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

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

I have just got my crushed marris otter from a different supplier AND using CRS and DLS for the first time. I do not stir before or during sparge, I just dribble in water at 180 deg f at the top. The big change I noticed was that the last runnings were the colour of tap water. I do not calculate efficiency, but for the record, my last recipe was 12 lbs crushed pale malt, and I ended up with 5.75 gallons in the fermenter, OG was 12.7 brix 1.051, it is nearly finished fermenting at 7.25 brix 1.016 = 4.4 ABV

 

[pretzelb]

I just did my first brew with grains from Winemaker's Toy Store and with my SS braid and batch sparging I ended up with near 71% into the boiler. Very much improved over the other LHBS numbers of 47, 57, and 60. Much of this could be my measurements or my process getting better but at the surface it's hard to ignore the grain crush being an issue.

Now if I could get into the 75% range consistently I'd be happy.

 

[enderdsus7]

This weekend, I bought 2 lbs of American 2-row from HBHQ and 1 lb of American 2-row from WMTS. 1 lb of the HBHQ grain was milled with the default mill setting at the store, while the other pound of grain was milled twice with the default mill setting at the store. The WMTS grain was milled one time with the default mill gap at that store.

The mill gap at WMTS appeared to be significantly narrower than the gap at HBHQ.

I performed three separate 1 hour single-infusion mashes. For each mash, I used 0.5 lbs of 2-row from one of the three lots listed above. I mashed at 1.5 qts/lb (3 cups) with a target mash temp of 154F. I used a 1 gallon insulated water jug as the mash vessel, and mashed in a nylon grain bag. After mashing, I squeezed the grain bags to extract as much liquid as possible, and measured both the weight and volume of the collected wort. After chilling a sample to approximately 60F, I recorded the measured SG for each sample.

Result summary:

WMTS 2-row, produced 1.058 wort @ 59F
HBHQ 2-row, single-milled, produced 1.040 wort @ 60F
HBHQ 2-row, double-milled, produced 1.054 wort @ 65F

Result detail:

WMTS:
8.01 oz of grain was mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.57 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 154F. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 140F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 19.86 oz (weight), 2 1/3 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 59F and measured 1.058 with my hydrometer.

HBHQ single-milled:
8.01 oz of grain ws mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.58 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 151F. No additional water was added to raise the temperature. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 138F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 19.72 oz (weight), 2 1/3 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 60F and measured 1.040 with my hydrometer.

HBHQ double-milled:
8.01 oz of grain ws mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.47 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 152F. No additional water was added to raise the temperature. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 140F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 21.34 oz (weight), 2 1/2 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 65F and measured 1.054 with my hydrometer.

From the images, the WMTS crush definitely appears to be the most complete. While the double-milled grain from HBHQ does not appear to be crushed as well as the WMTS sample, the resulting wort gravity was nearly as high as the WMTS wort.

 

[Dynachrome]

I agree with Bobby_M.
Don't do a continuous (fly) sparge with a braid. That is almost guaranteed to give you lousy efficiency because of channeling.
Mash thicker (about 1.25 - 1.5 qt per lb). That will give you more sparge water to rinse out the sugars.
After adding the sparge water, stir really well, vorlauf, and then drain. With a batch sparge, it is the stirring that causes the sugars to be dissolved. If you don't stir, you will get very poor efficiency.
I also wouldn't do a protein rest with your grain bill. It's not necessary with modern malts which are fully modified. See http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-4.html paragraph 3
If you are mashing at temperatures in the range of 150F, I would consider increasing the saccharification rest to 90 minutes. An iodine test shout tell you if this is necessary. I find that mashing at 150F or lower usually requires more than 60 minutes to achieve full conversion.

-a.

Nice reply.

A friend of mine showed me how to batch sparge. He was very careful to explain channeling. You need to pour your water over something so that it fans out and doesn't pound holes (channels) through the grain bed and run past the sugars around the holes. The finer particles also kind of gather around the braid to act as a little extra filter also. Don't disturb them.

Stirring - Initial mash I stir all the way to the bottom to avoid air pockets. I tend to stay away from the bottom and the braid during sparge stirring.... Personal preference.

