or so.
Any other ideas?

 

[daksin]

Why not add a batch sparge? I mash in my 7.5 gallon turkey fryer at around 1.5 qt/lb and batch sparge in the remaining water (separate 8-gallon pot) to get to my pre-boil volume. Efficiency is 80-85% with low and moderate gravity beers.

 

[TopherM]

+1 to crush
+1 to Mash out

I double mill at the standard crush and do a 10 min mashout at 170 (Stir the mash like a madman during the mashout), and get 78% efficiency on my system without any other tricks!

 

[mudarra]

Why don't you just tighten up the gap a bit? And to the Op, fist thing to check is the quality of your crush

I'm still hand cranking, so its easier just to feed the grains through twice. If I ever get off my lazy butt and motorize my mill, a tight gap would work fine. :rockin:

 

[mudarra]

Did this the other day at my LHBS and it bound up the mill and backed up the line for 30 mins! I've done it several times before with the same mill with no issues, so I'm not sure what the problem was. FWIW I was crushing about 6 lbs of Maris Otter when it got stuck. Previous double-crushes were with American 2-row

ACK!

Never had any problems with Maris Otter on my hand crank malt mill.
My LHBS has told me their mill always gets messed up when customers adjust it (without doing it properly), so I wonder if that could caused your problems?

When I am feeling lazy (and hell that's most of the time ) I let my LHBS do the first crush, and then run it through my mill at home the second time.

FWIW - I do not stir often (loose too much heat that way with my system), mash-out, nor sparge, (BIAB supposed to be easy and simple, right?) and I still get eff around 80%. So IMO a fine crush is probably the biggest contributor to good eff. doing BIAB.

 

[brewmaster101]

Agree. My last brew I double crushed AND I also used the ph buffer tabs that lowered ph from 7.5 to 5.2. I hit 79% efficiency.

 

[pvtschultz]

I get a fool-proof consistent 73% when I do a full-volume BiaB mash w/o sparge. My efficiency hasn't strayed more than 1% in either direction since I started milling the grains twice at the LHBS. I tend to stick to 1.045-1.060 beers which helps the consistency.

 

[Rake_Rocko]

I usually run my grains through on the smallest setting at my LHBS and take a look at the grains. Sometimes, depending on the grain, they need a second run through, sometimes they turn out fine after the first.

I do a full volume mash, no sparge, stir probably 2 or 3 times during the mash, then leave my grains in till the temp gets to 170, and remove them. Then I proceed to squeeze the grains like no tomorrow.... And start the boil.

With this method, I get between 77 and 85% efficiency. I agree with the above posts that the crush is so integral to getting good efficiency! I do BIAB because of the simplicity and I get good efficiency while brewing as complex if beers as I can get.

 

[TopherM]

My last brew I double crushed AND I also used the ph buffer tabs that lowered ph from 7.5 to 5.2.

I've always been told that most base grains just by themselves will lower water PH to around 5.6-5.8 without any water conditioning.

 

[brewmaster101]

Interesting, I understood it only to be the speciality grains that lowered ph, and that was only after awhile, using up your mash time to get there.