Do i have a problem with my sparge?

[copachono]

hi all, im trying to make a simple wheat beer but i cant get good mash results, yesterday brew OG was about 1030, about 23 point below the target.
recipe its simple 5.5# pilsner 5.5# wheat, im using 3 gallons of water at 166F and mash to 156F for 90 minutes, after recirculating i took a reading and the OG for the mash was 1085 at 120F, but after spargin and vourlaf the i collet about 6 gallon and the OG drop to 1035 after boiling and cooling the OG was 1042 it should be about 1053 so im about 9 points out. the sparge water its 4 gallon at about 180F, my pH its 5.7 before the mash.

i dont know where im loosing efficiency

 

[dj zlim]

Was your mash gravity 1.085 before or after the temperature correction? Reading the gravity at 120F would give you a large correction factor. Also, if you just diluted the wort with sparge water (assuming gravity 1.000) you would still get 1.042 pre-boil... so something is off. How are you sparging: all at once through your mash bed, or slowly with a couple cups at a time?

 

[copachono]

im sparging at about 1 cup out 1 cup of new water, i also took reading when im sparging but for the first 3 gallons a get about 1080 then drops about 1030 for the last 2 gallons i only got about 1010 SG, could it be im milling the grains too much?, im using a Corona disc mill.

 

[Coastalbrew]

It could be that you need to mill the grains more. A finer crush general helps your numbers go up.

Also 5.7 ph seems high to me. Was that during the mash, and corrected for temp? Seems like for that grain bill a ph of 5.2-5.3 might be better. Perhaps others could give more feedback on that as well.

 

[tracer bullet]

There's a few things that don't make sense. For starters, without looking at a calculator online, 11 pounds of grain with 3 gallons of water is super dense and you'd barely get anything out of it. And what you do get should be sky high gravity based on how little there is. 11 pounds of grain should get more like 4.5 - 5 gallons of water off the top of my head.

How are you measuring gravity? Refractometer?

Agreed to go for a fine crush, if they aren't then you wont' get much out of them.

 

[copachono]

well it think its a problem with the grain being to coarse milled and the mashing water, as per my calculations for 11 ounds should be 3.7 gallons using this calculator:
Mash Infusion and Rest Schedule Calculator - Brewer's Friend, im going to brew this recipe one more time (xmass time coming beer must be coming too),

for the last batch i used dextrose to get about 1.05 OG, but i dont like being too low on efficiency

 

[dj zlim]

Thanks for posting the calculator link. It definitely could be how fine the grain is milled, but I'm still inclined to believe it has something to do with the water during mashing/sparging. The Brewer's Friend calculator has a default ratio of 0.31 gal/lb, but I typically use ratios more like 0.5-0.6 and have good success in that range. Another factor could be your mash temperature - you may get a better extraction efficiency and make a more fermentable wort if you mash around 152 F.

How do you lauter and sparge your grain bed? Do you have a separate tun that you use to pull out the grain from the wort? And if so, how much water do you get after lautering but before sparging?

 

[bracconiere]

im sparging at about 1 cup out 1 cup of new water,

doesn't matter, sugar doesn't dissolve that fast, how long for 1 cup in & out? i sparged for a while with 1 gallon out, 1 gallon in. but i did it in 10 minutes, and got 63% effec, wasn't till i found out it should take an hour+ my effec bumped to 83%....

 

[tracer bullet]

well it think its a problem with the grain being to coarse milled and the mashing water, as per my calculations for 11 ounds should be 3.7 gallons using this calculator:
Mash Infusion and Rest Schedule Calculator - Brewer's Friend, im going to brew this recipe one more time (xmass time coming beer must be coming too),

for the last batch i used dextrose to get about 1.05 OG, but i dont like being too low on efficiency

3.7 - 4 sounds better. If you are doing that after all then the process sounds OK.

