Efficiency... Ugh

[creekcaster]

So I lurk a lot here and try to pick up on nuggets here and there. I've been home brewing regularly for about a year now... All grain BIAB.
I can't get decent efficiency, I always come up short on volume...am I boiling too long, is it my hydrometer, refractometer, do I just suck at conversion??!
Tonight I mashed 15lbs of grain, mashed in about 7.8 gal for about 1hr 20min. Boiled for about 1hr20min.
Pale malts with a pound of flaked rye... Getting an OG of 1.059... was looking for 1.068ish..... and I only get about 4.25 gal into the primary.
WTH am I doing wrong?!

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Reverse engineer it next time.

Say...This is where I need to be before I transfer
This is where I need to be before boil
And finally this is what my starting water should be before grain absorsion.

Take measurements next time and that will be "your" system

Brewers friend is a super easy calculator to figure SG

Hydrometers are Temp specific you should be teat around 60 deg most likely or the reading will be off.


Lot of people are mashing/boiling WAY shorter these days. Like 30/30 minutes

 

[SEndorf]

Whoa... Before you start picking apart your process, we need to determine your data.
You were "looking" for 1.068. Says who? Beersmith? You might look at your profiles before concluding process error.
4.25 in primary also points to input errors.

 

[RM-MN]

So I lurk a lot here and try to pick up on nuggets here and there. I've been home brewing regularly for about a year now... All grain BIAB.
I can't get decent efficiency, I always come up short on volume...am I boiling too long, is it my hydrometer, refractometer, do I just suck at conversion??!
Tonight I mashed 15lbs of grain, mashed in about 7.8 gal for about 1hr 20min. Boiled for about 1hr20min.
Pale malts with a pound of flaked rye... Getting an OG of 1.059... was looking for 1.068ish..... and I only get about 4.25 gal into the primary.
WTH am I doing wrong?!

What I think you are doing wrong is relying on someone else to mill your grain. Since the crush of the grain is the biggest factor in mash efficiency look there first. The second biggest factor is loss of wort. Do you whirlpool and leave wort behind trying to avoid getting trub into the fermenter? Do you have pumps or a plate chiller where some wort is lost?

I bought a cheap Corona style mill and mill my grains really fine so they come out looking like corn meal. With that fine milling my mash period is only 30 minutes and I've come to expect efficiency of over 90%.

 

[Druman07]

I assume that works because you do BIAB, correct? I just ordered a mill so I can by whole grains and hopefully improve my efficiency also. But I understand too fine of a grind can cause sparging problems for those doing batch sparging like me.

 

[jaymosbeershack]

I assume that works because you do BIAB, correct? I just ordered a mill so I can by whole grains and hopefully improve my efficiency also. But I understand too fine of a grind can cause sparging problems for those doing batch sparging like me.

It can get stuck when you batch sparge, i would look in to conditioning your malt. Its an easy process where you spritz your grain with water before milling. It hydrates the husks and allows you to mill finer while maintaining their integrity.

 

[brewbama]

As you can see above, there are many factors that can influence the outcome you described. There are also many assumptions made. Without knowledge of your processes and equipment it will be very difficult to determine “what you’re doing wrong”. Describe your system and processes for better troubleshooting. Some basic questions:

Do you mill your grain? How?
How do you combine grain to liquor?
How do you mash?
If you sparge, how?
How vigorous is your boil?
Do you chill? How?
Etc...

 

[creekcaster]

I use Beer Smith. Basically I put in the ingredients to get to the profile I want. I'm guessing my equipment profile is jacked up somewhere.

-I mill my grain and I think I get a pretty good crush... 2 roller mill set to the finest crush
-I mash in a bag, no sparge but i hang the bag and squeeze and let it drain. Mashed about 80 minutes
- I boil pretty vigorously.. as mentioned I did for about 80 minutes. No boil over
- I chill with an immersion chiller... Chilled to about 70F
- I do compensate for temperatures when reading gravity.
- probably 1/2 gallon left behind to avoid trub

I'm definitely going to reverse engineer and see if I can come up with the culprit(s).
I'm certain it's some input errors on my equipment profile.

I'm probably boiling too hard for too long losing too much volume... But it seems my SG would be higher if that were the case. The search continues...

Thx for the feedback y'all

 

[Jtvann]

Run a water test on your system. Do the entire process so you can see how much loss is in your mash tun including hoses. Do the exact same process that you brew with. See how much water is in your boil kettle after the mash vs what you were expecting. Boil the same way you always did, record preboil and post boil volumes. Cool the same way as well. If you tilt the pot to get it all, tilt here as well. Actually transfer to your fermenter and see what you get. Just because your brew kettle says 5 gallons doesnt mean your fermenter is measured exactly the same.

