First time hitting ~70% efficiency!

[patchtech]

Just completed a 10 gallon all grain batch recipe using the "Hoppiness is an ipa" recipe from the "Brewing Classic Styles" book.

I have a 52 quart coleman rectangular cooler as my mash tun I got second hand. I replaced the mesh screen with a cpvc manifold, and created another manifold for sparging. I also have a really large coleman cooler, but wanted to keep the grain bed deep, instead of the thin bed I'll get with the big cooler. I used it to hold the sparge water instead, and continuous sparged the entire batch till I hit my pre-boil target of ~14 gallons. I ended up with a little more than my target in the ferementer, 11.5 gallons instead of 11. Must've had a bad dead-space calculation somewhere

Here's the brew session efficiency numbers from brewers friend:

Efficiency
Conversion: 93.9%

• Pre-Boil: 74% 27.1 ppg
• Ending Kettle: 72% 26.4 ppg
• Brew House: 69% 25.3 ppg

Conversion percentage may be a little innaccurate, as I wasn't sure which amounts to use. I used the numbers for first running and initial mash volume (9.22g) total grain bill was 29.5 lb

I did a 90 minute rest at 152(start)-148(end), target temp for recipe was 149.

I didn't have much room, so I didn't bring the mash temp up to 170 before sparging, and the temp during sparging maintained about 135. First runnings were ~1.093 while last runnings were about ~1.012.

I'm attributing this success to using the smaller cooler, making the manifolds, and continuous sparging.

Curious to what your thoughts/suggestions are as to what to do next to help ensure consistency/efficiency. I am aware that increasing the mash temp to 170 before sparging will go a long way.

 

[doug293cz]

Congratulation on the improved efficiency. The biggest factors in getting consistency are:

1. Consistent grain crush quality and fineness
2. Consistent, near 100%, conversion efficiency
3. Always doing the sparge process the same way

For conversion efficiency, you need the grain bill weight, the grain bill weighted average potential in pts/lb (or percent), the strike water volume, and SG of the wort at the end of the mash (or first runnings.) Mash volume is higher than strike water volume, as the grains add to the volume.

Pre-boil and kettle ending efficiency must always be the same, unless you add fermentables to the boil, or boil-over/spill a significant volume of wort. If the values are different, then one, or more, of your volume or SG measurements have some error. With typical home brewer measurement accuracy, efficiency calculations have an error of about +/- 3% - 4%, so the differences in your pre and post-boil efficiencies is not statistically significant.

Most of your improved efficiency is almost certainly due to using a manifold rather than a screen in the bottom of the MLT. Screens won't affect batch sparge efficiency, but will affect fly sparge efficiency.

Mash out and sparge water temp will only affect efficiency if your conversion efficiency at the end of the allotted mash time is less than 100%, and additional conversion occurs during lautering.

Brew on