It must be the grain crush, pH could be a thing but I don't think it'd make that big of a difference. If you aren't getting much sugar from the mash then the simplest thing is that the grain isn't crushed finely enough.

As for the method, let the grain mash in that 3.7 or so for an hour, then drain all of it to a kettle. Then add your sparge water to the original grain and mash tun and let it sit for a while, stir it around too. Needn't be super long, 15 min or so is all I ever do. Then drain it out. Then check your result w/ a refractometer. OG and sanity check your volume too of course.

Refractometer is highly recommended here unless you are under a strict budget. Temperature independent and fast results. You can use a hydrometer too of course but in the interest of problem solving, even though it takes extra time, I'd suggest cooling your wort down to the correct temp that a correction factor is not needed.

 

[day_trippr]

I'm surprised to read that the "crush" pictured was produced by a Corona mill as they tend to flay the heck out of the husks.
What I'm seeing actually looks like a roller mill gapped a bit too wide, which might be a hint that the crush was too gentle coming out of a Corona...

Cheers!

 

[copachono]

thank you all for your replies, i just made another batck today, and the results are pretty good i hite the 1052 OG mark, probably a mit high since the reading was taking at 90F while i was cooling the wort.

to be simple i made all the changes you told:
*PH of water was lowered about 5.3 with lactic acid.
*i mashed with 5 gallons and hit at 153F
* i crushed more the grains.
*i took the first mash out then sparge and let sit for 20 minutes the collect sparge

i colleted about 4 gallons from the first mash at about 1055 OG the sparge water did not took too much sugar out of the grains so i ended with 6.55 gallons at 1045OG, and boiled to a 5.5 at 1052 OG, thats the OG i was expecting,
the only problem its i got the grains stuck on my filters and even so i ended with many particles suspended in the wort, i dont have wirfloc and try to wirlpool but i wasnt able since the particles were too much.

also i have notice something, the two previous batches those with dextrose to hit the OG are more amber then the batch i made today, the one today its about 3-5 SRM and the other two are about 6-7 SRM and they are filtered,

 

[Beenym88]

Sparking takes a long time you have to be patient. I think you said you were using 11 pounds of for a 6 gallon batch which would not yield a high gravity unless your efficiency was amazing. Use a a cheap or free brewing software to find out where your numbers should be and be patient and your numbers will go up. Also mashing above 152 always leads to lower readings for me but more mouthfeel different heats give different results I’m not the science wiz type that can explain all that though. And one last thing add in rice hulls to help your sparge.

 

[IslandLizard]

After you collected all your wort, how much wort is still left behind, under your filter?

How do you sparge?

 

[IslandLizard]

As was mentioned before, the grist in that picture is very coarse. There are many uncrushed kernels in it.
Wheat kernels are also much smaller than barley, so you need to set your mill tight enough to make sure they get crushed too.

How did the crush look for your 2nd batch, compared to the first?

 

[seatazzz]

I'll +1 to @IslandLizard above; if you're using wheat malt, it may be better if you mill it separately from your barley malt. Wheat grains are much smaller than barley, and running them through the mill together, your wheat won't get milled fine enough for the efficiency, or effect from the wheat, that you need.

 

[bracconiere]

*i took the first mash out then sparge and let sit for 20 minutes the collect sparge

How do you sparge?

i'd say second round, letting the sugar dissolve better helped a lot....sounds like he's trying to do a batch sparge. or hybrid fly/batch, as i do, just got to give it time to dissolve, and drain slow, so that the sugar is basicly pushed out, with osmotic? pressure...

 

[IslandLizard]

i'd say second round, letting the sugar dissolve better helped a lot....sounds like he's trying to do a batch sparge. or hybrid fly/batch, as i do, just got to give it time to dissolve, and drain slow, so that the sugar is basicly pushed out, with osmotic? pressure...

How does a hybrid Fly/Batch sparge work? Aren't they mutually exclusive by definition?

