Low Efficiency Questions

[jtupper]

I know I'm beating a dead horse....

but after my first all brew yesterday, I only achieved a 60% efficiency. I would like to see this a little higher. So here is my setup

48qt picnic cooler(rectangle)
Copper manifold type L 1/2" - Slit every 1" with 4 vertical runs
6 1/2" boil volume in a 7 1/2 Gallon Turkey Fryer Setup

Recipe As Follows:

5 Gallon Batch
Chocolate Porter

8.5# American 2-row
.5# Caramel 40
.5# Chocolate Pale
.5# De-Bittered Black

.75oz Target (60min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (15min)
1t Irish moss (15min)

Mash temp 154degrees for 60min
Stirred Mash every 20min
Mash Volume 1.5qt per pound: 3.75Gallons
Strike Temp 169degrees Strike Volume 3.75Gallons
Vorlauf 4 qts on both mash and sparge

Boil Volume 6.5 Gallons

Should I suspect the grains and my crush?
All grains were ordered through Midwest Supplies
or was some part of my process messed up?

BTW my original gravity came to be 1.044 on a calculated 1.051 @ 75% eff.

Thanks in advance

 

[user 19629]

Could be the crush, or maybe something else.
I know that's not a lot of help. Being as it was your first all grain batch
I wouldn't sweat it too much. My first couple all grains were all over the place.
I guess what I am trying to say is you need to brew at least a couple batches with he same crush and the same procedure before you can get a good idea of what your efficiency is.

 

[RugenBrau]

Flyguy has a sticky above if you are batch sparging.

 

[scottland]

I struggled with efficiency at first. Here are my tips:

A. First and foremost, make sure you are actually measuring your efficiency correctly. Use this calculator: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ and make sure you have an accurate measure of your gallons collected.

B. I wouldn't bother stirring your mash every 20 minutes. Stir it well when you dough-in, and then leave it be for the next hour.

C. I found I wasn't sparging enough water, and I wasn't sparging hot enough water. My first batch sparge is usually 205*, my 2nd is usually about 175-180. Stir the mash like crazy after each sparge, and run your sparges off nice and slow (slower than you'd like to). This helped quite a bit.

D. Depending on how much wort you have left over in your mash tun after your runoff, you could be losing some efficiency there.

 

[Killercal]

Good points Scottland!

Another thing to try is iodine to make sure the conversion is complete before you sparge.

 

[Killercal]

Also, I've used Flyguys batch sparge method with great success in raising my eff.

 

[motobrewer]

Did you have to top off with water in the fermentor after 60 minutes?

 

[Jud]

I struggled with efficiency at first. Here are my tips:

A. First and foremost, make sure you are actually measuring your efficiency correctly. Use this calculator: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ and make sure you have an accurate measure of your gallons collected.

B. I wouldn't bother stirring your mash every 20 minutes. Stir it well when you dough-in, and then leave it be for the next hour.

C. I found I wasn't sparging enough water, and I wasn't sparging hot enough water. My first batch sparge is usually 205*, my 2nd is usually about 175-180. Stir the mash like crazy after each sparge, and run your sparges off nice and slow (slower than you'd like to). This helped quite a bit.

D. Depending on how much wort you have left over in your mash tun after your runoff, you could be losing some efficiency there.

Scottland, you hit the nail on the head with this one!!!

 

[mojotele]

When it comes to troubleshooting efficiency, I always recommend reading Braukaiser's Troubleshooting Brewhouse Efficiency wiki though it seems few people listen.

You really need to know where your main problem is before changing variables in your mash procedure. His spreadsheets will tell you your conversion efficiency and your lautering efficiency provided you do a little extra measuring. Once you know those values, his wiki will give you ideas on how to increase both.

So, for instance, my conversion efficiency is kind of low (about 89%). I'm going to be looking at my crush to see if I can improve it. My lautering efficiency is quite high, though, so I'm not going to try and improve anything in my sparge process.

 

[jtupper]

Ok well after looking at the link posted, the calculator said I was right at 78% eff. So what calculator is the best and how do you go about getting your target eff? Is there a way to figure it by hand? or what is the most reliable calculator out there?

 

[scottland]

That calculator calculates your efficiency into the kettle. Assuming you accurately measured your pre-boil volume, and measured your pre-boil gravity correctly, you're getting 78% efficiency. If your overall efficiency is that low, you must not be getting all your wort into your fermenter.

 

[jtupper]

Is 78% eff bad?? Don't most calculators set up default @ 75%? I know there is some dead space in the cooler, but it can't be any more than a pint or two. I'm just currious why every calculator I use gives me different results.

