Horrible Efficiency!!!!!

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sparkeee277

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Anybody who can help here will be greatly appreciated.....

I have a 9 gallon square cooler with a braided stainless hose that I have been using for my mash tun. I typically mash for 60-75 minutes (single infusion)and do a single step batch sparge which I let rest for about 10 minutes. My beers have been turning out great but my efficiency sucks! I use Beer Smith and I always fall way short projected OG, both pre and post boil. My grain gets milled at my LHBS and they insist that the gap is all good. I can't break the 65% range, and last nights Belgian Golden was only 61%. I'm VERY frustrated....... I'm thinking maybe my digital thermometer might be off??? Any other ideas?


"It’s not about drinking 6 or 7 or 8 beers- it’s about enjoying the one you have in your hand.” ~ Jeff Murdock
 
Try asking them to double mill. Is the cooler maintaining the temp well?
How big is your grain bill, how much water are you using for mash and sparge?
 
Interdasting.

Try a thermo-pen (sp?) thermometer. Try a 1.5L/lb or thinner mash, I notice I get better efficiency with a thinner mash and a few bouts of stirring. I've gone as high as 2L/lb with good results. Stirring the mash at about 149-151 degrees 3 or 4 times, sparging at about 165. I fixed a lot of small things and took my efficiency from 60% to 80% with my cheap cooler.
 
Try asking them to double mill. Is the cooler maintaining the temp well?
How big is your grain bill, how much water are you using for mash and sparge?

The temp is locked in for at least 30 minutes before it falls a degree or 2...... Last nights grain bill was 14 lbs. with 5 gals of mash in water and just under 5 gals of sparge water.

I'm going to try a new thermometer and thinning the mash a bit on my next brew.
 
Anybody who can help here will be greatly appreciated.....

I have a 9 gallon square cooler with a braided stainless hose that I have been using for my mash tun. I typically mash for 60-75 minutes (single infusion)and do a single step batch sparge which I let rest for about 10 minutes. My beers have been turning out great but my efficiency sucks! I use Beer Smith and I always fall way short projected OG, both pre and post boil. My grain gets milled at my LHBS and they insist that the gap is all good. I can't break the 65% range, and last nights Belgian Golden was only 61%. I'm VERY frustrated....... I'm thinking maybe my digital thermometer might be off??? Any other ideas?


"It’s not about drinking 6 or 7 or 8 beers- it’s about enjoying the one you have in your hand.” ~ Jeff Murdock

When you give your efficiencies, are you talking mash efficiency or brewhouse efficiency?

When I first starting doing AG, I ran into the same problem. My procedure seemed to be good, but my efficiencies were in the toilet. Then I started milling my own grain, and my efficiency went way up. I was going from 40-60% efficiency to 75-80% brewhouse efficiency the minute I milled my own grain. The LHBS just wasn't milling it finely enough, and I didn't know any better.

Post a picture of your milled grain so that we can see how it is milled.
 
Yep, buy your own mill. Plus add a dough in step at around 104* for 20 minutes...that brought my numbers up a few points too.
+1 on the digital thermometer. I use this one and love it! The infrared is great for checking the temp of my carboy as it is fermenting...only differs .5 degress from the temp probe itself.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XS7WTG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
when mine goes out, I am definitely buying another one!:rockin:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Check out braukaiser.com for troubleshooting efficiency.

The first area to nail down is conversion efficiency...how well the MLT is working. At the completion of your mash take a gravity reading and compare it to this chart:

first_wort_gravity-57692.gif


For instance, if your mash ratio is 1.5:1 you would see on the chart that your MLT gravity should be just over 1.080. Your reading divided by 1.080 would be your efficiency percentage. It should be in the 90+% range, if it's not then your problem is with conversion...grain crush, temp, etc.

If everything is OK here you want to check your lautering efficiency to see how much sugar you are leaving behind. After sparging use this chart:

table_for_estimating_lauter_loss-61922.gif


For instance, use 1.5qts per pound of tap water (it doesn't have to be hot), mix it well with the spent grain then take a gravity reading. Let's say the gravity 1.006. The table indicates that about 9% of the extract was left behind in the MLT. This gets subtracted from the percentage you determined above for conversion to give you your overall efficiency from MLT to Kettle.

Going through this process should help you nail your problem area(s)
 
The temp is locked in for at least 30 minutes before it falls a degree or 2...... Last nights grain bill was 14 lbs. with 5 gals of mash in water and just under 5 gals of sparge water.

I'm going to try a new thermometer and thinning the mash a bit on my next brew.

How much wort are you collecting?
It could be you're not sparging enough and leaving sugar behind.
for 14 lbs grain you should be collecting 8 gallons or so.
 
Max, I'm actually referring to both efficiencies. Low pre-boil and overall. Like yesterday, my target pre-boil gravity was 1.070 and I only hit 1.047. I had to boil way longer just to get to 1.070 OG when I was shooting for 1.087.....

What is a good gap to be milling at? I have heard the gap should be set to the thickness of a credit card......

Thanks Helibrewer for the charts.... I'm going to run the tests on my next brew.
 
How much wort are you collecting?
It could be you're not sparging enough and leaving sugar behind.
for 14 lbs grain you should be collecting 8 gallons or so.

I'm getting 7 gallons because my kettle is only 8. I'm sure I'm leaving some behind, but I think the bigger problem is the extraction levels.
 
Are your settings in Beersmith set to get you 7 gallons for the preboil? It not that would be part of the problem.

Like others have said LHBS's set their mills so that people will not get a stuck sparge. This is most often the problem with low efficiency. If you get a mill and crush your own grain, get a set of feeler gauges to set the gap. Tighten it if a brew has low efficiency, until you have a slow drain from the mash tun then open it slightly.
 
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