Dead Nuts

[Owly055]

I've been disappointed with my mashing efficiency until I purchased a BC Barley Crusher........ An excellent value! Not only did it allow me to buy malt in 50 lb sacks ($30), but it allowed me to crush far finer than the LHBS crush........ A good thing for BIAB. What we lack in process efficiency, we can at least partially recoup by being able to use a finer grind.

Using the default 75% efficiency in Brewer's Friend, I'm hitting the OG dead nuts on!

This evening I doughed in my "KiwiPils"...... an excellent pseudo pilsner (ale) with Calypso and Motueka hops (hence the kiwi name). My original recipe.... that I cooked up from scratch used 5 lbs of Pilsner malt and half a pound of CaraPils in a 2.5 gallon brew, all crushed at the LHBS.
I dropped the CaraPils entirely this go around, and tightened up my crusher a bit more yet, and I'm mashing 2 degrees higher (154). I expect with the improved Brewhaus Efficiency, I should end up pretty close to the same product

The last brew of this I experimented using ordinary 2 row, and a pound of honey to achieve the same SRM..... I just bottled some today, and it's going to be a winner I think. Next I'll play with rice and two row......... Honey's a bit expensive! I can't seem to make exactly the same thing twice ;-) ............ Gotta keep experimenting.

 

[Owly055]

The relationship between the crush and the efficiency is pretty obvious...... My last efficiency was "dead nuts" on 75%. Today, going with a finer crush, and two degrees warmer mash, I hit 83% using BIAB! Projected OG at 75% estimated efficiency was 1.056. Actual OG was 1.060..... It's probably not realistic to expect to go much beyond that.

My setup is a stainless steel stock pot 4 gallon capacity. I do my BIAB mash with 2.5 gallons of strike water heated in this case to 154F, mashing for an hour.

I then lift the bag up and set it a colander, and squeeze everything out I can using a round bottom bowl to apply pressure. I then put about 3 quarts of 180F water through the grain bed gradually in stages, squeezing between each stage........ A sparge. By this time I have approximately 3 gallons of wort........ I continue this sparge until I hit the 3 gallon mark, then do a one hour boil. I came out exactly at 2.5 gallons at the end of the boil.

I'm curious what kind of mash efficiency others are seeing. The barley crusher was a great improvement in my system. All I can say is wow.... I never expected to hit this kind of efficiency!

H.W.