 

[mojotele]

Methinks you didn't use the calculator correctly. It expects the pre-boil volume and the pre-boil gravity. The only way I get 78% efficiency, like you did, is if you put 6.5 gallons in for the pre-boil volume and your stated gravity after the boil of 1.044. If you put in 5 gallons and your 1.044 gravity you'll get 60%, like you said in your original post.

Your pre-boil gravity would've actually been lower than 1.044. Probably more like 1.034.

As for increasing your efficiency, like I said, you need to know if your biggest problem is conversion or lautering. If you're doing batch sparging, use Braukaiser's spreadsheet for batch sparging next time. Expect that you'll get 60% efficiency again and use more grain. Once you know your conversion and lautering efficiency it is an easier matter to improve each. Calculators alone aren't going to help you - you need more data.

 

[motobrewer]

there's a big difference between kettle efficiency and fermentor efficiency.

are you topping off with water at any point in the boil or in the fermentor?

 

[ajf]

Ok well after looking at the link posted, the calculator said I was right at 78% eff. So what calculator is the best and how do you go about getting your target eff? Is there a way to figure it by hand? or what is the most reliable calculator out there?

Yes, there is a way to do it by hand, and it's not very difficult if you have a calculator.
Take your recipe
8.5# American 2-row
.5# Caramel 40
.5# Chocolate Pale
.5# De-Bittered Black

Now look up https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart and identify the malts you are using and note the potential for each of those malts.
The potential is the SG that that malt could achieve if you had 100% efficiency when using 1 lb malt made up to 1 gallon.
For the calculations, you don't want the potential, you want the gravity points. The conversion is trivial. Just remove the "1.0" from the listed potential, and you get the gravity points.
Now multiply the pounds of each grain by the gravity points for that grain, and add the products to calculate the total gravity points.
i.e.
8.5# American 2-row = 8.5 * 36 = 306
.5# Caramel 40 = 0.5 * 34 = 17
.5# Chocolate Pale = 0.5 * 34 = 17
.5# De-Bittered Black = 0.5 * 25 = 12.5
Total gravity points = 306 + 17 + 17 + 12.5 = 352.5
Now divide the total gravity points by the number of gallons of wort you have collected. 352.5 / 5 = 70.5
This is the number of gravity points per gallon assuming 100% efficiency. Remember this number.
Now convert the OG to gravity points. You achieved 1.044 so you have 44 gravity points per gallon.
Divide this number by the theoretical maximum and multiply by 100 to convert to a percentage.
i.e. 44 / 70.5 * 100 = 62% efficiency.

If you have Windows, then the Windows Calculator (found in Accessories) does the calculations very quickly
MC (Clears the memory)
8.5 * 36 = M+ adds the pale malt contribution to the memory
.5 * 34 = M+ adds the C40 contribution to the memory
.5 * 34 = M+ adds the chocolate contribution to the memory
.5 * 25 = M+ adds the black malt contribution to the memory
44 / MR (Memory Recall) * 100 provides you with the efficiency

-a.

 

[agroff383]

I struggled with efficiency at first. Here are my tips:

A. First and foremost, make sure you are actually measuring your efficiency correctly. Use this calculator: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ and make sure you have an accurate measure of your gallons collected.

B. I wouldn't bother stirring your mash every 20 minutes. Stir it well when you dough-in, and then leave it be for the next hour.

C. I found I wasn't sparging enough water, and I wasn't sparging hot enough water. My first batch sparge is usually 205*, my 2nd is usually about 175-180. Stir the mash like crazy after each sparge, and run your sparges off nice and slow (slower than you'd like to). This helped quite a bit.

D. Depending on how much wort you have left over in your mash tun after your runoff, you could be losing some efficiency there.

Good tips.

My crush from my LHBS was way off, I changed that, my batch sparge temp, and my false bottom to a braid, and can get 80 percent no problem.

I have been doing one big sparge and I think by splitting it into 2 sparges that may also help. Also I was making the mistake of sparging temp being too low, and I know it brought up my efficency by like 3-4 percent since I raised it to like 185.

205 seems high Scottland, how has that been working for you? Did raising it even higher raise your efficency?

 

[Denny]

Should I suspect the grains and my crush?

90% of the time, that's the problem. It's the first place I'd look. After that, make sure all your volumes were correct. After that, water chemistry could be an issue, but it's down on the list. Keep in mind that there are 2 parts to efficiency...conversion efficiency and extraction (lauter) efficiency.

All grains were ordered through Midwest Supplies

or was some part of my process messed up?

BTW my original gravity came to be 1.044 on a calculated 1.051 @ 75% eff.

Thanks in advance

Stirring every 20 min. was unnecessary and likely caused you to lose heat.