New Rig and Efficiency Issues. Anyone up for a Challenge?

[TheGreatReverend]

Hey all! I moved and had to, cry with me, leave behind all my old brewing equipment. This was for various reasons, not the least of which was space related. Since I started several friends brewing they're having no problem looking over my stuff until I can pick it up.
Since I didn't have anyone to show me how to brew, my method is an amalgamation of tips I've read online and in books. I know efficiency is a multi-step process, so I'm curious to see how someone who is very familiar with all of the steps would critique the way I brew. This is going to be a fairly in depth explanation of my most recent brew day. You've been warned.

What I have now for brewing:
Kettle: 40qt Brewers Best kettle, Brewers Best ball valve and accompanying mesh screen
Mash Tun: My kettle

I tried making this recipe: Imperial Citrus Spiced Wheat. (I'll work on the category and name later, it's my first time using Hopville.)

Gain Bill:
8 lb Wheat Malt
2 lb Honey Malt
2 lb Pale Malt, 2 Row
1 lb Caramel Wheat Malt
1 lb Rice Hulls
8 oz Cara 8 (Cara-Pils)
8 oz Oats, Steel Cut (Pinhead Oats)
Total: 15 lb

Hopville has an estimated efficiency of 75% and 1.081 OG.
The OG coming out of the kettle after boil was 1.067 and Hopville calls that a 64% efficiency.

Brew day ended up having some hiccups.
I intended to mash with 4.7 gal at 155°F but what my big thermometer measured as 170°F was actually 120°F once added to the grain. I found out it was miscalibrated after 20 min in the oven. And yes, the oven was at 150-155°F.

I tried to up the temp by adding about half a gallon of almost boiling water and stirring while it was poured in. That brought the temp up to 140-145°F. I also set aside a pot and started heating about a half gallon of mash to 170 and stirred that into the big tun and repeated two more times. -- Quick aside, heating in the second container like that is a decoction mash, right? -- By the end of all this it was thoroughly stirred, up to 155°F, and 45 minutes into the original mash. Since I caught the error 20 minutes in, and brought it to 145°F right away, I figured I'd add an extra 20 min to the mash time.

On to sparging. This is where tips on my method would be helpful.
I started with an original water volume of 4.7 and added about a half gallon during the mash and I added another 3/4 to a gallon of piping hot water to get maintain the temp (4.7 + .5 + ~1 = ~6). To start the sparge I pulled a gallon off to set the top of the grain and then slowly added it back. It took two quart pulls before the wort ran clean. I did a few more pulls just to be sure and then started a slow drain into a bucket. Once the top of the grain dried I switched off the valve and added hot water to cover it up again. It took about a quart to half a gallon. The water temp was near 180°F and mash temp stayed pretty close to 150°F. The grain stopped bubbling in less than a minute and I open the valve again. This repeated until I had added about 4 gallons. I had 6 gal of wort ready to boil but the mash was still pulling near 1.020. So, I let it sit, the water settle, and then barely pulled another half gallon. Still sweet enough and not bitter.

Boil:
This part is pretty normal. My kettle fits on the stove in the house on the big electric coil. I crank it to max and keep a mild stir. At first I was afraid of scorching the bottom of the pan on high heat, but a couple weeks earlier I made a liquid extract kit with a 2.5 gallon boil and the extract didn't scorch at all.

After the boil I was able to drain nearly 4.75 gallons out of the kettle. To check my boil off I measured what was left over near 1/3 of a gallon. If we call that 5 gallons after boiling, my boil off is 1.5 gallons.

Well, there's a long post to just ask: Why was my OG after boiling only 1.067 and not 1.081? I was expecting a my ABV to be near 8%. Now it's probably going to be 4-5%

Thanks!

 

[Jaybird]

Man after reading that, I feel like I was there!
as for your sparge a few things.
1. If your fly sparging you shouldn't turn off the ball valve to add more water to the top of the grain bed.
2. Keep a good 1.5 to 2" of water on top of the grain bed at all times. So as you drain your adding water at the same rate of flow.
3 how well are you stirring your mash? If you stir your mash a lot during the mash process and it sounds like you had to do a bunch of jumping through hoops for the mash to get to 155 I would suggest adding your mash out water through your drain port on the bottom of the kettle.
this add a little 02 to the mash and help float it a little as to gain a better path for your sparge water. Since I started adding hot mash out water to the bottom of my mash. My efficiency has gone up 5 points! just because I am able to get the sugar out of the grain better.
But even if you cant do that, keeping 170* water on your mash as you sparge should help.
Cheers
Jay

 

[tre9er]

Sounds like you did fly sparging and batch sparging combined, sort of. If you fly sparge you want to slowly add water at essentially the same rate as it drops in the mash tun, gently via a strainer or something that will just lightly drip it into the tun. You will drain the tun in one step, adding water the whole time.

Batch sparging would entail doing what you did, sort of, except you'd drain the entire tun first (after vorlauf, to get clear runnings first)...then add the rest of your sparge water, stir, vorlauf, drain. That's a double batch. If you have more sparge water left you would do it again.

My brew yesterday ended up 3 batch additions.

In either case you want the grain bed to reach about 168-170 degrees ASAP after the mash has ended. This denatures the enzymes and stops conversion to lock in your sugar profile.

 

[TheGreatReverend]

Thanks guys. It sounds like the temperature mix up hurt.

As far as Fly vs Batch sparging, is there a better version?
My old MLT was a cylindrical 10 gal cooler that I did a similar thing. On top I had my bottling bucket slowing adding hot liquor while I pressed the button at the bottom and extracted pitcher fulls for vorlauf, recirculating, and starting the boil.

With my new set up, a batch sparge would be more convenient.

 

[AiredAle]

Look at your mash tun filtering setup as well. If you have a system that is prone to channeling, you might be leaving a lot of sugar in the mash when you do a fly sparge. I would suggest you do a standard batch sparge and see what you eff is. Batch sparging is unaffected by channeling. I think you can find all kinds of clear instructions on this site.

 

[TheGreatReverend]

I was concerned about channeling, so when I was dumping out the spent grain I would "sample" sections. They all tasted the same, mostly gritty, not sweet, but not as spent as I recalled some previous batches being. (My last brew was... June)

For my next brews I'm going to make something with a lighter grain bill and keep meticulous records.

Are there any good brew sheets floating around, or does everyone just make their own?

 

[tre9er]

I would batch sparge. What I do is this:

When mash is done (ie. timer goes off) I add as much 190* water as needed (while stirring) in order to raise the grain temp to 168*. Then I vorlauf and drain the tun into the kettle. I then add the now-slightly-cooled hot liquor (water) to the grain while stirring, then repeat vorlauf/drain. I do this until all of my hot liquor water is gone.