Low efficiency

[s89bunton]

S89bunton, how many gals did you collect preboil? From the mash that is, not top off water.

Takes 51*gal of wort from mash

Take that number and divid by 387.

Thats your eff, based off the recipe you listed.

I don't have my nots right in front of me but I believe it was 8.5 gallons


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[DesignatedDrinker]

If you collected 8.5 gallons from your mash and got a 1.051 post boil gravity, well take 10points away to guess your preboil gravity, unless you have it written down?

So (40ppg)*(8.5gal)=340

340/387=87.8% mash eff as an educated guess, would be more accurate with a preboil gravity but i would still say ur in the 80's.

 

[s89bunton]

If my efficiency is so high why is my OG so far off from the recipe?


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[PHDrunk]

Maybe the volumes differ. I assume that this recipe is for a five gallon batch. If you did indeed collect 8.5 gallons of preboil wort, 3-3.5 gallons of boil off, even in 90 minutes, is a lot. Was your final batch size 5 gallons?


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[s89bunton]

I ended with a little over 6 gallons and I loose at least a gallon in the bottom of my kettle. I did calculate for the loss in the bottom when I measured my water.


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[DesignatedDrinker]

6 in the fermenter? Where did the recipe come from?

 

[s89bunton]

6 in the fermenter? Where did the recipe come from?

Sorry I'm probably driving everyone crazy because I'm not being specific enough. I got a little over 6 gallons after boil. Once I drained and lost a gallon in the bottom of the kettle I ended up with around 5 gallons in my fermenter. I got the recipe from a BYO issue off the net. Did a lot of research and the recipe was the same on several sources. It's a New Belgium "Ranger" IPA clone.


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[PHDrunk]

Yup I think it's your volumes. I bet your recipe assumes a 5 gallon post-boil volume of wort (maybe 5.25 at most). You ended with 6 so 6/5*51 = 61. Your OG at the spec'd batch size would have been 1.061, which is pretty damn close to the recipe.

I personally do 3.5 gal batches so I don't know the typical volumes from experience. What I have read, however, leads me to believe that 6.5-7 gallons of preboil wort is typical. 8.5 seems really high to me. In the future, you'll want to account for the boil off rate of your system so that you hit your intended post boil volume.



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[s89bunton]

Could I have boiled longer to hit the recipes intended post boil volume? And if so I assume that would have fixed my gravity?


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[dyqik]

Boiling longer would let you hit the gravity, but at the expense of losing volume on the batch.

1 gallon is a lot of loss in the kettle on a 5 gallon batch. You can't ever beat 83% brewhouse efficiency with that loss, even with 100% mash efficiency. 85% efficiency on the mash is about the best you can reasonably expect to get consistently, which would give you 70% efficiency over all. Do you have a dip tube in the kettle, and are you using a hop bag/spider to keep the hops away from the pickup so you can pull more out without getting all the hops in your fermenter?

 

[s89bunton]

I do not have a dip tube nor am I using hop bags. I figured I could just calculate for the loss of wort. Sounds like I'm gonna need to start using both if I want to increase my overall efficiency and hit recipe gravities.


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[dyqik]

I do not have a dip tube nor am I using hop bags. I figured I could just calculate for the loss of wort. Sounds like I'm gonna need to start using both if I want to increase my overall efficiency and hit recipe gravities.

You can either adjust every recipe's grain and hop bill up to a 6 or 6.5 gallon batch size (to get 5 or 5.5 gallons into the fermenter), and live with the consistent inefficiency (in something like Beersmith you can set the kettle and trub losses appropriately and see the effect on the OG, IBUs, etc.) but that will increase your costs per batch of grain and hops by 20%. Maybe not an issue on a mild, but could cost $8-$10 a batch on a Pliny clone.

A dip tube would be the best way to reduce the amount of wort left in the kettle. The idea of using hop bags or a spider is to reduce the amount of hops picked up by the dip tube. Using a false bottom or hopblocker in the kettle will also strain out a lot of the break material if you can cool your wort fast and get a good cold break. I switched to using a hop spider (paint bag, PVC pipe adapter, 3 bolts and a worm clamp) because my kettle domed false bottom which also acts a dipt tube was clogging with whole leaf hops and break material on hoppier beers. You can also whirlpool if you have a pump and have the dip tube near the side to get much the same effect. Lots of options over in the Equipment and DIY sections, and neither should cost very much - cheap enough that you make back the cost in 3-4 batches.

 

[PHDrunk]

I do not have a dip tube nor am I using hop bags. I figured I could just calculate for the loss of wort. Sounds like I'm gonna need to start using both if I want to increase my overall efficiency and hit recipe gravities.


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Yeah actually I was wondering about this... Where did this extra gallon go? Generally I dump my kettle straight into the fermenter (using a metal strainer to remove excess hop material if necessary) so there's really no loss until I siphon into the bottling bucket after primary. I think you should address this if you can. Losing a quarter gallon (maybe a half) to trub is inevitable, but a full gallon before primary is a lot.



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[s89bunton]

I use a bayou classic. That kettle holds a gallon of liquid before it even reaches the ball valve. When I did my water calculation I factored in a loss of a gallon not thinking I was leaving sugars in the bottom of my kettle. It all makes sense now. I wasn't seeing the obvious. The last two batches I've done I've missed my gravity by about 10 and that seems to explain it. Correct me if I'm wrong.


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[PHDrunk]

So I think this could get confusing because not everyone defines efficiency the same way. When I discuss efficiency I'm talking purely into the kettle efficiency -- how well did the mash convert and how well did you lauter. This determines the amount of sugar in your wort, which is conserved regardless of the volume of liquid, boil off etc.

If one is trying to hit a particular OG, then it becomes necessary to adjust the volume of your batch size to hit the desired value for the given amount of sugar in the wort. For example, had you boiled down to 5 gallons, you would have hit your desired OG.

Once the boil is over, the wort in the kettle has a particular specific gravity. If you leave some of it behind, the rest still has the same gravity you measured, you just have less of it. I prefer to think of this as loss not efficiency but really it's just terminology.

You need to either adjust your batch size up to 6 gallons to incorporate the loss or figure out how to minimize the loss (I would look at this one personally). Could you not tip the kettle a bit to get all the wort you can out through the ball valve?


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[s89bunton]

So I think this could get confusing because not everyone defines efficiency the same way. When I discuss efficiency I'm talking purely into the kettle efficiency -- how well did the mash convert and how well did you lauter. This determines the amount of sugar in your wort, which is conserved regardless of the volume of liquid, boil off etc.

If one is trying to hit a particular OG, then it becomes necessary to adjust the volume of your batch size to hit the desired value for the given amount of sugar in the wort. For example, had you boiled down to 5 gallons, you would have hit your desired OG.

Once the boil is over, the wort in the kettle has a particular specific gravity. If you leave some of it behind, the rest still has the same gravity you measured, you just have less of it. I prefer to think of this as loss not efficiency but really it's just terminology.

You need to either adjust your batch size up to 6 gallons to incorporate the loss or figure out how to minimize the loss (I would look at this one personally). Could you not tip the kettle a bit to get all the wort you can out through the ball valve?


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I also sometimes get lost in the terminology. I was just trying to figure out why my efficiency was high but I missed my OG. Also to answer you question I could try tipping the kettle. I think before my next batch I will get a dip tube though.


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