If you wouldn't mind taking a look....

[meschaefer]

.... I could use some help figuring out where I am going wrong. I am new to the board, but not new to home brewing having been brewing for about ten years and AG brewing for about six. The problem is that my efficiency rates are all over the place and almost impossible to nail down. My last brew came in at 38% which might be an all time low, and had some other problems.

Equipment: I have three converted kegs. I use one for my boil, one to heat sparge water wich is used with a sprinkler style sparge arm. and one keg for the mash wich has a DIY copper strainer as opposed to a false bottom and is direct heated to maintain temp.

The last brew was aimed at replicating an IPA, and had the following as an ingerdient list:

20lbs 2-row - curshed with a corona style mill.
3lbs crystal (50-60L)
5lbs Amber
3 oz of Cascade Whole Leaf (7.4% alpha)
3 oz of Vanguard whole Leaf (4.6% alpha)
3 oz of Willamette Whole Leaf (4.5% alpha)
Wyeast 1056 American Ale

The procedure:
Brought 10gallons of mash water to 168 degrees and aded grains, mash temp fell to about 156 degrees and mashed for 1 hour. Occasionaly fired the mashtun, which is uninsulated in order to mainten temp.

Brought 8 gallons of sparge water to 170 degres, emptied mashtun of wort into boiling vessle (which was put to flame) and then used sprinkler style sparge arm to rinse grains collecting run off continuously and adding to boiling vessle as it heated up.

When boiling vessle came to a boil, added Cascade hops and boiled for about an hour. With 15 minutes left, I added 1/2 the Vanguard and Willamette as well as 1tbl spoon of Irish Moss.

I brought to frementation temp, with a SS drop in chiller. Pitched yeast mixed up and then split between two glass carboys. The remaining hops were placed into carbos to dry hop. After one week I tranfered to new carboys, removed hops and then kegged one week later and force carbonated. I would usually filter the beer, but was missing an o-ring on the filter.

OG- 1.036
FG 1.010

Beer was a hit at a party where it was served, but I felt it had a slight haze and was missing "mouth feel" and had a "hollow" after taste (this is may be just receipe related as I did tweak it a bit). I am brewing this weekend (a porter) and am going to make an insulation sleeve for the mashtun to help keep temp stable. I am pretty strict when it comes to sanitation, but I usually associate a haze with contamination but then again I did skip filtering. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any input.

Matt

(sorry for the long post, but I tried to be comprehensive)

 

[MNBugeater]

That OG of 1.036 is pretty low for 28 lbs of grist and the mash temp of 156 should produce ample fermentables. You should be in the 1.055 - 1.065 range dependent on mash temp.

How about calibrating hydrometer and thermometers? You process looks sound but this sounds like a case of you getting misinformation, possibly from gravity readings or temp readings. Another possibility might be where you are taking your temperature readings on your direct fired mash tun. If you are measuring your grain bed, it might be that you are reading low. If you are in fact mashing at a significantly higher temperature than what you think, you could be producing a large amount of unfermentables and/or killing off enzymes needed to complete saccharification.

There are some quality threads on here that discuss (debate) the proper location to measure wort/mash temp on a direct fired system. I myself have noticed 10 degree differences between grain bed and exiting wort. Do you have a recirculating mash tun or just a direct fire? Do you stir your mash when you direct fire if you dont recirculate?

Just thoughts...

 

[batfishdog37]

+1 to MNBugeater. The only other thing I could think of is do you crush your own grain? If not, check your LHBS crusher setting. This is prob not the issue but it may be worth just looking into. It may be one of the possibly multiple small issues leading to different results. Sometimes when I go to my LHBS, the gap in the mill is set differently because someone adjusted it and did not adjust it back. Though as bugeater stated, 1.036 is pretty low and I would think if crush was the culprit the crush would have to be pretty terrible to only get that gravity. Just a thought, Good luck!

 

[chumprock]

How does your grain look after coming out of the corona?

 

[The Pol]

Id look at the crush...

