I am getting horrible efficiency and really feel like giving up. HELP!

[ajf]

Sounds like a good plan.
If you're batch sparging, you can drain as fast as you want with both the mash and the sparge.
If you're going to add some DME, why not add it to the end of the boiil, say about 10 - 15 minutes before flame-out? That's much easier then boiling it separately.

-a.

 

[lithium726]

Well, I would, but this is for after the fact, the beer is already in the fermenter.

I just hope it won't cause any off flavors adding it after the fact.

 

[boostsr20]

As long as you boil long enough and can get it in their without splashing it around you'll be fine. Its just like adding any other adjunct after the fact. If you plan to secondary I'd put into the primary before transferring.

 

[ajf]

Well, I would, but this is for after the fact, the beer is already in the fermenter.

I just hope it won't cause any off flavors adding it after the fact.

So what efficiency did you get?
I'm guessing it went up considerably, and will creep up a bit more in future batches as you get used to the process.

-a.

 

[lithium726]

So what efficiency did you get?
I'm guessing it went up considerably, and will creep up a bit more in future batches as you get used to the process.

-a.

Right now I have 3 batches in Primary: a Dubbel, a Vienna and a Mexican lager (currently waiting to be bottled)

I'll doing doing a christmas ale (similar to SA Old Fezziwig) when the Vienna is done in Primary and a SA winter lager when the ale is done fermenting (i'm gonna use T58 and I want to keep it at 65 in my cooler)

So I'll update in a few weeks, I'm hoping for good results!

 

[oldman2251]

I hear you and I went to the same place you are in Richardson. My efficiency kept going down and down, I felt like giving up. My last efficiency was 46%. Then I read a post and a person said to try Northern Brewer and see what happens to rule out the crush. I went to the other Homebrew Shop in Dallas at 35 and Beltline and wow what a difference, Irish Ale 84% efficiency, they use a Barley Crusher at factory settings and that worked like a charm. Don't try anything else until you get a crush from a different crush. You won't be sorry.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

+1 to the "other" LHBS in Dallas. Winemakers Toystore is a great store! I got 77% this weekend with thier crush in a 14lb grain bill.

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

Hopefully I didn't miss this, but are you adjusting your gravity readings pre-boil for temperature? Post boil?

 

[truckjohn]

Another idea.... Have you tried letting it mash for longer at your temps... like try out 2 or 3 hours at 150F instead of just 1....

If your crush is a little too coarse -- it will take a bunch longer for it to mash out properly.....

If you still have a pile of that malted barley, and can't re-crush it... try out mashing it in a big 'ole pot on the stove top with a kitchen thermometer at hand... get it to 150 and turn off the heat, put on the lid.... When it drops to 145 -- turn on the heat to medium and slowly heat it back up to 150, turn it off, then put the lid on again....

It could easily take a long time -- as in a couple hours to overnight depending on how coarse your crush ended up....

Thanks

John

 

[tunoffun]

I'll check my thermometer, but I think it's reading 5* high, it's reading 80 when my apt Tstat reads 75,which could have caused all my mashes to be low.

I think its far more likely your thermo is right and the t-stat is wrong, from an accuracy perspective. Besides... a thermostat is designed to allow the temperature to swing a few degrees either way before it kicks on the heating/cooling. So checking your thermometer against a known standard is good, but the t-stat is meaningless.

As for the rest... I agree w/ everyone else who said thicken up the mash (1.2 - 1.3?), equal sparge batches, and stirring them in well.

Also - if it hasn't been said - make sure when you initially add the strike water to the grains that you stir it in REALLY, REALLY WELL... eliminating any possibility of any dry spots / doughballs in the grain. Then let it sit a few minutes covered to make sure the temps equalize - and then check the temp.

 

[lithium726]

I wish I could go to the winemaker's toy store... but it's a good 40 mile round trip for me, and that's IF I take the toll way... which is probably about equal to shipping from AHS (The M3 isn't awesome on gas...) and I don't waste any time that way.