 

[RosewaterFoundation]

This weekend, I bought 2 lbs of American 2-row from HBHQ and 1 lb of American 2-row from WMTS. 1 lb of the HBHQ grain was milled with the default mill setting at the store, while the other pound of grain was milled twice with the default mill setting at the store. The WMTS grain was milled one time with the default mill gap at that store.

The mill gap at WMTS appeared to be significantly narrower than the gap at HBHQ.

I performed three separate 1 hour single-infusion mashes. For each mash, I used 0.5 lbs of 2-row from one of the three lots listed above. I mashed at 1.5 qts/lb (3 cups) with a target mash temp of 154F. I used a 1 gallon insulated water jug as the mash vessel, and mashed in a nylon grain bag. After mashing, I squeezed the grain bags to extract as much liquid as possible, and measured both the weight and volume of the collected wort. After chilling a sample to approximately 60F, I recorded the measured SG for each sample.

Result summary:

WMTS 2-row, produced 1.058 wort @ 59F
HBHQ 2-row, single-milled, produced 1.040 wort @ 60F
HBHQ 2-row, double-milled, produced 1.054 wort @ 65F

Result detail:

WMTS:
8.01 oz of grain was mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.57 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 154F. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 140F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 19.86 oz (weight), 2 1/3 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 59F and measured 1.058 with my hydrometer.

HBHQ single-milled:
8.01 oz of grain ws mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.58 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 151F. No additional water was added to raise the temperature. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 138F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 19.72 oz (weight), 2 1/3 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 60F and measured 1.040 with my hydrometer.

HBHQ double-milled:
8.01 oz of grain ws mashed with 24 liquid oz (25.47 oz by weight) water for 60 minutes. Initial mash temperature after agitating the grain in the mash water was 152F. No additional water was added to raise the temperature. At the end of the hour, the mash registered 140F. After squeezing the grain bag, I collected 21.34 oz (weight), 2 1/2 cups, wort. The sample was cooled to 65F and measured 1.054 with my hydrometer.

From the images, the WMTS crush definitely appears to be the most complete. While the double-milled grain from HBHQ does not appear to be crushed as well as the WMTS sample, the resulting wort gravity was nearly as high as the WMTS wort.

This confirms what I have run into at HBHQ. Thanks for this great report!

 

[Sawdustguy]

I've been doing a 30-min rest at 122 and 60 min at 150, temps are +-2F generally and maintain for the duration.

My grain bill tonight was 9.5lb american 2-row and .75lb 60L for a Vienna. Boil gravity was 1.026 at 130F and OG is 1.036. Awful. I get my grain crushed at my LHBS, Homebrew Headquarters in Richardson. 1 pass. My next thought is grain crush, but I really don't want to waste more time and money chasing this problem.

I thought maybe it was my hydrometer, the wort tasted very sweet. However, I got a tall glass of RO water and it read dead on 1.00.

I have no f'ing idea what I'm doing wrong. It should NOT be this low. Please help

edit: preboil: 6gal. There's a little under 5 gal in the fermenter, did an hour boil. I use a propane burner and a 7gal pot. I also normally do 6.5gal preboil, but I ran out of sparge water tonight.. I've generally been mashing 2qt/lb, about 1qt/gal for the 122 rest.

You are probably killing your beer with the protein rest also. I bet that "American 2 Row" is well modified. If the malt is well modified, a step mash robs the beer of it's body and head retention making a watery beer.

The following is from Palmer's "How to Brew"

Using this rest in a mash consisting mainly of fully modified malts would break up the proteins responsible for body and head retention and result in a thin, watery beer.

If you don't mind be asking why did you think you had to use a stepped mash schedule?

 

[Brennan]

enderdsus7, thanks so much for doing this experiment! It's hard to argue with your results.

I know earlier in the thread I was expressing doubt that the crush at HBHQ was to blame, but I purchased my grains there last week for a brew this past Saturday, and I had the same results that you've shown here. I did not look at the crush before I left because I was in a hurry but when I got home it was evident that the majority of the grains were uncrushed! I didn't even bother trying to do a mash as I knew my efficiency would be horrible. Instead I spent several hours re-crushing 15lbs of grain myself with a rolling pin and a baking stone. It was a serious PITA. I will continue to buy my grain form HBHQ as it's easier to get to than WMTS, but I'll be grinding my grains myself. I've already put in a bid on a mill.

