Sick and tired of my POS efficiency...

[EamusCatuli]

So ever since I moved to AG my efficiency has been sh*t. Never above 70%, and today with my dubbel I hit an amazing 64%! wtf??? this is pissing me off because im not doing anything wrong. Im even mashing for 90-minutes now because of it. my mlt is solid, im hitting my temp's, especially my mash. My sparge is always sort of a ballpark figure as I only collect as much as I need per mash runnings. The only thing I can think of is that im not crushing my own grain. . . i do it as my LHBS so maybe its not fine enough. HELP

 

[BrianP]

A better grain crush is what did it for me. I went from 60 to 82. Maybe your water pH is different?

 

[EamusCatuli]

Can pH really make that much of a difference???

 

[k1v1116]

Ph can make a difference but crush seems to be the most important thing. I recently bought a barley crusher (only 2 batches ago) my efficiency went from a stable 70% (across 10 batches) to 80% on the first try then to 87% after adjusting the gap on my mill.

 

[david_42]

1. the crush. 2. pH can make a difference. Since you tried 90 minute mashes, refer to point 1. Try running the grain through the mill twice. If the efficiency improves, you'll just HAVE to buy your own barley crusher.

 

[Bobby_M]

I wish I could come brew with you on your system using your ingredients. If efficiency still sucks, it's the crush or your water. If it's good, it's your process.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

In some order, but not necessarily guaranteed to give you results by changing anything:

Crush
Crush
Crush
pH
Sparge technique
Temp control
Recipe
Recipe
Recipe

 

[Sea]

I'm suffering from the same thing as you, and having examined every step of my process at the microscopic level, I'm convinced crush is the main culprit. I tried Ph 5.2, and it makes no noticeable difference. Moving from my LHBS mill, to my own Corona (free) has improved things a little, but I deffinately see a barley crusher on my horizon.

 

[FSR402]

Tell us where you're at and maybe one of us is close and can help you out.

If you want we could try something. Send me your grain, I'll run it thru my mill and ship it back to you (depending on how far away you are). I hit 85-87% every time.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

I do it as my LHBS so maybe its not fine enough. HELP

I have to say I feel your pain. I'm finally up to around 73%. YEEAAA.
PH issue first - I have had a cheapo PH test system for a while to use on meads that I have never bothered with using, tomorrow I will test it but it's so cheap I don't know if I will trust any reading.

Crush, I asked the HB store to narrow the gap down to 41, (It was up to 55+). Got me from the low 60's to the 70's. Moving two batch sparges and to around 190F sparging temperature has helped also.

Waiting 10 minutes from adding sparge and stirring may have helped me.

Someday I might hit 80%, but until then I just adjust the base 2 row to adjust for my piss poor performance.

Best of luck. Brew On.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Can pH really make that much of a difference???

If you have a camera I would recommend posting a picture of your crush. I have looked at examples posted here and compared it to what I was getting. Needless to say if you ask your LHBS to adjust their mill down to 44-43 your only problem would be a stuck sparge, if that happens please let me know how you fix it.

 

[EamusCatuli]

All good advice, next time what I will do is take a picture of my crushed grains for you all. I am also prob. the biggest business my LHBS gets so me asking them to adjust the grain mill would be no problem, good idea! Here is to better efficiency

 

[Choguy03]

Hope the crush helps your efficency, but I don't see it helping you out with your choice of baseball team. Go SOX! :rockin:

 

[davesrose]

It is amazing to me how crush does seem to be the #1 factor for efficiency. At one of my LHBS, I forgot to tell them that I crush my own grains. Effeciency was about 70%, when if I do the same methods with my own crush, I can hit 90%.

 

[Eastside Brewer]

I would definitely start with the crush fist. If that doesn't work, then look at your ph. and as Yuri already mentioned, recipe, temp., sparge are all other variables to explore. My LHBS has an old stone grinder and I consistantly get 85-90% efficiency, but I also dial in my ph, I mash for 75 min., I rake my mash, and I sparge for over an hour.

Cheers!

 

[shafferpilot]

There is absolutely no reason to get under 80% efficiency!! I'm a hillbilly brewer who doesn't pay much attention to mash temps. I couldn't care less about Ph. The one thing I get up in a huff about is crushing the life out of my barley!! Seriously, I get at least 84% and as much as 87%. If any of you are getting less than that, just crush finer. Don't stop crushing finer until you actually have a persistent stuck sparge. If you've never had a stuck sparge and are getting under 80% then you now know what to do. CRUSH CRUSH CRUSH! Everyone say it with me

CRUSH
CRUSH
CRUSH!!!!