I put the termo in an ice bath and it came up reading 40F, so I'm going to say it's 8F off and use that delta to mash this time. Should result in some more body, since I've aparently been mashing at ~144F this whole time. Resulted in a pretty thin stout.

I have an enormous paddle for stirring and stir constantly as the strike water is pouring in (I just have it flow freely from my kettle spout) and then let it equalize, so I know my temp readings are accurite for the whole mash. I do not have a pot/kettle that I can mash in, so it's going to have to stay in the cooler.

I am adjusting gravity readings.

I'm brewing a christmas ale tonight, I'll let y'all know how it goes. Shooting for an OG of 1.074 at 75%. What BG should I expect? Grain bill is 13.87 lbs.

 

[BryanJ]

I think you're forgetting M3's are fun to drive. Thanks for the thread, it has helped me a bit with my sometimes low efficiency.

 

[lithium726]

I think you're forgetting M3's are fun to drive.

Oh no. They're just far more fun to drive on the racetrack than the highway

 

[BryanJ]

Very true, going to the track is a lot of fun.

 

[lithium726]

BG = 1.036 @ 130F for 6.4gal = 1.049 @ 60F.

Not Awful, not amazing. Grain bill was 13.75lb. I'm predicting around 65% eff.

edit: OG is 1.054ish. Again, seems like the calculation for gravity based off temperature is a little off. In any case, I'm not going to be buying grain from HBHQ any more, as it appears that they don't crush it well. I may make a trip over to the toy store sometime, or I may just order from AHS or northern brewer from now on. My highest eff has come from some AHS grain I got.

It's really annoying that I have a LHBS so close and I can't buy f'ing grain from there. ugh.

 

[kickz28]

I don't know if I'm missing something, but I'm reading this thread trying to find tips to improve my own efficiency, and it seems that you guys are recommending sparge water temperatures to be between 185-205 depending on who's the poster.

I only brewed an all grain once so far (still bottle conditioning so I don't know if it's good yet), and I followed the BeerSmith brew sheet and also Palmer's book. BeerSmith is telling me to batch sparge in two rounds, width 168F water. Palmer recommends no more than 170F but not too much less.

So am I missing something here ?

Thanks!

 

[johnodon]

I don't know if I'm missing something, but I'm reading this thread trying to find tips to improve my own efficiency, and it seems that you guys are recommending sparge water temperatures to be between 185-205 depending on who's the poster.

I only brewed an all grain once so far (still bottle conditioning so I don't know if it's good yet), and I followed the BeerSmith brew sheet and also Palmer's book. BeerSmith is telling me to batch sparge in two rounds, width 168F water. Palmer recommends no more than 170F but not too much less.

So am I missing something here ?

Thanks!

You want the grain bed to end up being 168* - 170* when you sparge to stop conversion. So, if you are mashing at 150*, you need to make sure your sparge water is hot enough to get the bed up to the desired temp. Sparging at only 170* when the bed is already 150* will raise the bed temp by only a few degrees. I love Beersmith, but I always ignore its sparge water temp suggestions.

Personally, my first sparge is at ~205* and my second one is at ~185*.

John

 

[kickz28]

You want the grain bed to end up being 168* - 170* when you sparge to stop conversion. So, if you are mashing at 150*, you need to make sure your sparge water is hot enough to get the bed up to the desired temp. Sparging at only 170* when the bed is already 150* will raise the bed temp by only a few degrees. I love Beersmith, but I always ignore its sparge water temp suggestions.

Personally, my first sparge is at ~205* and my second one is at ~185*.

John

I wish I would have known this before. This is not what BeerSmith and the Palmer book are telling me:

BeerSmith says:

Batch Sparge Round 1 : Sparge with 1.16 gal of 168.0 F water.
Batch Sparge Round 2 : Sparge with 3.42 gal of 168.0 F water.