Your DIY copper strainer...

Thermometer accuracy...

Hydrometer accuracy...

These all can play a large role in the eff. of your setup

Id get some grain milled at the LHBS and try a test with it. Grain crush can make you or break you.

BTW, haze is really common in HB beer. Unless you use fining agents or cold crashing prior to kegging or bottling, you will have plenty of haze for a while.

 

[Reverend JC]

After you have checked all of the above, how long do you take to sparge? With a fly sparge I take an hour for the same size batch as what you have there.

One other thing that has not been mentioned, what is the ph of your wort? If it is not low enough you will not be conversion and sparge quality.

 

[meschaefer]

I will look into the calibration of my hyrdrometer and thermometer. I have a second Hydrometer that I can compare it to, and probably have a another thermometer to also use as a comparison.


For this beer, I crushed my base grain while the specialty grains were crushed for me. (this was do to an ordering error as I usually crush all of my own grain) I adjusted the mill so that it was equivalent to the grains that were curshed by my supplier and made a few adjustments while I was crushing as the consistency of the mill slowly change with use (I admit I need a better mill) In the past, I adjusted so that it appears that all of the grains where cracked, but avoided cracking them to the point that I was producing "flour".

I am unable to check the mill from the LBHS, as I order all of my supplies online for want of a decent and convenient local store. (if anyone knows of one in the NYC area, I am all ears)


The Pol: In what way would my DIY copper strainer affect my conversion efficiency. It is a foot long peice of copper tubing capped at one end, with slits cut every 1/4 "(+/)?


Thanks for everyones input,

Matt

 

[meschaefer]

After you have checked all of the above, how long do you take to sparge? With a fly sparge I take an hour for the same size batch as what you have there.

One other thing that has not been mentioned, what is the ph of your wort? If it is not low enough you will not be conversion and sparge quality.

I havn't timed my sparge. As indicated it is a sprinkler style sparge arm. I adjust the flow so that it covers the entire top of the grain bed and let it run until I am out of sparge water. It probably takes about 1/2 hour. I will time it this weekend.


I have never measured the PH of my Mash. What PH should I be aiming for and at what point in the mash would I measure it? I would think that the PH would chage during the mash. I also just read something recently about measureing the PH of the sparge run off. If I understood it, If the PH of the sparge run off drops below 5.6, it will start to produce bittering tanins. (I may very well have that very very wrong)

-Matt

 

[hamiltont]

Just curious. Did you adjust for the of the wort temperature when you took the OG? It the wort is say 185 F you could be off 30+ points.

 

[The Pol]

I will look into the calibration of my hyrdrometer and thermometer. I have a second Hydrometer that I can compare it to, and probably have a another thermometer to also use as a comparison.


For this beer, I crushed my base grain while the specialty grains were crushed for me. (this was do to an ordering error as I usually crush all of my own grain) I adjusted the mill so that it was equivalent to the grains that were curshed by my supplier and made a few adjustments while I was crushing as the consistency of the mill slowly change with use (I admit I need a better mill) In the past, I adjusted so that it appears that all of the grains where cracked, but avoided cracking them to the point that I was producing "flour".

I am unable to check the mill from the LBHS, as I order all of my supplies online for want of a decent and convenient local store. (if anyone knows of one in the NYC area, I am all ears)


The Pol: In what way would my DIY copper strainer affect my conversion efficiency. It is a foot long peice of copper tubing capped at one end, with slits cut every 1/4 "(+/)?

Thanks for everyones input,

Matt

It wont affect conversion at all... but it most certainly will have an affect on your lauter.

I just did a bunch of research about lauter efficiency, channeling, equalizing fow velocity etc. for an article coming up on Brewers Friend. This is why I ask. Your straight copper tube with slots, will be very inefficient at lautering. You will have many areas of the mash under sparged, some areas oversparged and pretty poor lauter efficiency, regardless of your ammount of conversion.

Is your tube ON the bottom of the keg? Or is there any appreciable dead space below it?