This doesnt factor in grain absorption or loss due to hops, but that comes from experience brewing the same recipes and taking good notes. You can also approximate those for first time recipes.

 

[brewbama]

Great recommend ^^. I see two possibilities: 1) mash efficiency and 2) volume loss.

1) you lower the bag of finely crushed grain into the brewing liquor or add liquor to your bag filled with finely crushed grain. Do you stir the mash after mash in to ensure all the grain is wet? If all the grain is not wet you aren’t converting the starch to sugar. Ck for dough balls.

2) you may be boiling too hard and long reducing volume into the fermenter. Lower the vigor to simply break the surface (simmer more than volcano). Divide your post boil gravity points by your pre boil gravity points. Shoot for less than 10%.

Plan backwards. Hypothetically, if you want 5 gal in a keg or bottle, you need ~5.5 gal in the fermenter, 6 gal post boil, 7 gal pre boil, 8.5 gal strike + sparge. Figure out your volumes and input them into BS.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

- probably 1/2 gallon left behind to avoid trub

I found problem #1 for starters

Suck up every bit of trub into the fermenters. It does no harm are its been said the proteins in the trub actually help the yeast....Theres a half gallon saved right there

 

[balrog]

Volumes were tricky for me at beginning.
You have to boil water for an hour the way you'll brew to determine your boil off amount. And please remember that volcanic boil is not required -- rolling boil is good; enough to keep things moving without needing to burn 25lb of propane an hour.

You have to determine from history what your absorption is. This is only for you, your system, your process--everything else is a guess starting point. So. How much grain, how much water, then how much was in boil kettle before boil? Use a metal ruler, or a stick, or if you're into that sort of thing, Sharpie marks on your arm -- I'd better not kid, someone might actually try it.

Only then can you start to use something like Priceless Brewing calc (awesomesauce). But you need your boil off (mine is exactly 1.0 gal, not 15%, not 1.5gal) and absorption rate (mine is .077875 gal/pound, but I drain only for 10m, no squeezing).

 

[LittleRiver]

... I'm guessing my equipment profile is jacked up somewhere. -I mill my grain and I think I get a pretty good crush... 2 roller mill set to the finest crush...

Your grain may not be crushed as fine as you think(?). Get a set of feeler gauges and measure your mill roller gap. I use a gap setting of .025" and get great efficiency.

A lot can be learned by how your crush looks, post a photo if you can.

...- I boil pretty vigorously.. as mentioned I did for about 80 minutes.

As others have mentioned, you can (and probably should) reduce the vigor and duration of your boil.

...I'm certain it's some input errors on my equipment profile.

Try using the (free and excellent) Priceless BIAB Calculator for a batch. That will give you another reference point for working out what is wrong with your BeerSmith profile. The Priceless calculator works great for me.

 

[bracconiere]

I'm not that familar with BIAB, but this:

-I mash in a bag, no sparge but i hang the bag and squeeze and let it drain. Mashed about 80 minutes

sounds like your loss in gravity....no sparge? i know before i learned to sparge right, and do it slowly...i got effec. in the 64% range, then when i slowed it down started getting 83%

 

[LittleRiver]

...sounds like your loss in gravity....no sparge? i know before i learned to sparge right, and do it slowly...i got effec. in the 64% range, then when i slowed it down started getting 83%

With a fine crush BIAB you can get low 80's without separate sparge steps, just by raising the bag and letting gravity drain it (there's always an inherent "sparge" in BIAB, the grains get rinsed as the mash water exits the bag). Additional sparge steps will give even higher efficiency.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Do this...its proven to work and so easy.
Get a gift card without raised numbers. Stick it between the rollers. Tighten the rollers till you can pull the card up and down easily but the card moves the rollers....That will give you a perfect crush and take the crush out of the equation.

The the card before adjusting anything to see where you were at. If its off you know the crush is the issue, or at least part of it, if its set correctly you know the crush isn't the problem

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

With a fine crush BIAB you can get low 80's without separate sparge steps, just by raising the bag and letting gravity drain it (there's always an inherent "sparge" in BIAB, the grains get rinsed as the mash water exits the bag). Additional sparge steps will give even higher efficiency.

I dont think this is true. The grains have given up all they are going to in the mash. Squeezing the bag just adds more volume in the BK with the same efficiency. Same with sparging. Your not extracting anything more by dumping some water over the grains. I've done it both ways and never noticed my numbers were any better or worse one way or the other.

 

[bracconiere]

With a fine crush BIAB you can get low 80's without separate sparge steps, just by raising the bag and letting gravity drain it (there's always an inherent "sparge" in BIAB, the grains get rinsed as the mash water exits the bag). Additional sparge steps will give even higher efficiency.

thanks for clearing that up for me....