Palmer says:

The temperature of the sparge water is important. The water should be no more than 170 F (77 C), as husk tannins become more soluble above this temperature, especially when the wort pH gets to 6 or above. This will lead to astringency in the beer. But it shouldn't be much less than 170 F either (i.e. 165 F or 74 C). You want good fluidity.

 

[johnodon]

I wish I would have known this before. This is not what BeerSmith and the Palmer book are telling me:

BeerSmith says:


Palmer says:

I am far from an expert so wait for others to chime in but this is teh way it was explained to me.

John

 

[tunoffun]

I don't know if I'm missing something, but I'm reading this thread trying to find tips to improve my own efficiency, and it seems that you guys are recommending sparge water temperatures to be between 185-205 depending on who's the poster.

I only brewed an all grain once so far (still bottle conditioning so I don't know if it's good yet), and I followed the BeerSmith brew sheet and also Palmer's book. BeerSmith is telling me to batch sparge in two rounds, width 168F water. Palmer recommends no more than 170F but not too much less.

So am I missing something here ?

Thanks!

In either case, the idea is to not let the grain bed rise over 170 degrees or so in order to minimize tannin extraction. When people advocate sparge temperatures over 170, the temp and volume is calculated so as to up the temp of the grain bed to just under 170. The amount & temp of the water you add is dependent on the amount of grain, its current temp, the amount of water in the grain, etc (all this can be calculated through beersmith in the 'tools' section). Naturally, if you go this route, you want to stir in the water quick & well to quickly equalize the temps & avoid hot-spots.

If you batch sparge in multiple rounds, you can do things a few ways. The simplest is just to add 168-170 degree water. Your grain bed will naturally never get above 170 this way, but you're probably not getting it as warm as it could be either, which might limit efficiency (though I doubt by much).

Another way would be to add water of the required temp on the first round to bring the grain bed up to 168 or so, and then use 168-degree water for the remaining round(s). This would probably give you the best efficiency, but it requires a bit more work heating water. Depending on the volumes you're working with, you'd probably be adding first-round water of 185-boiling.

A third way would be to calculate a single temperature that will reach approx 168 by the end of all your sparging rounds. Since I personally don't want to dick with doing anything other than transferring water from my HLT to the tun - that's what I did. I found that if I use 173-degree sparge water, and 2 sparging rounds, then the last one gets the bed up to about 168.

 

[johnodon]

Also, take a look at the sticky above by FlyGuy:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/maximizing-efficiency-when-batch-sparging-77125/

Some very good tips there!

John

 

[lithium726]

I'll be hitting up wmts this weekend, I'll be in the area. I'll be brewing this next batch once my ale is out of my fermentation fridge, I'll let y'all know how it goes!

 

[munche]

I used the advice and spreadsheet in this thread and had a very successful session last night. My efficiency ended up right at target (70%) after sparging, although the spreadsheet had me over 80 on my first runnings. Wonder if I could change something about my sparge to make it more efficient? Not that I needed to as I hit the target for the recipe, but you know

 

[bob1852]

I wish I would have known this before. This is not what BeerSmith and the Palmer book are telling me:

BeerSmith says:


Palmer says:

IIRC, both beersmith and palmer are batching sparging following a mash-out. A mash-out adds a small amount of near boiling water to get the mash up to ~170. You can eliminate this step by using hot enough sparge water to get your bed up to 170 (which like people have already said is ~185+)

Also, the "170 extracts tannins" subject has been up for debate recently. How else do you explain decoction mashes that go well above that?

