P-Blood
Member
Ok, Ive been doing mostly extract beers and extract with steeping grains & added hops for the last year. About 2 months ago I did my first, real all-grain using the BIAB method (a nice, mild pale ale). Being my first all-grain and the first time Ive tried mashing, I wasnt too surprised to find my efficiency at only about 57% (didnt really sparge that well).
After gathering more info and learning much more about the process (thanks in very large part to the multitude of tutorials on here), I gave it a go last Saturday (4/10).
It was a pretty simple brew a 2 ½ gallon blonde ale (no real commercial equivalent, just something we threw together at the LHBS). Started with a 5 gallon recipe, but since I want to learn more than struggle with the size (small apartment stove can barely get 5 gallons to boil), I just cut the whole thing in half.
6# 2-row
.25# Crystal 20L
.5oz. Willamette hops
Okay, my procedure.
Heated 2.5 gallons strike water (tap with 2 teaspoons calcium carbonate added for lowering pH) to 165°F.
Once reached, added in the grain bill in a 5 gal. paint strainer bag from the big orange box.
Killed the heat, added the lid, let it sit for about an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
After my timer went off @ 60 min. I had to let it keep mashing as I was just a tad bit slow getting my sparge water to temp (started it later than I wanted).
Total mash time was about 65 minutes.
Finished the mash, so pulled the bag out, let it drain back into MLT, and put the bag into the brew kettle with about 2½ gallons of 180°F sparge water in it.Stirred the grain really good to make sure I was getting everything I could (except tannins) and let it sit for around 10 min.
During that 10 minute wait, I turned the heat back on my first runnings to get them closer to a boil and save time later on.
10 minutes goes by uneventfully and I pulled the grain bag out of the sparge water letting it drain back into the pot until my arm got tired.
Grabbed another pot and my colander and let the bag drain through it into the pot.
Added everything back into main brew kettle and got it up to a boil. At this point, total volume was around 4.25 gallons.
I let everything boil down until it reached about 3.75 gallons, then added in the hops, waited 45 minutes, added in 1 tablet of whirlfoc and my chiller, waited another 15 minutes, killed the heat, turned on the water to the chiller (after moving the kettle from burner to stool place next to sink), and let the whole thing chill.
About 20 minutes later, once it hit 70° and was dropping even more, I got a sample for my hydrometer which read 1.052 @ 69°F. The recipe I started with did mention the OG range as being from 1.045 to 1.054. Based on this, I was, more or less, bang on. However, using some of the various online calculators, my efficiency was only 62%. This seems rather low to me.
My only real questions are am I figuring my efficiency correctly, and does anyone have suggestions for improving on this, albeit small scale yet functional, system?
After gathering more info and learning much more about the process (thanks in very large part to the multitude of tutorials on here), I gave it a go last Saturday (4/10).
It was a pretty simple brew a 2 ½ gallon blonde ale (no real commercial equivalent, just something we threw together at the LHBS). Started with a 5 gallon recipe, but since I want to learn more than struggle with the size (small apartment stove can barely get 5 gallons to boil), I just cut the whole thing in half.
6# 2-row
.25# Crystal 20L
.5oz. Willamette hops
Okay, my procedure.
Heated 2.5 gallons strike water (tap with 2 teaspoons calcium carbonate added for lowering pH) to 165°F.
Once reached, added in the grain bill in a 5 gal. paint strainer bag from the big orange box.
Killed the heat, added the lid, let it sit for about an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
After my timer went off @ 60 min. I had to let it keep mashing as I was just a tad bit slow getting my sparge water to temp (started it later than I wanted).
Total mash time was about 65 minutes.
Finished the mash, so pulled the bag out, let it drain back into MLT, and put the bag into the brew kettle with about 2½ gallons of 180°F sparge water in it.Stirred the grain really good to make sure I was getting everything I could (except tannins) and let it sit for around 10 min.
During that 10 minute wait, I turned the heat back on my first runnings to get them closer to a boil and save time later on.
10 minutes goes by uneventfully and I pulled the grain bag out of the sparge water letting it drain back into the pot until my arm got tired.
Grabbed another pot and my colander and let the bag drain through it into the pot.
Added everything back into main brew kettle and got it up to a boil. At this point, total volume was around 4.25 gallons.
I let everything boil down until it reached about 3.75 gallons, then added in the hops, waited 45 minutes, added in 1 tablet of whirlfoc and my chiller, waited another 15 minutes, killed the heat, turned on the water to the chiller (after moving the kettle from burner to stool place next to sink), and let the whole thing chill.
About 20 minutes later, once it hit 70° and was dropping even more, I got a sample for my hydrometer which read 1.052 @ 69°F. The recipe I started with did mention the OG range as being from 1.045 to 1.054. Based on this, I was, more or less, bang on. However, using some of the various online calculators, my efficiency was only 62%. This seems rather low to me.
My only real questions are am I figuring my efficiency correctly, and does anyone have suggestions for improving on this, albeit small scale yet functional, system?