IMO, it's either one or the other. IOW, you either have a carefully balanced, fine tuned fly sparge system, and sparge slowly for an hour or longer. Or you go commando, by batch sparging, done in 20 minutes, 30 tops.

Batch Sparging:
After mash has completed, stir well, vorlauf, drain completely
Add sparge water, stir like crazy, vorlauf, drain completely
Optionally, do a 2nd sparge, the same way

 

[doug293cz]

doesn't matter, sugar doesn't dissolve that fast, how long for 1 cup in & out? i sparged for a while with 1 gallon out, 1 gallon in. but i did it in 10 minutes, and got 63% effec, wasn't till i found out it should take an hour+ my effec bumped to 83%....

i'd say second round, letting the sugar dissolve better helped a lot....sounds like he's trying to do a batch sparge. or hybrid fly/batch, as i do, just got to give it time to dissolve, and drain slow, so that the sugar is basicly pushed out, with osmotic? pressure...

There is no dissolving of sugar going on during a mash or sparge. Sugar is created a molecule at a time by the amylase enzymes, and these molecules are in solution (already dissolved) when they are created. Solid sugar will not precipitate out of solution during the mash or sparge because the solubility of maltose in water at mash temps is 66-67°P (two pounds of sugar in one pound [~1 pint]of water), which equates to an SG of over 1.300. You cannot get the sugar concentration in a mash this high, so no precipitation, and no solid sugar to dissolve.

When batch sparging you do need to make sure the sugar concentration is uniform throughout the wort prior to running off the sparge, in order to maximize lauter efficiency. You can do this either by adding the sparge water and waiting for diffusion to do the homogenization (many minutes), or stirring aggressively after adding the sparge water (a few minutes.)

When fly sparging, you want to make sure that the sparge water uniformly flows past all the grain in the bed (i.e. no channeling) to maximize lauter efficiency. This required careful flow control, which in practice means slow sparging. If you get channeling, the sugars won't get rinsed from the portions of the bed that are bypassed by the sparge water.

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

How does a hybrid Fly/Batch sparge work? Aren't they mutually exclusive by definition?

a lazy fly sparge with a colander method? i sparge and do my best to keep the water level 2" above the grain bed, but drink during the slow sparge and it goes dry a couple times, i bring the water level back up above the grain bed, and wait for it to stop bubbling, then crack my ball valve a bit open again, and continue my slow sparge....works good for me.

@doug293cz a good experiment for a newbie, would be soak a sponge in saturated sugar solution, dry it in the oven at low temps, then figure out how to ring all the sugar out of it in water....

 

[doug293cz]

...

@doug293cz a good experiment for a newbie, would be soak a sponge in saturated sugar solution, dry it in the oven at low temps, then figure out how to ring all the sugar out of it in water....

Do you dry your mash in an oven before sparging? Other than that a sponge is a good analogy for the grain bed.

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

Do you dry your mash in an oven before sparging? Other than that a sponge is a good analogy for the grain bed.

Brew on

no, but the malt is dry?

 

[doug293cz]

no, but the malt is dry?

Not at the end of the mash.

Brew on

 

[VikeMan]

no, but the malt is dry?

For the dry sponge analogy to work, the wort with already dissolved sugars would have to get absorbed by the grains and then the sugars would have to somehow come out of solution. That doesn't happen.

 

[bracconiere]

Not at the end of the mash.

Brew on

asuming you do the typical 60 minute mash, and stir in the dough balls. but just like the sponge, i bet if you soaked it in water for an hour, then used a hydro and put it in fresh water, you'd get some more sugar out, if it was just sitting in the water.

 

[bracconiere]

For the dry sponge analogy to work,

it's not an analagoy it's a practicle exerecise! add a certain amount of sugar to water, soak it up in a sponge, then f'around with it, till you figure the best way to recover as much sugar as you added in the first place.

