No mash out = 50% efficiency?

[ziggy13]

Hey guys,

Just did my first all grain brew last week. We only got about a 50% efficiency...which isn't too worrisome but I'd like to bump that up a bit. We were hoping for a 10% alcohol Imperial IPA but instead it's going to be about an 8% 'regular' IPA.

I may have already answered the question for myself...I believe because we did not take the time to do a mash out, the temperature of our mash during sparging never rose above 150 degrees or so. Could this have caused a lower efficiency?

We're brewing again tomorrow and this time I believe I will do a mash out to raise the mash temperature to 170 degrees or so, and then continue with sparging at 170 degrees.

I know our crush was good so it wasn't that...the only other thing I don't know is our mash PH. I will have to buy some PH test strips tonight and check that. Do they sell those at Wal Mart?

 

[petep1980]

Did you sparge? I am pretty sure with no mash out and no sparge I've been running around 50% efficiency.

 

[ziggy13]

I did sparge, with 170 degree water, but when I checked the temperature of the grain bed during sparging I realized the temperature wasn't getting any higher than it was during the main mash step.

This was my first time using BeerSmith, so I just heated the sparge water to 170 and did not do a mash out. So basically I had one big long extended mash. I think I need to either do a mash out to raise the temperature of the mash, or sparge with water that's 180-185 degrees or so which will raise the mash water to 170 or so...any thoughts?

 

[lostboysbrew]

You don't need to mash out as a homebrewer, I know VERY few that even talk about doing it. Theres something else going wrong if your only getting 50%. You could be wayyy over sparging, or your mash temps could be off.....There are many factors and we need more info.

 

[petep1980]

As far as mashing out. The wort is going to be boiled anyways, so why does it matter if we get to 170F in the tun or in the kettle? (it probably does matter, but I will treat it as if it doesn't).

Also lostboy is right, if your sparging and you runnings are 1.010 or less, you're basically watering down your beer.

 

[ziggy13]

As far as I know my mash temperatures we're right on. I use a 10 gallon cooler for my mash tun and another 10 gallon cooler for my hot liqour tank. My thermometer is a degree or 2 off when I put it in ice water, but I accounted for that.

So instead of doing a mash out what if I sparged with 180-185 degree water, which would raise the temperature of the mash to the 170's? As far as I understand when sparging the temperature of the whole mash needs to be raised to 170 in order to efficiently wash the sugar from the grains. When I sparged with 170 degree water it didn't raise the temperature at all...it stayed at basically 150 or so the whole time. So since I can't apply heat to my mash tun, I think I should sparge with hotter water. This is only my second attempt at all grain though so what do you guys think?

I will definitely measure the gravity of my runnings next time as well.

 

[Bobby_M]

Oversparging doesn't reduce efficiency and sparging a bit cooler shouldn't affect it that much either. You can sparge with 185F to get the bed up a bit. PH might be a factor. If it's a big RIS, you may have gone a bit acidic (under 5). I'm not sure how much efficiency could be affected there.

What kind of filter setup do you have in the tun? False bottom, braid, manifold, etc? Also, were you fly sparging or batch?

 

[ziggy13]

Also I ended up with about 7.5 gallons in my 'keggle' which is what I was shooting for. Once boiled down and the trub left at the bottom I put 5.5 gallons in my fermenter. I don't have the exact volumes of water in front of me for mashing and sparging but I did whatever BeerSmith told me to do.

 

[ziggy13]

I have a stainless bazooka tube for the mash tun, which is awesome by the way. I fly sparged with a copper arm...it's basically a circle of copper with holes drilled in the bottom. Not as cool as the kind that spin but this won't ever stop spinning like I've heard happens so many times to the spinning kind.

What is RIS?

 

[petep1980]

I think filtering could make a huge difference. I would imagine if you could rig a manifold practically on the bottom to snag the densest of worts you'd be pretty set for sweet efficiencies.

I have used manifolds and bazooka screens, and I think if you look at the footprint of the screen vs your mash tun you can see why you will get lower efficiencies. It is only situated in the center. You could be losing delicious wort along the sides of it to deadspace or grain.

Russian Imperial Stout.

 

[mcaple1]

Ok...you dont want to sparge with 170 deg water to raise the grain to 170...I always sparge with 190 deg water to bring the grains to around 170. By sparging, you are making the sugars easier to pull from the grains (less sticky I guess). I always just do a single infusion mash and batch sparge once and get 72% eff all the time.

 

[ziggy13]

Wouldn't mixing the grains around with my mash paddle sort of mix up all of that dense wort at the bottom? I'm not saying your wrong or anything, it just seems to me that most of the liquid is draining out of the mash tun so I'm not convinced that's the problem. It certainly could be though, maybe I'll taste the grains at the bottom and see if they're sweet with dense wort still at the end of sparging...

Also, I did do an iodine starch test and it seems my conversion was good.

Mcaple1, I think I will sparge with 190 degree water this time in order to heat all the grains up to 170. I think the sugars will wash away easier at that temperature.

 

[ajf]

I normally fly sparge and do a mash out. When I started doing the mash out, my efficiency increased by 10% and the grain bed temp during the sparge increased from the lower 150's to the upper 160's. At that time, I thought that the increased temperature was responsible for the increase in efficiency. I no longer think this is true.
I now believe that the increase in efficiency is caused by stirring in the mash out water before starting the sparge. The stirring dissolves a large amount of the sugars trapped in the grains before starting the sparge, and this reduces the amount of sugar that needs to be extracted during the sparge, thus increasing the sparge efficiency.
That's what I believe, and it is not necessarily correct. One day, I may do a sparge with very cool water, rather than 170F and see if I notice any efficiency difference.

-a.

 

[redcoat_or_rebel]

stir like a mofo during your sparge.

there are cold water sparging threads. it seems to make no difference in efficieny, only would take you longer to get up to boil.

 

[Bobby_M]

Don't continue fly sparging with a bazooka tube. Either change to a false bottom or manifold and keep fly sparging or switch to batch sparging. You'll easily see 75-80 % in either case.

 

[ziggy13]

Bobby_M, could you explain that to me a little more? I'm not sure why batch sparging would be more efficient with a bazooka tube rather than fly sparging?

 

[Bobby_M]

Because of fluid dynamics. Fly sparging requires that the column of water/wort drains down in a somewhat perfect vertical gradient. Because the bazooka screen is a single area of pickup, and in fact the path of least resistance is directly where the screen attaches to the bulkhead, the sparge water will bypass quite a bit of sugar to get there.

If that makes sense then you'll understand why a perforated false bottom would be ideal and other wide area pickup methods are somewhat better than a screen. It's not that a batch sparge is MORE efficient but rather, it doesn't care what kind of separation medium you use (while fly sparging does).

If you don't believe me, do everything you did in the last batch but then throw a couple gallons of water in the spent grain, stir it up and drain it. Test the gravity of those runnings.

 

[ziggy13]

That does make sense. That sucks that I just bought all this stuff...oh well. Decisions decisions.

 

[Bobby_M]

Just batch sparge and see how you like it.

 

[ziggy13]

Just batch sparge and see how you like it.

I think I'll give that a try tomorrow. And just out of curiosity, would mixing the grain around with my grain paddle every few minutes help with fly sparging with a bazooka tube?

 

[Bobby_M]

I doubt it. It would probably end up with an efficiency somewhere between what you're getting now and what you'd get if you just did a straight batch sparge. If fly sparging is stuck in your head as the way to go, just build a CPVC or copper manifold. It won't cost you more than a couple bucks.