Cant crack 55% efficiency

[theCougfan97]

Why does your water need to be so hot to achieve dough- in and mash- out temps?

I use an online calculator to determine the temp required to raise the mash temp to my target temp. From there I have been logging my temps and fine tuning the heat required to achieve my target temp.

 

[kh54s10]

Two thoughts. It really doesn't matter what the temperature of the sparge water is with batch sparging. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.

I also don't think that it matters how fast you drain. I start slow to set the grain bed and vorlauf then I open it wide.

Are you ending up with the proper OG. If so your efficiency calculations are off.

I am lead back to thermometer, crush or both.

 

[theCougfan97]

Two thoughts. It really doesn't matter what the temperature of the sparge water is with batch sparging. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.

I also don't think that it matters how fast you drain. I start slow to set the grain bed and vorlauf then I open it wide.

Are you ending up with the proper OG. If so your efficiency calculations are off.

I am lead back to thermometer, crush or both.

No OG falls right in line with an overall efficiency of 55%. I assumed this was a temp issue originally and have tried 3 different types of thermometer and tested them all thoroughly. They all give similar numbers give or take a degree.

 

[fnord]

Are you preheating your mash tun? I always preheat my mash tun for about 10-15 minutes and have never had a strike water temp above 165. If you aren't preheating your mash tun it's very possible that your mash is much cooler than you think (best way to check is stirring up mash and taking temperature at mash out) which would slow conversion. Also at that high of a strike temp it's possible that you are denaturing quite a bit of amlyase enzymes right when you start your mash and slowing conversion.

First thing I'd look at is a finer crush like mentioned earlier in the thread, then preheating mash tun so you can use cooler water to begin with and don't have to worry about how much heat you lose to the mash tun.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

As other stated, look at the grain crush. I was running from 72% to 81% with a couple of suppliers. I ordered crushed grains from a different (new to me) and all 4 brews were 60% +/- 5%. I'm sticking with Northern Brewery or Austin Home Supply from now on.

 

[RonPopeil]

Are you hitting your mash temps?

How are you measuring efficiency? Are you calculating gravity going in to the kettle or into the fermenter?

Have you tried calibrating your thermometer (reads 212 at boiling, 32 at freezing)?

Can you post a picture of the crushed grain you're using?

What brand grain does your LHBS sell?

 

[Bobby_M]

Let's get a few things straight before moving on. Adding sparge slowly or draining it out slowly are requirements of fly sparging and time wasters in batch sparging. If anyone empirically finds that slowing anything down during a batch sparge increases efficiency, it's because you're allowing for more starch conversion (meaning you weren't fully converted after your sacc rest). This can be attributed to being way off on your initial mash temps due to bad thermometers, a really coarse crush, or pH being way out of whack (less likely). One of the first troubleshooting steps is to test the gravity of the first wort (take a sample during vorlauf) and compare that against the theoretical gravity (100% conversion) of your mash. This will rule out a conversion issue vs. a lauter/sparge issue.

it hasn't been brought up, but how about a picture of the inside of your mash tun? How much dead space do you have?

 

[peterj]

Unless you have incredibly alkaline water, I doubt it has anything to do with your water and is more likely related to your crush. I know from experience you do not NEED to add any brewing salts with distilled water. Modern malts will convert without salts. Don't mess with acidity if you don't have a pH meter.

I agree, I don't think water chemistry is the reason for your low efficiency numbers.

I guess I didn't explain why you NEED brewing salts with distilled water. I wasn't saying you needed them for conversion, you need them for taste reasons and to help with yeast health and flocculation.

 

[drthrob]

Its all-grain, my recipe calls for a specific gravity measured before the boil, assuming a 70% mash efficiency. I get closer to 55%.

Are you using a brew program to calculate your efficiency? So, you're measuring pre-boil gravity, then OG? If you are measuring pre-boil gravity, are you adjusting the gravity for the temp? Most hydrometers are calibrated for 60 degrees fahrenheit, so you'd need to adjust based on the temp of the wort you are using to measure. Beersmith has a tool that I use to adjust so I don't have to worry about cooling the wort before I measure.


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[kh54s10]

I am still with:

1) bad crush on the grains
2) loss in leaving too much wort in the system (holding sugars)
3) mistakes in calculations or measurements
4) temperature problems

55% seems so low that it would be difficult to do without making serious mistakes like forgetting 1/4 of your grain bill or ending up with 25 - 50 % too much wort.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Two thoughts. It really doesn't matter what the temperature of the sparge water is with batch sparging. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.

This is blatantly false, the solubility of sugar in cold water is much lower than hot water. You should always rinse with hot water.

The solubility of sugar in room temp water is about 5 gravity points lower than that of water at 170F(standard sparge mash out temp), according to the internets.

 

[peterj]

This is blatantly false, the solubility of sugar in cold water is much lower than hot water. You should always rinse with hot water.

The solubility of sugar in room temp water is about 5 gravity points lower than that of water at 170F(standard sparge mash out temp), according to the internets.

Actually I've read that sparging with cooler water doesn't really affect your efficiency. Braukaiser did a small write up about it here: http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2009/05/12/cold-water-sparging/.

All of the sugar that you're going to get out should already be dissolved in the hot water from the mash.

 

[duboman]

One additional question: do you stir the mash? Specifically prior to draining first runnings and again prior to vorleuf when sparging?

You need to stir like a madman to knock all the sugars loose prior to both processes.

Honestly, everything from crush and chemistry has already been answered


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[theCougfan97]

Are you hitting your mash temps?

How are you measuring efficiency? Are you calculating gravity going in to the kettle or into the fermenter?