 

[VikeMan]

it's not an analagoy it's a practicle exerecise! add a certain amount of sugar to water, soak it up in a sponge, then f'around with it, till you figure the best way to recover as much sugar as you added in the first place.

Ok. But drying the sponge doesn't correspond to anything that happens in the mash.

 

[bracconiere]

Ok. But drying the sponge doesn't correspond to anything that happens in the mash.

yeah well, here's a test for @doug293cz , you try this take a 1/4 cup of white sugar and dump it in watar. don't touch it and tell me how long it takes to disapear! it doesn't instantly vanish it takes nudging

one way to do it is take advangage of the higher gravity and push it out, i.e. fly sparge, the other is stir it up and let it sit for a bit i.e. batch sparge......oh, whatever, i don't make beer anyway, lol, i just throw **** in a pot, and it makes me happy.

edit: as @IslandLizard once said stratification is a thing, and fly sparging uses it to your favor.

 

[doug293cz]

asuming you do the typical 60 minute mash, and stir in the dough balls. but just like the sponge, i bet if you soaked it in water for an hour, then used a hydro and put it in fresh water, you'd get some more sugar out, if it was just sitting in the water.

If you soak a sponge in a solution of sugar water, and then drain off the solution, you will be left with sugar water in the sponge that has the same SG as the original solution. This is the same thing that happens when you drain the wort after the mash when batch sparging.

Now if you add fresh water to the container with the sponge, you can do two things to get the most sugar out of it:

1. You can let it sit, and let the sugar diffuse out of the sponge into the fresh water. Eventually, the sugar concentration of the solution in the sponge and the solution outside of the sponge will equilibrate, and you can then drain the more dilute solution from the container. You will still have some sugar in retained in the sponge. If you don't wait for the system to equilibrate, then the sponge will retain more sugar than if you had waited longer.
2. You squeeze the sponge (under the liquid surface) multiple times to speed up the mixing of the sugar from the sponge with the fresh water. This is equivalent to stirring the mash after adding sparge water. If you squeeze enough, then you will equilibrate the concentration of the sugar solution in the sponge and the solution "loose" in the container. Running off after equilibration will maximize the SG of the solution that is drained off.

In either case above, you get the most sugar out of the sponge if the system has equilibrated before you drain. Using the squeezing method is faster than waiting for diffusion to complete. Squeezing the sponge after draining would be equivalent to squeezing the mash after run off.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

yeah well, here's a test for @doug293cz , you try this take a 1/4 cup of white sugar and dump it in watar. don't touch it and tell me how long it takes to disapear! it doesn't instantly vanish it takes nudging

one way to do it is take advangage of the higher gravity and push it out, i.e. fly sparge, the other is stir it up and let it sit for a bit i.e. batch sparge......oh, whatever, i don't make beer anyway, lol, i just throw **** in a pot, and it makes me happy.

As explained above, solid sugar has no similarities to what goes on in a mash.

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

You can let it sit, and let the sugar diffuse out of the sponge into the fresh water. Eventually, the sugar concentration of the solution in the sponge and the solution outside of the sponge will equilibrate, and you can then drain the more dilute solution from the container. You will still have some sugar in retained in the sponge. If you don't wait for the system to equilibrate, then the sponge will retain more sugar than if you had waited longer.

kinda what i was saying, but if you just dump a quart of water over it, you're not going to get as much out as if you let a quart slowy drip onto it?

with the slow drip method, eventually the sponge will have no sugar left in it?

 

[bracconiere]

As explained above, solid sugar has no similarities to what goes on in a mash.

Brew on

at this point this point i'm just having fun! but try it with simple syrup in warm water! you'll still get streaking!

 

[JAReeves]

What gap would you set the mill for to grind wheat as opposed to barley?

 

[day_trippr]

Using a Cereal Killer two-roller mill I crush barley malt using an .032 gap, while I use my semi-retired Barley Crusher with an .025 gap for wheat malt.
While the knurling patterns are not identical they're pretty close...

Cheers!