 

[pretzelb]

From the images, the WMTS crush definitely appears to be the most complete. While the double-milled grain from HBHQ does not appear to be crushed as well as the WMTS sample, the resulting wort gravity was nearly as high as the WMTS wort.

Wow. Amazing job on the tests. Thanks so much for doing that.

Yesterday I brewed a kit I bought from Northern Brewer and just looking at the grains and remembering my last crush from HBHQ it was clearly a big difference in the mill. I wish I had taken pictures. My numbers backed it up too as yesterday I had 79% and my HBHQ brews were 59%.

Good job on the testing.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Awesome report Trent! I guess that pretty much confirms the bad crush theory! i will continue to support HBHQ once in a while, but will continue to buy my grains from WMTS as I have been doing.

 

[IrregularPulse]

So has anyone called this HBHQ place and tried to inform them that their mill needs severely adjusted? Or are they trying to just sell more grain with a bad crush?

 

[enderdsus7]

I tried talking with the staff at HBHQ about the mill gap when i bought grain for my last batch and was disregarded. I the guy i talked to said they had not received complaints about the mill or low efficiency batches. A buddy at work talked to them and was told that the staff just buys more grain to make up the gravity. I'm going to talk to them again next time i brew, for they are the only lhbs i can reasonably shop at.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Just ask if you can adjust it for your grains. Explain you want to do this because a crush from another supplier doubled your efficiency and you'd rather continue to shop with them (HBHQ), but not at the expense of doubling your grain bill to make up for a bad crush.

As a shop owner, I'd have to say say sure. Even if I was crushing bad on purpose to screw the other customers.

 

[pretzelb]

I tried talking with the staff at HBHQ about the mill gap when i bought grain for my last batch and was disregarded. I the guy i talked to said they had not received complaints about the mill or low efficiency batches. A buddy at work talked to them and was told that the staff just buys more grain to make up the gravity. I'm going to talk to them again next time i brew, for they are the only lhbs i can reasonably shop at.

Post back to this thread with their response if you please.

I think I mentioned something prior to this thread and I was disregarded as well. Even when looking at the crush I just had done they acted like it was fine. One guy scoffed at some customers who did a double crush and ended up with excessive flour.

It would be pretty hard to argue with some of the test results. I don't have the guts to ask it but I've wondered if they brew with the crush from the store or use a mill from home.

 

[malkore]

I didn't read all 11 pages of posts...but...

Are you sure your hydrometer reading is being correctly adjusted for temperature?

I bought a refractometer for my pre-boil readings simply so I don't have to mess with the math. 3 drops of wort cools down quickly enough for a valid refractometer reading.

 

[cookinwood]

I had this same problem and found out my ph was 7-7.2 so i just used about 1.25 tablespoon of gypsum per gallon of mashing water it sounds like a lot but it buffered my water to 5.2-5.4 that was measured with a true digital ph meter that my wife brought home from her pharmacy.


ALSO iodine test.... 1 drop of wort to 1 drop of iodine. if the wort has not converted the starches will turn blue to blue/brown after about 5 seconds. if mostly converted the iodine will immediately turn clear/translucent, then back to iodine color. the second of the 2 works well when making darker beers and you cannot tell color. Do not use paper plates since paper is a starch and will imediately turn blue/brown when adding iodine.

good luck. I had the same emotions about quitting 8 months ago when i switched to all grain. I listened to my peers and have made about 40 successful batches since.

Dont give up

 

[enderdsus7]

I had this same problem and found out my ph was 7-7.2 so i just used about 1.25 tablespoon of gypsum per gallon of mashing water it sounds like a lot but it buffered my water to 5.2-5.4 that was measured with a true digital ph meter that my wife brought home from her pharmacy.

I agree, I may not be getting full conversion, anyway. If you compare my experimental results against Kai's first-wort efficiency table at http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Efficiency#Measuring_conversion_efficiency, it appears even my best conversion was in the 70% range.