I dont think this is true. The grains have given up all they are going to in the mash. Squeezing the bag just adds more volume in the BK with the same efficiency. Same with sparging. Your not extracting anything more by dumping some water over the grains. I've done it both ways and never noticed my numbers were any better or worse one way or the other.

I know when i sparge, i get runnings with gravity....

 

[RM-MN]

I assume that works because you do BIAB, correct? I just ordered a mill so I can by whole grains and hopefully improve my efficiency also. But I understand too fine of a grind can cause sparging problems for those doing batch sparging like me.

This is certainly true for those using a conventional mash tun and batch sparging. Things that will help? How about conditioning the grain by wetting it before milling to preserve as much husk as possible and adding some rice hulls also. There also isn't anything preventing you from lining your mash tun with a strainer bag to get you more filter area too. if the strainer starts to get clogged, lift it up a bit to expose more area.

 

[eric19312]

I'd like to see you getting more measurements and explain how you are getting these measurements especially volumes. Sometimes weights are also an issue but more often volumes.

Strike water volume and grist weight
End of mash gravity (this is before any sparge)
Sparge water volume
Pre boil volume
Pre boil gravity
Post boil volume
Post boil gravity
Transferred to fermenter volume
Top up volume (if any)

Worrying about crush and grain conditioning and all that is fine if you are working with complete and reliable data. So far I don't see that is the case. Using good software will encourage you to collect the data so you can see where you are going wrong. Maybe its crush maybe something else.

End of mash gravity is really helpful. If you know your volumes and grist you can easily see if you are getting 100 starge conversion during your mash, You should be very close to 100% and if not crush is highly likely your issue (not crushing fine enough).

Preboil volume and gravity (this is the gravity of all the wort collected from your mash--make sure it is well mixed before measuring) defines your mash efficiency. If your conversion was good but mash efficiency is low then you are leaving too many converted sugars behind in the grain bed or mash tun. Squeeze the bag, add a dunk sparge, or slow down your fly sparge or do more batch sparges and mix then in better. The solution will depend on your system but the data tells you what you need to think about fixing.

Volume + Gravity into fermentor defines your brewhouse efficiency. I intentionally take a hit between mash efficiency and brew house efficiency in order to leave a decent quantity of trub and hops in my kettle. I don't aim for pristinely clear wort into fermentor but I'm happy to leave a gallon or two of sludge in the kettle with a full fermentor. I design my recipes to accomodate this loss.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

thanks for clearing that up for me....



I know when i sparge, i get runnings with gravity....

Right but is it the same gravity as the rest of the wort in the kettle?
If it is than your just adding volume and not increasing SG. And if it is higher it would need to be WAY higher to change the volume in the BK. A point or 2 higher in a half gallon sparge water isnt going to change much if anything in 7 gallons of wort

 

[kevin58]

I use Beer Smith. Basically I put in the ingredients to get to the profile I want. I'm guessing my equipment profile is jacked up somewhere.
.

Thx for the feedback y'all

The biggest mistake new users... or any user of Beersmith can make is just picking an equipment profile from the list that comes with the software. If those profiles work, they work best for the person who built it. Your equipment is not going to be the same. Your process will not be the same. You cannot use someone elses profile and expect it to fit your system. Even the author of Beersmith suggests that you only use those default equipment profiles as a starting point to customize your own.

Here are a couple of tutorial you can follow.





and here's one for setting up a BIAB mash profile...

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

OP post you ingredient list...grain is all that matters and in 2 seconds youll get a response about what your gravity should have been

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I'd like to see you getting more measurements and explain how you are getting these measurements especially volumes. Sometimes weights are also an issue but more often volumes.

Strike water volume and grist weight
End of mash gravity (this is before any sparge)
Sparge water volume
Pre boil volume
Pre boil gravity
Post boil volume
Post boil gravity
Transferred to fermenter volume
Top up volume (if any)

Worrying about crush and grain conditioning and all that is fine if you are working with complete and reliable data. So far I don't see that is the case. Using good software will encourage you to collect the data so you can see where you are going wrong. Maybe its crush maybe something else.

End of mash gravity is really helpful. If you know your volumes and grist you can easily see if you are getting 100 starge conversion during your mash, You should be very close to 100% and if not crush is highly likely your issue (not crushing fine enough).

Preboil volume and gravity (this is the gravity of all the wort collected from your mash--make sure it is well mixed before measuring) defines your mash efficiency. If your conversion was good but mash efficiency is low then you are leaving too many converted sugars behind in the grain bed or mash tun. Squeeze the bag, add a dunk sparge, or slow down your fly sparge or do more batch sparges and mix then in better. The solution will depend on your system but the data tells you what you need to think about fixing.

