Went from 65% to 80% efficiency

[Dauntless]

Alright I'm quite the noob, this being my 8th batch and only the 4th using grains.

I BIAB with Deathbrewers method (sparging, cooling in the sink). If it weren't for that tutorial, I'd still be mixing up pre hopped kits and believing what the guy at the LHBS said: All grain brewing costs thousands of dollars, you would have to sell your beer for it to make sense.


Anyways, I have my grain crushed for me by the LHBS (another one) which looks pretty coarse, especially seeing as I am brewing with the bag. I've been getting 55-65% efficiency, the 55% being before I calibrated my thermometer.

What I brewed today was to get rid of 3.5lbs of LME and some acid malt I had kicking around from a previous PM Stout. I'll transfer the weights into pounds for you folks down south.

5.15 gallons
4.4lbs 2 row
4.4lbs munich
½lb acid malt
3.75lbs LME
1.1lb home made amber candi sugar
1oz Target 60min
pitched with Nottingham slurry from a previous batch per the Mr Malty calculation

Mashed 90min at 154F in 3 gallons, sparged at 170F in 2.5 gallons

I got a OG of 1.087 instead of 1.076! Is 83% efficiency even possible with BIAB? Regardless there is a little more holiday cheer coming in this one.

 

[Crazytwoknobs]

nice! Is the BIAB sparge just into a bucket or something?

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

nice efficiency! what do you expect this beer to be like? seems like really low aau's

 

[Palefire]

Don't have my little homemade PM efficiency calculator in front of me, but are you sure that your efficiency measurement was only for the grains? LME is generally considered 100% efficient, so if you're calculating efficiency from PM, you have to subtract the gravity points you got from the LME, then figure out what the percentage of gravity you got from your grains was out of the total possible points they provide. If you don't take out the LME in your calculations, then your efficiency measurement will always be really high, and won't reflect the efficiency you got from mashing.

That said, maybe 80%+ is possible ... who knows? When I did DB's method in my PM brews, I routinely got 70-72% efficiency from mashing, which I thought was great.

 

[Dauntless]

I sparged in my brew bucket. Just added boiling water, and then the grain. With the plastic absorbing loads of heat, I got to 170 pretty much on the dot with the grain.

The LME and the candi sugar were added at the end of the boil. Again Beersmith estimates 30 IBUs with the 12% Target. This should be some mutant non spiced Christmas ale.

If it tastes like malt liquor with a spoonful of brown sugar, it might just be one of those "limited editions".

In response to Palefire's post just above; I did the calculations for the efficiency before adding the sugars and the numbers were essentially the same. I would image Beersmith adjusts for this though (it is on partial mash mode). I might just have to calibrate my hydrometer as well. I doubt it has shifted too much in 8 batches though.

 

[bakins]

Mashed 90min at 154F in 3 gallons, sparged at 170F in 2.5 gallons

I got a OG of 1.087 instead of 1.076! Is 83% efficiency even possible with BIAB?

You basically did a batch sparge if I read correctly, you just used a bag to hold the grains. 83% is reasonable. "True" no-sparge BIAB tops out just above 80%.

 

[budbo]

I'd still be mixing up pre hopped kits and believing what the guy at the LHBS said: All grain brewing costs thousands of dollars, you would have to sell your beer for it to make sense.

That would be because he makes more money off those kits than bulk grains

 

[The Pol]

Very nice, good job.