I am not saying that this is causing a loss of 40% of your sugars, but it is definately not condusive to a good lauter in a large, cylindrical MLT.

How deep is your grain bed generally? If you are using a manifold, as you describe, the deeper the grain bed, the more efficient the lauter as well. With different grain bills, grain bed depths, you will see your lauter efficiency vary wildly.

 

[michaelm]

The Pol: In what way would my DIY copper strainer affect my conversion efficiency. It is a foot long peice of copper tubing capped at one end, with slits cut every 1/4 "(+/)?


Thanks for everyones input,

Matt

This would be my first guess.... sounds like a GREAT setup for batch sparging but a single tube manifold for fly sparging is pretty inefficient your more or less just washing the grains above this piece of tubing while the others are not getting much flow across them....

I havn't timed my sparge. As indicated it is a sprinkler style sparge arm. I adjust the flow so that it covers the entire top of the grain bed and let it run until I am out of sparge water. It probably takes about 1/2 hour. I will time it this weekend.

-Matt

And here I would think is another problem..... I only do 5 gallon batches but still take about 45-60 minutes to lauter my 7 gallons for the boil.....


Out of the whole post I would guess IMHO thats the major problems with the consistency.... Or I should say If I had a friend with this setup I would suggest he either went with batch sparging or made a new manifold and slowed down on his fly sparging..




EDIT: LOL I see the POL was thinking along the same lines I was...

 

[The Pol]

I think that the lautering issues could explain the "all over the place" nature of the eff. I mean, a single tube in that large of a container will be horrible for fly sparging. You are basically rinsing the grains right above the tube, the grain on either side will be very poorly rinsed.

Like I said too... manifolds are very sketchy when it comes to grain bed depth, ESPECIALLY in a fly sparge situation. If you have a large grain bill, the better the eff. of the lauter, small grain bill the worse it will get.

I could be totally wrong, but in a week or so, read the article I wrote on Brewers Friend and it will explain a lot of the design needs when building any type of manifild in your MLT.

 

[ClutchDude]

I have never measured the PH of my Mash. What PH should I be aiming for and at what point in the mash would I measure it? I would think that the PH would chage during the mash. I also just read something recently about measureing the PH of the sparge run off. If I understood it, If the PH of the sparge run off drops below 5.6, it will start to produce bittering tanins. (I may very well have that very very wrong)

-Matt

Actually, tannin extraction occurs as pH INCREASES. Here's the BYO article.

Two things I would do in addition to the above...

1. Grab a pH testing strip and sample your mash/sparge. You can use salts/5.2 Buffer to keep your pH in check.

2. Snap us a picture of your crush from the corona mill.

Edit: Hey, it's my 300th post....woo!

 

[The Pol]

This would be my first guess.... sounds like a GREAT setup for batch sparging but a single tube manifold for fly sparging is pretty inefficient your more or less just washing the grains above this piece of tubing while the others are not getting much flow across them....




And here I would think is another problem..... I only do 5 gallon batches but still take about 45-60 minutes to lauter my 7 gallons for the boil.....


Out of the whole post I would guess IMHO thats the major problems with the consistency.... Or I should say If I had a friend with this setup I would suggest he either went with batch sparging or made a new manifold and slowed down on his fly sparging..




EDIT: LOL I see the POL was thinking along the same lines I was...

Great minds...

 

[Nostrildamus]

Here's your problem if this is indeed accurately worded:

emptied mashtun of wort into boiling vessle (which was put to flame) and then used sprinkler style sparge arm to rinse grains collecting run off continuously and adding to boiling vessle as it heated up.

That's some sort of batch/fly sparge hybrid. If you want to fly sparge you need to add water as you're lautering. You do not first empty the entire liquid contents and then start sparging onto a dry grain bed. Generally, I will start lautering and bring the liquid level down to within an inch or two of the top of the grain bed before beginning to add sparge water.

