Pretty poor efficiency. . .

[czucker]

So I brewed up a 5 gallon batch of a rye IPA that I'm working on and I got pretty awful efficiency.

I did many things differently this time and I'm trying to track down the issue.

The two biggest changes in my process were the use of a Boilermaker kettle for my mash and messing around with the water chemistry.

So far as the Blichmann as mash tun is concerned, I ended up with a very this mash (about 1:1) and found the thermometer almost useless. I did the best that I could to keep the temp around 152º, but I may have been a bit on the low side.

I'm guessing that efficiency issues probably came from the thick mash with poor temperature control, but I'm also curious as to whether to water additions may have been a factor.

You can see what I did with the water here.

Finally, here is the grain bill:

US 2-Row Malt 10lb 8oz (60.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rye Malt 3lb 8oz (20.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Munich 10L Malt 2lb 0oz (11.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 60L Malt 1lb 0oz (5.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt 8.00 oz (2.9 %) In Mash/Steeped

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

Edit: I batch sparged this. . . There seemed to be some channeling of the first runnings, but I stirred everything very well when I added the sparge water and the second running seemed to drain fine.

 

[nebben]

What efficiency did you get? What was your OG pre-boil, post boil, and at what temps were the gravities taken?

The biggest thing that I found that helped me was changing my crush to a finer setting. I had control of the LHBS mill and didn't notice how many fully intact grains were left in the "crushed" bag. I got my own mill and now get 75% or higher on almost everything (I batch sparge too).

What was the reason you did 1lb/1QT instead of 1lb/1.25QT? What temps did you observe during the mash? How long did you do it? Did you drain the mash-tun completely before adding your sparge water? Was there any wort in the mash-tun leftover after you collected all the wort for your boil?

 

[czucker]

What efficiency did you get? What was your OG pre-boil, post boil, and at what temps were the gravities taken?

I got around 50% efficiency. My pre-boil OG was 1.055 adjusted for temperature. I checked all gravity reading with my hydrometer and refractometer.

The biggest thing that I found that helped me was changing my crush to a finer setting. I had control of the LHBS mill and didn't notice how many fully intact grains were left in the "crushed" bag. I got my own mill and now get 75% or higher on almost everything (I batch sparge too).

I just used the crush that my local shop gave me. I've never had a problem with that in the past. To my eyes, everything looked just fine.

What was the reason you did 1lb/1QT instead of 1lb/1.25QT? What temps did you observe during the mash? How long did you do it? Did you drain the mash-tun completely before adding your sparge water? Was there any wort in the mash-tun leftover after you collected all the wort for your boil?

Honestly, I just effed up in the water to grist ratio. I didn't compensate because I had treated the water and didn't have enough to top off.

My mash temps were all over the place. Too high, too low. It was kind of a nightmare. When I switched to my digital probe thermometer the temps seemed pretty steady in the 152º-ish range, but overall this is a big question mark for me. . .

I did drain completely and there was no water left over in the mash tun. . .

 

[Docjowles]

Did you happen to take a ballpark mash pH reading with test papers or anything? Supposedly if you royally screw up your water adjustment and end up with a mash pH of like 3 or 7 that can cause efficiency problems. But based on your spreadsheet it looks like you were in the normal range assuming you didn't accidentally weigh out ounces instead of grams or something

This weekend I managed to up my efficiency from about 65 to 75%. Need to do some more batches to verify, but the two changes were:

1) Sparge hotter. I heated my sparge water to 175 but when I stirred it into the mash the grain bed was only like 155. Then I got the sparge water real hot and took the grain bed up to 168. I'm thinking that helped solubilize the sugars.

2) Did two smaller batches instead of one big ass batch sparge. I think I picked that up on this forum. Someone said you probably won't rinse all the sugars in one go so it's better to do two smaller batches. Seemed to help me anyway.

Edit: (ok fine there were 3 ) Stirred the CRAP out of the grain after adding sparge water each time, like 1-2 minutes worth of stirring.

 

[czucker]

You know. . . Like a ******* I didn't take a pH reading. . . I should have. I'm positive that I weighed out grams instead of ounces though.

When you say that you heated the sparge water to 175º, then got it hot enough to take the grain bed to 168º do you mean that the first batch only got the bed up to 155º, but the second got you up to 168º?

I will definitely try the two batches of sparge water. . .

 

[Docjowles]

The first one wasn't on purpose, I thought 175 would be hot enough. But it wasn't so I turned the burner back on under the sparge water and heated it to 190ish for the next round (don't recall the exact temp. doh!).