 

[kuphish]

I used the advice and spreadsheet in this thread and had a very successful session last night. My efficiency ended up right at target (70%) after sparging, although the spreadsheet had me over 80 on my first runnings. Wonder if I could change something about my sparge to make it more efficient? Not that I needed to as I hit the target for the recipe, but you know

If you are trying to increase your efficiency, I would first try to get your conversion efficiency as close to 100% as you can, since those will be your highest quality runnings. Furthermore, if you don't convert all the starches to sugars, you can't rinse them when you lauter. After that, you can tweak your lauter efficiency if you are still trying to squeeze a few more gravity points out of your mash. In the end, though, I would strive for consistency. If you can consistently hit 70% into the fermenter, you're in fine shape. Anything over that is gravy.

Good luck and mash on!

 

[johnodon]

IIRC, both beersmith and palmer are batching sparging following a mash-out. A mash-out adds a small amount of near boiling water to get the mash up to ~170. You can eliminate this step by using hot enough sparge water to get your bed up to 170 (which like people have already said is ~185+)

Also, the "170 extracts tannins" subject has been up for debate recently. How else do you explain decoction mashes that go well above that?

AH HA!!! Mystery solved! I started to doubt my own process. Thanks for clearing that up AZ.

John

 

[lithium726]

Just picked up a batch of grain from the Toy Store, the crush looks MUCH BETTER! I'm seeing far finer milled husks and a LOT more white in the mixture. I'm excited about doing this one.

 

[studmonk3y]

Maybe I missed something because I didn't read the whole thread. Why can't you just buy your own mill and that way you can still have the convenience of picking up unmilled grain from the close LHBS and get a good crush?

 

[lithium726]

I could, but I don't have $160 to spend on this partiular hobby right now, plus I don't have the space to put it anywhere. Probably do that next year when I get a house.

 

[studmonk3y]

That is understandable, its easy to spend way too much money in this hobby. But a barley crusher is $115 and corona mills are like $20-30. If you start buying grain in bulk it will pay for itself. Something to think about anyways.

 

[truckjohn]

Ok... so good on you for figuring out your thermo is off a bit.... Ice water slush should run around 32F, boiling water should be close to 212... If you are more than a few degrees off on both - get a new thermo.. They are cheap.

2nd... While you are at it -- buy yourself a little bottle of Iodine disinfectant (Betadine or it's generic counterpart)... Do an Iodine test on your mashes.... Black or dark purple = needs to mash longer..... Reddish = done.

Yes... It's true that beer making is intensely process related -- but using someone else's process is only valid when you have the same starting materials as they assume ...

Case in point -- grain crush... If your grain crush is coarse it wrecks your efficiency if you only mash for 1-hr.... But.. don't throw away all that malt just yet... All you gotta do is mash longer.... just keep checking the iodine test every half hour till it is good.... Then.... you will know how long it takes.....

Once you sort that out -- you can use the grain at the closest LHBS... and just mash it for 2 1/2 hours instead of 1.... Lots of people mash for a whole lot longer... it works just fine.

Or go nuts and take your feeler gages over there and re-set their mill.....

Thanks

John

 

[OLDBREW]

I haven't read this thread through but from what you are saying in your first post, you are fly sparging without a proper manifold in the cooler, and are missing most of the sugars when rinsing. Batch sparge instead, and tighten up the gap in the mill some or run the grist through twice. Either that or build yourself a proper manifold for fly sparging.

 

[pretzelb]

Yea for searches. I may have saved a dupe thread.

I am so glad I found this thread because it matches my situation almost exactly. I even used the same LHBS for a batch yesterday and according to BeerSmith I had something like 48% efficiency (and I was also ready to give up). The only difference is that I created a cpvc manifold for my 48qt square cooler mash tun and I was doing a pretty slow fly sparge. I also would prefer to not spend more money or add more equipment right now. My only problem now is trying to figure out which variable(s) to change.

The easy first choice is to not get grains from LHBS. Maybe I can go back after a while, or after I get a mill, but for now that has to stop. I have used AHS and NB in the past and I have no problem going back. I saw that some people highly recommend the crush from NB and I assume AHS is decent too. I didn't know about the place in Carrollton so maybe I can try them. Looks like they have a demo going on this weekend.