If this was indeed accurate I would imagine you have an extemely coarse crush to prevent stuck sparges resulting in low efficiency or an extemely slow lauter after the initial drain off also resulting in a low efficiency because the subsequent flow is probably a result of channeling.

If this was simply incorrectly worded then I would second anyone suggesting calibration, sparge temps, crush or sparge rate although even with a really quick sparge I have still pulled 65% and above.

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

I don't fly sparge, but from what i've read on here, 170* sparge water is too low for fly sparging. It's actually way too low for batch sparging as well,IMO. I think most that fly sparge do a mash out to get the grain bed up to about 168* and then start the fly sparge. But, I would also agree that until you get a manifold that is better suited to your MLT, you'll continue to have these issues. I'm thinking a round SS braid would be a good place to start. You could even make a round copper manifold using some flexible 1/2" copper tubing.

 

[The Pol]

FWIW...

I used to never mash out

I also used 170F water for the fly sparge

Grain bed got down to 150F during the sparge

Obtained 78% eff. this way for 2 years


There could be so many issues here, basically everything has to be looked at as the culprit. Id bet that there is no ONE issue that is affecting the eff. you are getting, there are about, meh... three.

 

[meschaefer]

Here's your problem if this is indeed accurately worded:

emptied mashtun of wort into boiling vessle (which was put to flame) and then used sprinkler style sparge arm to rinse grains collecting run off continuously and adding to boiling vessle as it heated up.

That's some sort of batch/fly sparge hybrid. If you want to fly sparge you need to add water as you're lautering. You do not first empty the entire liquid contents and then start sparging onto a dry grain bed. Generally, I will start lautering and bring the liquid level down to within an inch or two of the top of the grain bed before beginning to add sparge water.

If this was indeed accurate I would imagine you have an extemely coarse crush to prevent stuck sparges resulting in low efficiency or an extemely slow lauter after the initial drain off also resulting in a low efficiency because the subsequent flow is probably a result of channeling.

No, that was worded correctly. I empty the mashtun compeletely and then sparge with the sparge arm ontop of the "dry" grain bed. It was my understanding that the sparge arm covered the entire grain bed there by washing the entire grain bed as it filtered down to the bottom were it collected on the bottom and went out the manifold.

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that sparging start before the mashtun is empty, after the wort has just dipped below the top of the grainbed. Would the sparge water collect ontop of the wort at this point, and is it the goal to have the mashtun empty at the same rate that the sparge water is added? And that this should be done very slowly?

 

[The Pol]

No, that was worded correctly. I empty the mashtun compeletely and then sparge with the sparge arm ontop of the "dry" grain bed. It was my understanding that the sparge arm covered the entire grain bed there by washing the entire grain bed as it filtered down to the bottom were it collected on the bottom and went out the manifold.

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that sparging start before the mashtun is empty, after the wort has just dipped below the top of the grainbed. Would the sparge water collect ontop of the wort at this point, and is it the goal to have the mashtun empty at the same rate that the sparge water is added? And that this should be done very slowly?

This is exactly right, but with your manifold setup, you really should be batch sparging if you want a more effective latuer. You are sprinkling water on the grain bed yes, but fluid takes the path of least resistance. If you are only collecting the fluid in ONE area of the mash, you are going to oversparge that area and undersparge the areas furhter and further from the manifold.

You want to leave 1-2" of water on top of the grain bed while you sparge

Sparge should take about 30 minutes for each 10lbs of grain you have in there from my experience.

Do it slowly, match the flow rates.

BUT I HIGHLY SUGGEST either doing away with the single tube manifold, OR batch sparging. Your lauter setup is backward. False bottoms are great for a fly sparge, manifolds are great for batch sparge... mix them up and you are losing eff. for no reason.

You said that you have been AG brewing for 6 years, how have you been doing it up intil this point?

 

[meschaefer]

You said that you have been AG brewing for 6 years, how have you been doing it up intil this point?

Exactly as described, and have always had varying efficiency, and while I never had great efficiency, the last one was just compeltly outside the norm.