Volume + Gravity into fermentor defines your brewhouse efficiency. I intentionally take a hit between mash efficiency and brew house efficiency in order to leave a decent quantity of trub and hops in my kettle. I don't aim for pristinely clear wort into fermentor but I'm happy to leave a gallon or two of sludge in the kettle with a full fermentor. I design my recipes to accomodate this loss.

I was going to post something similar, but this is very well said and really covers it. Bottom line:
You need to take measurements of volume and gravity along the way to figure out where the issue(s) are. Only then can you make process or recipe changes to resolve them.

 

[bracconiere]

Right but is it the same gravity as the rest of the wort in the kettle?
If it is than your just adding volume and not increasing SG. And if it is higher it would need to be WAY higher to change the volume in the BK. A point or 2 higher in a half gallon sparge water isnt going to change much if anything in 7 gallons of wort

Well i fly sparge myself, and yes it's 'way higher' then just 1.002, after i drain my mash tun to set the bed....(i haven't actually checked in a while, but) would say with my sparge water i'm pulling about 1.060-70, at first, then keep spraging till it comes out 1.006 or so....that's the problem with 'high gravity' beers and effec. you need to sparge too much and boil off more to get good effec...

 

[RM-MN]

Right but is it the same gravity as the rest of the wort in the kettle?
If it is than your just adding volume and not increasing SG. And if it is higher it would need to be WAY higher to change the volume in the BK. A point or 2 higher in a half gallon sparge water isnt going to change much if anything in 7 gallons of wort

When you sparge the SG of the collected wort is lower than that of the original "first runnings" but you still are collecting sugar, just in a more dilute liquid. Then you boil off the excess water and that concentrates that sugary wort to give you a higher volume of wort at the anticipated OG. The "first runnings" should be higher than the expected OG because it is already a bit concentrated unless you are already mashing full volume, no sparge.

 

[LittleRiver]

I dont think this is true. The grains have given up all they are going to in the mash. Squeezing the bag just adds more volume in the BK with the same efficiency. Same with sparging. Your not extracting anything more by dumping some water over the grains. I've done it both ways and never noticed my numbers were any better or worse one way or the other.

I normally don't do additional sparge steps, because my efficiency is good enough to hit or exceed recipe targets without them. But if I'm doing a bigger beer I will add a sparge step (mash with 50% of the water, sparge with the other half), and it definitely does increase efficiency. Btw I don't squeeze the bag, I just suspend it over the kettle during the boil and let gravity fully drain it.

My results have pretty well aligned with the simulation chart that @doug293cz has posted several times:

 

[Rodent]

our LHBS had a BIAB workshop a couple years back, hosted by the head brewer from Cairn Brewing (a brewery across the street). one of the topics Jesse covered was how to drain your BIAB bag for best sugar collection. the recommendation was to lift the bag out of the mash pot turned boil kettle, slide a perforated pan underneath and onto the top of the kettle, and then set the bag back onto this pan to drain.

It could be a perforated pizza pan, or something more expensive like the grilling pan. the key is to use a perforated pan that will hold the weight of your bagged wet grains

The advantage noted was that you could then include some sparging into your draining process by gently pouring sparge water onto the draining bag, and easily increase the amount of wort collected to the full amount needed. definitely better to 'top up' your volume while snagging up some of the sugars you'd have left behind than to just add plain water to the boil kettle and toos those sugars with the spent grains

 

[balrog]

I think it's better to take accurate volumes along the way to know how much water to begin with than thinking about topping up kettle. The downside is that it takes a couple, two, tree batches, and KEEPING ACCURATE VOLUME MEASUREMENTS, before you are really there.

Whatever you do, do it the same every time. EVERY time.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I normally don't do additional sparge steps, because my efficiency is good enough to hit or exceed recipe targets without them. But if I'm doing a bigger beer I will add a sparge step (mash with 50% of the water, sparge with the other half), and it definitely does increase efficiency. Btw I don't squeeze the bag, I just suspend it over the kettle during the boil and let gravity fully drain it.

My results have pretty well aligned with the simulation chart that @doug293cz has posted several times:

View attachment 613367

I'm going to do a few tests next time I brew to see what difference I come up with. I'll drain the bag...take a reading of the BK SG....Then Squeeze the bag into a tupperware container and take a reading of that...then sparge the bag and collect that in another tupperware and get that reading then dump sparge water into the BK mix it up and take that reading and if the tupperware reading is actually higher how much will it matter in my 13 gallons of wort...If theres a better way of testing let me know