 

[jacksonbrown]

I had the same trouble when I was crushing at my HBS. I asked them to adjust the mill and they did. You could always jut run it through twice (I did that once before asking them to adjust and it worked for me). Then I bought my own crusher and life has been grand. I'm getting 80-85% into the boiler.

 

[MA_Brewer]

Go SOX! :rockin:

Wait, you forgot something - it should read like this:

Go RED Sox

 

[MA_Brewer]

Also, effeciency depends a lot on how accurately you measure your water volumes - how exact is your wort measurement post boil?

 

[EamusCatuli]

My volumes are the least exact thing I do, I am exact with my mash water, but then I sort of just add sparge water as needed to hit 7 gallons or so in the kettle. But thats not too big of a deal I fell. Im def. going to start resting 10-15 minutes when sparging from now on, that may help a bit. But the crush is where I am betting my problem is. screw 64% efficiency thats a joke.

 

[MA_Brewer]

I agree that the crush is going to be the most important factor. I just mentioned water measurments because it does matter - I always forget to get a good reading of my volume post boil- I usually have a good idea of about what the volume is, but I am guessing - that that will affect your final effeciency numbers (not going from 64% to 84%, but still.)

If it makes you feel any better, I just did a stout, using store-crushed grain as always. They way undercrushed the gain, but I didn't notice until I was dumping it in. I even added 2 lbs of pale that I crushed up myself 'cause I knew the effenciecy was going to blow. Final result? 48%!!! No, you won't need to tell me again to check the crush before dough-in.

 

[Cregar]

Check your crush... I did a couple of batches with grain from 2 different LHBS, 1 batch came out at 65% eff and the other at 76% eff. Both batches was pretty much the exact same process. The 65%, I did noticed the crush wasn't as fine as the previous batch (76%).

 

[eriktlupus]

Wait, you forgot something - it should read like this:

Go blowRED Sox

fixed that for ya

 

[FlyingHorse]

I sort of just add sparge water as needed to hit 7 gallons or so in the kettle.

I agree with everyone else on crush being the primary suspect. But if you're brewing bigger beers (a dubbel would probably qualify), you'll have to sparge more if you want to maximize your efficiency.

 

[MikeFlynn74]

You're not adding enough DME

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Did my 5th AG today, confirmed with my LHBS that the mill was still set to 41, crushed looked OK, not to fine. I would ask what the grain mill is set at were you get your ingredients from and ask them to lower it. I brewed a Chimay today and from what I can tell I'm at around 77 or so, hard to tell with adding the Candi Sugar but thats what the numbers come out to. Big improvement for me.
Only real change I made was boiling 6 gal in my 7 1/2 Al. pot and boiling the other 2 gal in my old extract SS pot. Got 6 1/2 gal in the carboy which will leave me a good sample to taste after primary is done.
It's a challenge doing all grain on low BTU electric stove, thanks to FlyGuy's thread I'm slowly getting there.
Best of luck to you.

 

[MikeFlynn74]

I wanna do a Triple with Palm Sugar

 

[z987k]

crush finer and sparge more, that's what brought me up to the 80's (finally). I only got 75% brewhouse today because it was on the new electric system and I didn't boil off enough, but I'll get the volumes down better in the next one or two.

 

[brett]

You need to just use the divide and conquer method. Figure out what kind of mash efficiency you are getting vs sparge efficiency. And do an iodine test just to be sure you are getting complete conversion.

To do a mash efficiency test, just take sample of the wort from the mash (before any kind of sparge) and take a hydrometer measurement (@60F). Then calculate your efficiency for the amount of water you put into the mash. This is how efficient the conversion went.

Then, you need to figure out how efficient you are at getting all the goodies out of the mash with your sparge. Take a hydrometer measurement of your sparge. If it's above 1.010, keep sparging.

I would focus on narrowing down the issue(s) first, rather than trying to fix what could be multiple problems in one shot.

 

[shoebag22]

not trying to hijack, but does anyone know what norther brewer crusher their grain at? both batches from them have been horrible efficiency...