I also think I need to describe my manifold a little better. Not sure if it makes much of a difference but the manifold is not really a stright peice of pipe. It is closer to a being "C' shaped, al ost 3/4 of a circle. I will take a picture of it this weekend.

 

[The Pol]

Ahh okay...

Still, manifold = batch sparge

You need multiple tubes with equal spacing.

The spacing should be 4X the diameter of the pipe. (1/2" pipe would be 2" spacing on center)

The space between the OUTside tube and the wall of the kettle should be HALF of the afore mentioned spacing. 1" from center to wall.

Slots or holes in the manifold facing down

The manifold needs to be ON the bottom of the kettle or like 1/4" above it, or you have a lot of dead space where sugars will settle.

If you are using kegs, I dont see how you can use effectively use a solid manifold, the bottoms are so irregularly shaped that there would be a dead space issue Id think.

With the irreguar bottom in a keg, Id seriously think about a false bottom with a dip tube goiing right to the bottom.

FWIW
IMHO

 

[meschaefer]

So it looks like a false bottom is the way to go. I started to look into them last night and I need to go take a good look at my keggle in order to see what would fit. Most of the ones that I found are for weldless spigot, mine are welded on (a least the portion that they screw into) and I will probably need to make an adapter.

I will look into batch sparging for this weekends brew, or perhaps I can build a makeshift false bottom until I get something that is more permanent.

 

[michaelm]

So it looks like a false bottom is the way to go. I started to look into them last night and I need to go take a good look at my keggle in order to see what would fit. Most of the ones that I found are for weldless spigot, mine are welded on (a least the portion that they screw into) and I will probably need to make an adapter.

I will look into batch sparging for this weekends brew, or perhaps I can build a makeshift false bottom until I get something that is more permanent.

Yea dont sweat the false bottom... just batch sparge for now... untill you get the time/money to go to false bottom..... hell you may end up being perfectly happy just batch sparging!! I know a TON of people do it

 

[bad coffee]

Matt,
I crush with a corona mill, batch sparge in a 10g rubbermaid w ss braid, and I get between 77-82%.

the guys that already posted have much more experience than I do! Have a go at what they say and you'll be good.

B

 

[MacBruver]

This explains pretty well why a single pipe is bad for fly sparging:

How to Brew - By John Palmer - Tun Geometry and Flow Potential

 

[meschaefer]

Thanks for all the help thus far.

I am going to give batch sparging a try this weekend and see how that works out for me. I have been reading what I can on the procedure and its seems pretty straight forward, I just want to make sure I am on the right path (afterall I have been on the wrong path and didn't know it)

1. Bring sparge water up to 168 degrees.
2. Empty mashtun of wort, and put to flame.
3. Fill mashtun (know a lautertun) with sparge water (at least enough to cover the grain bed?)
4. Mix the grain and the sparge water
5. Empty mash/lautertun of sparge water and add to boil.


Am I missing anything important?

Thanks in advace.

Matt

 

[The Pol]

Thanks for all the help thus far.

I am going to give batch sparging a try this weekend and see how that works out for me. I have been reading what I can on the procedure and its seems pretty straight forward, I just want to make sure I am on the right path (afterall I have been on the wrong path and didn't know it)

1. Bring sparge water up to 168 degrees.
2. Empty mashtun of wort, and put to flame.
3. Fill mashtun (know a lautertun) with sparge water (at least enough to cover the grain bed?)
4. Mix the grain and the sparge water
5. Empty mash/lautertun of sparge water and add to boil.


Am I missing anything important?

Thanks in advace.

Matt

I am not a batch sparger, but I would think that you will want to use a measured ammount of water in your sparge. Why? It will suck to have a gallon of wort left in the MLT when your BK is already filled to meet your pre-boil volume. (read lost sugars in wort in MLT)

Figure out your target pre-boil volume
Figure out how much water you have in your mash MINUS grain absorption
Figure out how much is lost in the dead space in the bottom of the MLT
THEN you can figure out exactly how much sparge water you will need
to reach your pre-boil volume