I'm also debating whether to go back to batch sparging and using the SS braid I bought. I learned a bit from this thread that I wasn't following back when I did batch sparge so it might help. But then I'd be changing variables.

One thing I think I do need to watch out for is sparge water temp. Seems like BeerSmith is giving low estimates for the temp. I need to look into this and up my temps. It's almost always saying 168.

Any advice on my situation? Should I just change the grain source to NB or AHS or should I also look at going back to batch sparging with the SS braid?

 

[hlumbard]

I am blown away this is the first time I've seen the info that I have to stir like crazy with batch sparging. I've been getting very low efficiency and I can't figure it out! I'm gonna try stirring a lot on the two batches next time and see what happens! Thanks HBT!

I've just been "incorporating" the sparge water rather than stirring to dissolve the sugars.

 

[StLouisBrews]

OP my first AG was a miserable fail, but after reading Bobby M's AG primer I'm going into this weekend with considerably more knowledge than I had before. Give it a look you might find that your not making any huge mistakes, but maybe a lot of small ones.

My mistakes were that my crush sucked and my sparge could've been more efficient (stirring).

Good luck and don't give up.

 

[lithium726]

I haven't read this thread through but from what you are saying in your first post, you are fly sparging without a proper manifold in the cooler, and are missing most of the sugars when rinsing. Batch sparge instead, and tighten up the gap in the mill some or run the grist through twice. Either that or build yourself a proper manifold for fly sparging.

Yes, I did that for one batch because my batch sparges had been so low. I'm back to batch sparring with a better crush now.

 

[MVKTR2]

I just wanted to drop a line of encouragement. I too posted a 'frustration' thread earlier this summer, but for time purposes. Don't give up on the AG process, it'll work out with time.... or make that time, volume, & temperatures. If me and some of the other knuckleheads here can do it... so can you! I've met homebrewers who probably can't tie their own shoes!

You're getting plenty of advice and I won't cloud your judgement with specifics. However if you give the mash enough time it only helps... time is valuable but free... nothing wrong with a 2 hour mash... make lunch, pick up the kids... etc. Make sure your temps are accurate and that you're hitting the proper temperatures. Volume - volume is important especially in the sparge as if you're not pushing the limit on how much wort you're collecting from the mlt, you're probably missing out on some efficiency.

That's all I got & I'll let others guide you with specifics, just keep at it... *getting out of the way now*

Schlante & Good Luck,
Phillip

 

[kuphish]

Yes, I did that for one batch because my batch sparges had been so low. I'm back to batch sparring with a better crush now.

Cool. Were you able to fill out the spreadsheet during your last brew session?

 

[lithium726]

Just did the batch from the toy store. Grain bill: 4lb flaked wheat, 4lb munich, 4.25lb 2-row, 1.5lb 60L

Boil gravity was 1.04 at 150 for 6.5gal, or 1.059. Boiled for 70 min.

Final was 1.065 in the sample I took for 5.5gal, so about 72%. MUCH better than what I've gotten in the past and what I was expecting with over 20% of the bill wheat. +1 for the wine makers toy store!

edit: according to beer smith the OG should be 1.068, so maybe my sample was a little off. If BS is correct, 77% would be more accuriate and awesome!

 

[kuphish]

Just did the batch from the toy store. Grain bill: 4lb flaked wheat, 4lb munich, 4.25lb 2-row, 1.5lb 60L

Boil gravity was 1.04 at 150 for 6.5gal, or 1.059. Boiled for 70 min.

Final was 1.065 in the sample I took for 5.5gal, so about 72%. MUCH better than what I've gotten in the past and what I was expecting with over 20% of the bill wheat. +1 for the wine makers toy store!

edit: according to beer smith the OG should be 1.068, so maybe my sample was a little off. If BS is correct, 77% would be more accuriate and awesome!

Awesome - glad to hear you have things straightened out!