That said, the last batch I brewed, I brewed with Jason Merritt and another HBT lurker (don't know his handle). We all used the same water, so pH was only a factor of the grainbill for our brews. They bought and crushed their grain at WMTS, while I got mine from HBHQ. My efficiency was 51%, while the other two brewers achieved greater than 70%. I concede that I may have other technique issues affecting my efficiency (and I think I'll get some pH test strips to give me some general indication if pH is way out of normal range). The goal of this experiment was to evaluate conversion efficiency as a function of grain crush only, while keeping my process constant. I have to start somewhere, to get my efficiency up to the normal range, and the crush seemed a good first step based on the other activity in this thread.

I will definitely start performing the iodine starch test on all future brew-days, as well as look into the pH once I decide how much to spend on test strips.

 

[Brewvy]

I forwarded HBHQ the last few pages of this forum,starting with the 1 pound experiment.Mabey they will tighten their gap for you all.

 

[Bobby_M]

Tell them that the mill rollers are supposed to actually touch the grain, not give them a kiss as they fall through the gap. You can see from the picture that it's a horrible crush by anyone's standards and anyone who suggests otherwise is unfit to work at a home brew shop.

 

[Brewvy]

To: "john
I am rechecking the gap on both mills and making any adjustments today!

Cheers!

Kelly Harris
Homebrew Headquarters, Inc

 

[jbsg02]

just an update on this, I just started all grain and got grains for my first AG at HBHQ, the crush wasn't very good, and my efficiency was somewhere in the 60's, I didn't actually calculate it. my 2nd batch I got from winemakers toystore, first time there, I love that place. It's a little further for me than HBHQ, but they are cheaper on everything and their grain crush was much finer. My efficiency was in the low 70's, and I didn't really try to get every bit of sugar out of it because I didn't want my blonde ale to be too high ABV

 

[virginiawolf]

I'm not an expert about it but I'm with you
I get my strike water to 175 180 fill my mash kettle a quarter full of 175 water begin adding the grain and hot water to fill it up for a ten gallon batch I usually add about 11 or so gallons hot water then let it rest around 160 155 like on the brewmometer range for starch conversion
As I'm resting the mash for at least an hour I heat about 7 gallons more water to 170 which I don’t use all of it but have it. I then sparge it through the grain gradually till it gets light usually filling my strain pots so the boil kettle starts with about 13 gallons Boil 90 mins as I add my hops. My original gravitys are generally spot on.
I would recommend grinding the grain yourself with a corona grinder. Break a bolt off where the handle goes and use a variable speeed drill. You can store your grain in the basement and grind what you need as you want it. Also you can fine tune the quality of how fine you grind the grain.
I'm not an expert but have had good luck based on my research up to this point using this technique for all grain. Hope this helps. VirginiaWolf

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!

 

[imrook]

This thread was just what I needed. I decided to make the switch to all-grain a couple months ago. I built an IC, converted an old cooler to my MLT and ordered a Crank 'n Stein mill. At the time, the only LHBS in town only sold grain in bags uncrushed and had no mill on site to crush with. By the time I had all of my equipment another LHBS had opened that sold grain in any quantity and had a mill on site. I started with low computed efficiency (mid 50's). I came back here and read the all-grain sticky. I got some big improvements by accurately measuring my water and double sparging. I was between 72 and 76 for my next 3 batches. For my last batch, I used a recipe that was designed for an 80% brewhouse efficiency. I adjusted the base malt for 72% and figured I would be good.

When I got my grain, I thought the crush looked a little more coarse than usual, but didn't act on this. Brew day went smoothly and I hit my temps and volumes for mashing and sparging, but my S.G.'s were low, out of the MLT and post-boil. My efficiency for this batch: 52%! When looking for information about poor efficiency, grain crush always comes up but since I have been getting my grain from the same place I figured I could rule that out. I now believe that is wrong. Here's 2 things I now know I could have done to help at the time: 1 - Do an iodine test for conversion completeness. 2 - Check mash pH. I have pH strips and iodine on had, but haven't made this a part of my all-grain process yet as I'm still working things out. I'm positive that conversion wasn't complete by the low pre-boil gravity. I mention the pH because this was the first dark beer I have brewed all-grain and therefore would have a significantly lower pH than the other batches.

