First brew (biab) with new mill... efficiency?

[jdudek]

Hi All,

Finally got myself a 3 roller grain mill and will be doing a brew (ebiab) with grain that i will crush myself for the first time. So i have no data to go on. I plan on crushing with a gap of 0.03 (credit card basically). I am looking for a ball park figure of what efficiency to put into beersmith for this next brew. With store crushed grain, i've been getting 65-70% ish with a lot of stirring and long mashtimes (90mins). I am hoping this to be much more of a dump and wait type of mash, with perhaps an occasional stir, and 60 mins or less.

I do full volume single infusion... typically at 152. Temp is well controlled with a pid
Not very high gravity, probably 1.060 OG target at most. Last beer was 1.055
Grain bill will overwhelmingly base pilsner malt.
No sparge, no mash out, pull bag, let drain, maybe a little squeeze...

i'm thinking of putting in 75% in the software. What do you guys think? What's people experience with their fine crush?

thanks!
-Jakub

 

[LittleRiver]

When planning a new recipe I'll base it on 82%. I crush at .025" (with a Kegco 3 roller) and consistently get BH efficiency in the low 80's.

That's with a 60min mash, no recirculation, no sparge, and no squeeze (the bag drains over the kettle for the entire boil).

I have done some 45min mashes and got the same result.

 

[doug293cz]

For a 5.5 gal (post-boil volume) batch of 1.060 beer using no-sparge BIAB, with 1 gal total boil-off, your mash efficiency could vary from 77% to 83% depending on your grain absorption rate, which is affected by how well you drain/squeeze. The preceding assumes 100% conversion efficiency.

BeerSmith uses your estimated brewhouse efficiency for recipe formulation, so you need to estimate that from your assumed mash efficiency. This can be calculated as:

BrewHouse Efficiency = Mash Efficiency * Volume to Fermenter / Post-Boil Volume​

You need to make sure your equipment profile is set up correctly in BeerSmith for it to be able to give you calculations that come close to predicting reality. Be sure to set your BIAB grain absorption rate (under "Tools" -> "Options" -> "Advanced".)

If you want a calculator that can predict mash efficiency automatically (unlike BeerSmith, and most other brewing software) look at the Pricesless BIAB Calculator (BIAB is a bit of a misnomer as it also works for batch sparge.)

Brew on

 

[jdudek]

Thanks for your answers @LittleRiver . my goal is also to get to 45 min mashes with ~80% efficiency. I'll get my mill to 0.025 and dial in 80% in the software. Thanks for the data point.

@doug293cz, i've been using priceless as well as beer smith and my own and feel more confidant when i get all 3 to roughly agree... At least in these initial stages of setup tweaking. Priceless is very nice, but there doesn't seem to be a way to add sugars into the boil, so i am not entirely sure what to put in as target OG in this case. I am brewing a tripel and expect to use a pound of sugar. I suppose i can just pretend there's no sugar addition and work out the numbers w/o it given it doesn't influence mash efficiency.

 

[jdudek]

speaking of the priceless calculator, I am confused by the inital vs strike volume it puts out.

the difference between water at 68 and water at 152 is 0.04 gallons. I would have expected a factor of 3% or so..

compare this to the difference in volume between mash and boil, which is a smaller delta in degrees:

0.15 gallons. That one seems about right.

 

[doug293cz]

speaking of the priceless calculator, I am confused by the inital vs strike volume it puts out.

View attachment 680244

the difference between water at 68 and water at 152 is 0.04 gallons. I would have expected a factor of 3% or so..

compare this to the difference in volume between mash and boil, which is a smaller delta in degrees:
View attachment 680245
0.15 gallons. That one seems about right.

@pricelessbrewing jdudek is correct. There appears to be an error in the thermal expansion for mash temp vs. 68F.

Brew on

 

[pricelessbrewing]

@pricelessbrewing jdudek is correct. There appears to be an error in the thermal expansion for mash temp vs. 68F.

Brew on

Thanks for the tag, and congrats on the mod status.

I'll take a look at that later today and see what the problem is.

speaking of the priceless calculator, I am confused by the inital vs strike volume it puts out.

To expand on the sugar additions, I have no plans at this time to build a recipe builder, especially since I now work for brewersfriend. One of the projects I've started there is to revise the volumes and mash guidelines sections to be more intuitive and automated like mine is. Hopefully that will roll out soon. I'm also hoping to integrate the simplified version of the efficiency prediction model, but if not I'll likely create third party browser add-on to do it.

My recommendation would be to take my gravity contributions and do the quick math for the sugar addition after. If you're adding 1 lb of sugar at 42 ppg to 5.5 gallons, that'll add 7.63 to the OG (1.055 -> 1.06263). Gets slightly more complicated if there's kettle losses since those would need to be taken into consideration.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Found the error, pushing an update out now.

Update is live. The 7.47 should become 7.65, not 7.51.

 

[doug293cz]

... since I now work for brewersfriend. One of the projects I've started there is to revise the volumes and mash guidelines sections to be more intuitive and automated like mine is. Hopefully that will roll out soon. I'm also hoping to integrate the simplified version of the efficiency prediction model, but if not I'll likely create third party browser add-on to do it.
...

Congrats to you as well on the job with BF. I'd like to see BF go to an efficiency prediction methodology, like my spreadsheet, and your calculator.

Brew on

 

[jdudek]

Found the error, pushing an update out now.

Update is live. The 7.47 should become 7.65, not 7.51.

Thanks much, looks good now.