 

[DaleJ]

Just to be another echo, crush is the thing to focus on.
However, volume is important too. And doing the same amount of liquid, especially in you are trying to do controlled experiments is important.
Hard to compare the efficiency of this brew to the last if everything is not the same except your one variable.

Other suggestions.
1. next time you brew, line up a buddy to do a batch in parallel. Buy twice as much ingredients and have him do your recipe with his equipment/methods.
2. Buy your grain from one of the online suppliers. I get good efficiency (~80%) with Midwest Supplies, and fairly close to that with Austin Homebrew.
3. Are you batch sparging? If so, are you letting it rest and are you using equal size batches?

 

[Csuho]

I too am gettin terrible efficiency numbers too yesterday with my fat tire clone i hit my temp right on held it for 30 mins then had to add a small amount of boiling water to bring it up. held for 60 mins then sparged with 175 in 2 equal parts got my 6.5 gallons boiled for 90 mins cooled in 20 mins pitched and was done and cleaned up and checked the og and got 1.052 i was shooting for 1.058 with the recipe being adjusted for my crappy efficiency of being high 60s the last 2 times and then checked and it was even lower this time 62%.. i almost asked the lhbs to double crush. i think next batch is over to the other lhbs and try it there but i need to check the ph of my water too which i dont think its too high or too low but i dont know. i am pretty sure crush is the problem here but if there is any1 in the nashville area that wants to brew with me next and maybe give me pointers as to what i might be doing wrong or let me watch you brew. i would be greatly happy to figure out what i am doing wrong if anything.

 

[EamusCatuli]

Just to be another echo, crush is the thing to focus on.
However, volume is important too. And doing the same amount of liquid, especially in you are trying to do controlled experiments is important.
Hard to compare the efficiency of this brew to the last if everything is not the same except your one variable.

Other suggestions.
1. next time you brew, line up a buddy to do a batch in parallel. Buy twice as much ingredients and have him do your recipe with his equipment/methods.
2. Buy your grain from one of the online suppliers. I get good efficiency (~80%) with Midwest Supplies, and fairly close to that with Austin Homebrew.
3. Are you batch sparging? If so, are you letting it rest and are you using equal size batches?

I batch sparge, but like I said that is always my biggest pitfall with variability because I only use as much as I need to fill my kettle. I use no set calculation, and only eyeball 2 equal sparge volumes with a temp of about 178F.

 

[DaleJ]

That's my point. Stop doing that.

Be precise and consistent, at least while you're analyzing this.

Variances in volume will affect your gravity.

 

[wildwest450]

Your sick and tired of bad efficiency, yet you don't own a grain mill, and you guess at your sparge volumes. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him.

Buy brewing software and stick to what it tells you. Buy a GOOD grain mill, or have your lhbs adjust theirs, I guarantee your efficiency will go up.

 

[davesrose]

Or if you don't want to buy software, I've always had good success using the online calculators at Green Bay Rackers:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

[Choguy03]

Anything that almost says Green Bay Packers I can't trust. DA Bears!

 

[EamusCatuli]

Your sick and tired of bad efficiency, yet you don't own a grain mill, and you guess at your sparge volumes. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him.

Buy brewing software and stick to what it tells you. Buy a GOOD grain mill, or have your lhbs adjust theirs, I guarantee your efficiency will go up.

I plan on buying one in the near future, I KNOW it will help! Also, as far as sparge volumes, im going to have to develop a better process/ system for it because ive never really seen a clear cut way to develop the correct volumes for sparging.

I went to my LHBS to buy ingredients for a brown ale, and I adjusted the grain mill to might-be-stuck-sparge levels, so hopefully my eff. will go up! :rockin:

Also, random awesome thing of the day, the manager gave me 10 lbs of 2-row for free. Im pretty sure I account for 50% of their business so its about time!

 

[z987k]

here's what I did to get my mash and sparge volumes when I had to make it all fit in the 7.5gallon pot.
30qts=X*lbs of grain + (X+.25) * lbs of grain
Simple and will get you a mash volume and sparge volume (first x, second x) that will fit in a 7.5 gallon pot.

Now I use the green bay rackers mash and sparge calculators and I don't think I ever mash with less than ~1.4qts/lb and sparge less than 1.6 or so. I also crush until it sticks. You have to do that. My wheat was almost flour the other day.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Could I recommend double crushing your grain bill until it looks like what has been posted on a number of threads here. The more I look at my extraction efficiency, the more I'm convinced that is the problem.