In the end, I'm taking away a few things from this experience: 1 - Get my grain mill set up and start milling my own grain. 2 - Add measurement steps to the mashing process to ensure I'm getting all the sugar I need into the kettle. Due to the collective knowledge here, my next batch will be much more controlled and closer to target. Thanks everyone!

 

[BelgianTex]

I know this is a very old, if not ancient, thread. On the other hand, I've been struggling with efficiency as well and decided to re-do the test mentioned on the earlier pages. I got two pounds of Dingemans malt with a potential OG of 1.037 at both places mentioned in the thread. Unfortunately the test may not be 100% accurate since I purchased Pilsner at one place and Pale at the other (they were out of Pilsner). Given that both have a potential of 1.037 I think it's a close test and may be somewhat representative of the impact of crush on mash efficiency.

Recipe:

Grain Bill: 2 Lbs. of Dingemans with 1.037 PPG
Water: 3 Quart of filtered water from the fridge​

Equipment:

Mash tun: Little 2 gallon square cooler
Recalibrated my refractometer with distilled water to make sure it's 100% accurate
PH paper and Iodine test strips​

Process:

• Heated water in a pot on he stove to 170
• Pre-heated cooler
• Scooped out 3 quarts exactly (to avoid misread due to heating evaporation) from HLT to cooler
• Mash-in two Lbs. of malt
• Stirred one minute.
• Mash settled in at 154F
• Closed mash tun
• Let sit for one hour exactly on the timer
• Measure mash temp. Both came out at 150
• Conversion test complete
• PH test (result below)
• OG with refractometer

Batch 1: Dingemans Pale

OG: 1.056
PH: 5.6

Batch 2: Dingemans Pilsner

OG: 1.063
PH: 5.4

The difference in PH makes sense given the Pilsner vs. Pale Malt grain bill. However, I cannot explain the drastic difference in OG between the two unless the crush has indeed an impact on the efficiency.

You can tell from the pictures above much of the endosperm is a lot more exposed in batch #2. From the side by side below it's not as visible as I would have liked, but trust me when I say the second batch had a noticeable finer crush than the first batch. Granted, finer crush may lead to a bigger chance of a stuck mash. On the other hand, I'm struggling making 10 Gallon batches of higher gravity beers with the 10 gallon cooler mash tun.

Side-by-side

Each can draw his/her own conclusions on what to do with this. I just thought it would be some good information to share.

Schol !

PS: I know the efficiency is low on this but note that 1) I was using just a small little rectangular Igloo cooler for this experiment 2) The grains had been sitting in a sealed plastic container for a while but were purchased on the same day. This was not an experiment to show how good or bad the efficiency was. It's a test to determine the delta between the two given all things equal. Depending on the calculator, it's almost an efficiency difference from 56% to 65% just based on crush difference. I've asked both retailers their mill setting and will post follow-up when I get it.

 

[cookinwood]

Since I have started all grain... Things that I feel have helped my efficiency greatly to where I can practically brew with my eyes close is consistent techniques and use of equiptment.

1)I agree with virginiawolf... Purchase your own grinder and adjust to what works for YOU!
2)stir plate, flask and a starter
3)digital ph meter they are like $9 on amazon with a bottle of ph7 to calibrate to neutral
4)I use a water filter that removes everything including odors, buffer with citric acid, gypsum, calcium carbonate and sea salt. (Weird I know, but it works for me.)
5)I always use a protein rest of 115' F to 125'F for 15-20 minutes to help the malt (especially German/Belgian) because you never know how well well modified is, before stepping up to my sach rest. I usually use .25qt/lbs of 130-135F h2o to achieve protein rest temp.
6) For bigger gravity recipes, you will have to use decoction technique for mash out so you don't water down your wort.... If you used a lot of liquid to achieve your sach temp/maintain temp, pull off necessary amount of fully converted wort to bring to a boil to reach a mash out of at least 165'.

I am usually over efficient with my wort meaning instead of having 6.9 gallons I usually end up with 7.5 to 8+ gallons of pre-boil gravity wort after sparging.

Good luck