efficiency at 50% so frustrating.

[ldtagtrip]

hi, i just brew a belgium ipa yesterday and my gravity was supposed to be 1.075 and i barely got 1.050, about 50% efficiency

The one before that was an imperial stout with very poor efficiency too.
i've been doing a lot of reading here and i'm still in dought in what the problem would be.
The common issues i found are poorly crushed grains, ph and sparging technique.
A far as technique, i do continious sparging but i only stir the grains when doughing in, should i stir it during mashing and lautering as well??if milling is the problem what cheap option do you guys recomend?

thank you for your help.

 

[Yooper]

hi, i just brew a belgium ipa yesterday and my gravity was supposed to be 1.075 and i barely got 1.050, about 50% efficiency

The one before that was an imperial stout with very poor efficiency too.
i've been doing a lot of reading here and i'm still in dought in what the problem would be.
The common issues i found are poorly crushed grains, ph and sparging technique.
A far as technique, i do continious sparging but i only stir the grains when doughing in, should i stir it during mashing and lautering as well??if milling is the problem what cheap option do you guys recomend?

thank you for your help.

You're right about the common causes of low efficiency, but another one that might come into play here is having a "bigger" beer. The reason is that most brewers only sparge up to their boil volume, and reach the boil volume before maximum sugar is extracted from the sparge. For me, I get 78% on beers of 1.065 or so or less, about 72% up to 1.075 or so, and often 68% in bigger beers.

One way to check and see if that could be it is to finish your sparge as usual, then do a quick batch sparge and stir well and then drain. check the SG of those runnings, and see if you've got a lot of sugar left behind. That will help see if your problem is in the mash, or if it's in the lauter.

I stir my mash like crazy when I dough in, but after that I do not stir. With my current system, I recirculate but before that I never stirred my mash.

If it's your crush, you should be able to tell by looking at it. The grains should be crushed well, with no whole pieces of grain in the mix. The husks should all be open and smashed.

Do you check conversion with iodine? Do you take a preboil gravity?

 

[ldtagtrip]

You're right about the common causes of low efficiency, but another one that might come into play here is having a "bigger" beer. The reason is that most brewers only sparge up to their boil volume, and reach the boil volume before maximum sugar is extracted from the sparge. For me, I get 78% on beers of 1.065 or so or less, about 72% up to 1.075 or so, and often 68% in bigger beers.

One way to check and see if that could be it is to finish your sparge as usual, then do a quick batch sparge and stir well and then drain. check the SG of those runnings, and see if you've got a lot of sugar left behind. That will help see if your problem is in the mash, or if it's in the lauter.

I stir my mash like crazy when I dough in, but after that I do not stir. With my current system, I recirculate but before that I never stirred my mash.

If it's your crush, you should be able to tell by looking at it. The grains should be crushed well, with no whole pieces of grain in the mix. The husks should all be open and smashed.

Do you check conversion with iodine? Do you take a preboil gravity?

i did stop at my pre boil volume , my gravity was still reading 1.020, you are right about it, i could've gone further and had a larger volume and also do a batch sparge at the end.

i don't check conversion with iodine and i do take preboil gravity which marked 1.030.

My grain looked fine to me, not whole, all cracked and some flour left as well but i'm still a beginer and as my second brew in a row with poor efficiency, it got me concearned.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

i did stop at my pre boil volume , my gravity was still reading 1.020, you are right about it, i could've gone further and had a larger volume and also do a batch sparge at the end.

i don't check conversion with iodine and i do take preboil gravity which marked 1.030.

My grain looked fine to me, not whole, all cracked and some flour left as well but i'm still a beginer and as my second brew in a row with poor efficiency, it got me concearned.

Its your second brew..it takes a bit to get dialed in...just keep brew'n

 

[max384]

With efficiency as low as 50%, unless you've got major technique issues, it's probably your crush.

Who crushes your grains?

My advice would be to buy a cheap corona mill. They can be had for under $30 shipped, and they're easy to convert to a handheld drill operated mill.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

+1 on the crush..make sure thats in check..it really makes a difference

 

[ldtagtrip]

With efficiency as low as 50%, unless you've got major technique issues, it's probably your crush.

Who crushes your grains?

My advice would be to buy a cheap corona mill. They can be had for under $30 shipped, and they're easy to convert to a handheld drill operated mill.

it is my 5 brew. i just remembered that my first reading after vorlauf was 1.050, it should've been higher i shouldn't it? o i guess it' my crushing.

the homebrew shop mills my grain, i'm gonna have a look at the corona mill, thank you very much.

 

[max384]

it is my 5 brew. i just remembered that my first reading after vorlauf was 1.050, it should've been higher i shouldn't it? o i guess it' my crushing.

the homebrew shop mills my grain, i'm gonna have a look at the corona mill, thank you very much.

Depending upon your mash thickness, that sounds pretty low for first runnings.

When I first started with all grain, my efficiencies were running 40-50%. My local shop milled my grain too. When I bought my own mill, my efficiencies shot up to the 80s.


EDIT: Here's a chart that shows what the gravity of your first runnings should be at 100% efficiency. Of course, shooting for 100% is unrealistic, but you can see about where you are.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

pre boil og was 1050? that means you are probably in the 1060-1070 after the boil

 

[max384]

I think he's talking about first runnings.

 

[ldtagtrip]

Depending upon your mash thickness, that sounds pretty low for first runnings.

When I first started with all grain, my efficiencies were running 40-50%. My local shop milled my grain too. When I bought my own mill, my efficiencies shot up to the 80s.

what about stiring the mash or at the mash out, would that change my efficiency? thank you all, i guess i found my problem and i'm buing myself a mill.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

what about stiring the mash or at the mash out, would that change my efficiency? thank you all, i guess i found my problem and i'm buing myself a mill.

your best bet ..i have the barley crusher its great

 

[seagondollar]

Tell your lhbs to double crush. If they refuse time to go somewhere else. I ran into this recently. I was getting eff in the 50's and after double crushing i at least went up to 67-70 percent, which is good enough til i get my own mill. Guaranteed its your crush.

 

[kzoostout]

You might want to try batch sparging. That's all I've done since I switched to all grain brewing (only 6 batches or so) and I've pretty much hit my numbers on the Beersmith defaults.

 

[max384]

what about stiring the mash or at the mash out, would that change my efficiency? thank you all, i guess i found my problem and i'm buing myself a mill.

It might help a bit, but I doubt that will make too much of a difference.

You might want to try batch sparging. That's all I've done since I switched to all grain brewing (only 6 batches or so) and I've pretty much hit my numbers on the Beersmith defaults.

It is debated back and forth whether batch sparging will decrease efficiency over fly sparging. At best, batch sparging will equal fly sparging efficiency. For me, when I switched from batch to fly, my numbers went up.

I don't think going from fly to batch will fix his efficiency problems. It may shorten his brew day though...