Have you tried calibrating your thermometer (reads 212 at boiling, 32 at freezing)?

Can you post a picture of the crushed grain you're using?

What brand grain does your LHBS sell?

I do think I am hitting my mash temps as I do stir and measure from both the top and bottom of the mash tun.

I use brewtarget to input my recipe and tell me my target pre-boil gravity and post boil gravity.

I have calibrated my thermometers they all read 212 at boiling.

I am testing the grain crush with my next bash. I when with a finer crush then reran it through the recommended crush setting, this seemed to really break everything up. (True test will be saturday)

Briess?

 

[stamandster]

This is blatantly false, the solubility of sugar in cold water is much lower than hot water. You should always rinse with hot water.

The solubility of sugar in room temp water is about 5 gravity points lower than that of water at 170F(standard sparge mash out temp), according to the internets.

The solubility of sugar of a super solution should be more in a hotter liquid. But we're dealing with mildly sugary water, not a super solution. It shouldn't have an affect on the solubility of the remaining sugars of your mash. The mash is already around 150f and should heat the room temp water up, too.

Definitely all valid points so far.. grain milling, ph, water amounts, and water chemistry. Make sure you're taking into account any dead spaces in your MT.

Just theorizing, you mention that you use 175f for mash in. Wouldn't that immediately denature some of the enzymes until the mash temp cools to a respectable temp?

 

[poptarts]

Sounds like you cant crack grain.

 

[theCougfan97]

Let's get a few things straight before moving on. Adding sparge slowly or draining it out slowly are requirements of fly sparging and time wasters in batch sparging. If anyone empirically finds that slowing anything down during a batch sparge increases efficiency, it's because you're allowing for more starch conversion (meaning you weren't fully converted after your sacc rest). This can be attributed to being way off on your initial mash temps due to bad thermometers, a really coarse crush, or pH being way out of whack (less likely). One of the first troubleshooting steps is to test the gravity of the first wort (take a sample during vorlauf) and compare that against the theoretical gravity (100% conversion) of your mash. This will rule out a conversion issue vs. a lauter/sparge issue.

it hasn't been brought up, but how about a picture of the inside of your mash tun? How much dead space do you have?

My first runnings are fairly close in gravity to the target. The second runnings (post sparge) are at a fraction of that gravity giving me a pre-boil gravity that is much to low.

Not much dead space beneath my false bottom, and the headspace varies by brew.

 

[theCougfan97]

Are you using a brew program to calculate your efficiency? So, you're measuring pre-boil gravity, then OG? If you are measuring pre-boil gravity, are you adjusting the gravity for the temp? Most hydrometers are calibrated for 60 degrees fahrenheit, so you'd need to adjust based on the temp of the wort you are using to measure. Beersmith has a tool that I use to adjust so I don't have to worry about cooling the wort before I measure.

Yes I use Brewtarget to get my calculated efficiencies.

I measure pre-boil and then OG.

I use a automatically temperature adjusting refractometer.

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[drthrob]

My first runnings are fairly close in gravity to the target. The second runnings (post sparge) are at a fraction of that gravity giving me a pre-boil gravity that is much to low.



Not much dead space beneath my false bottom, and the headspace varies by brew.

Too much sparge water? Might try tasting your wort as you sparge. Once it stops being sweet, stop sparging.



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[theCougfan97]

One additional question: do you stir the mash? Specifically prior to draining first runnings and again prior to vorleuf when sparging?

You need to stir like a madman to knock all the sugars loose prior to both processes.

Honestly, everything from crush and chemistry has already been answered


Sent from the Commune

Yup stirring like a madman...

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Is your refractometer calibrated properly?

Honestly i'd make a tiny wort by just stirring some DME into a known quantity of water. Like put 4oz DME in exactly 1L of hot(not boiling you dont want to lose liquid) water and stir it up and you should end up with pretty much exactly 1.040-41 wort...if you dont get that then you should recalibrate your refractometer to that data point instead of to 0.

I know some people like Jamil recommend doing this, to calibrate your refractometer to a range thats closer to beers you brew, because some of them just aren't as accurate as the measurement gets further from their calibration point.

 

[youngdh]

I do BIAB and in the beginning was getting low efficiency (low 60%). I'd been doing 60min mash rests and read somewhere on BIABrewer.info to try 90 min with 10 min mash out. At the same time I also began experimenting with adjusted water profiles using brewersfriend advance water calculator and building my water up adding salts and phos acid to DI water. The results were my efficiency into the kettle jumped to the upper 70s and the flavor and mouth feel of my finished product was much smoother and creamier. I also didn't realize how astringent my beers were before treating my water. There was no detectable astringency in my beer using treated DI water.

My take away was that the increased mash time (while closely monitoring mash temps) plus getting mash pH closer to 5.4 helped the efficiency. The calcium chloride additions and chlorine removal (by using DI water) improved the taste, mouth feel and astringency removal.


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[Upthewazzu]

I've got nothing to add here except GO COUGS!

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

As other stated, look at the grain crush. I was running from 72% to 81% with a couple of suppliers. I ordered crushed grains from a different (new to me) and all 4 brews were 60% +/- 5%. I'm sticking with Northern Brewery or Austin Home Supply from now on.

Just as a follow up, back to original supplier for grains, and back up in the 70%ish range with nothing else changing.

 

[uatuba]

Are you boiling on the beach when you calibrate your thermometers?


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[sandyeggoxj]

Are you boiling on the beach when you calibrate your thermometers?


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Great question! My boiling point is roughly 198.7, give or take a bit. Altitude has a big effect on temperature!

 

[uatuba]

Meh, I just saw he's in Seattle, so that's not it.


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