What am I doing wrong?

[CanuckHomeBrew]

Hey guys,

I've been brewing for a couple of months now, I have an ok set up, 5 gallon cooler mashtun (only doing 3 gallon batches) 5 gallon Hot Liquor and 8 gallon brew pot (though I do have a keggle I am working on). I'm consistently getting 60% efficiency in my brews and I have no idea why. I will go through my process.

1) Warm mashtun up with some boiling water
2) Raise strike water to whatever temp the recipe requires and the amount the recipe requires
3) Remove water from mashtun and add strike water when its gone
4) Dough in grains stirring to make sure no clumps
5) Rest for time required by recipe (temperature holds within 1-2 degrees usually)
6) Raise sparge water to 170
7) when time is up vorlauf then sparge slowly around .75-1 qt/minute
8) batch sparge with first sparge resting for around 10 minutes
9) vorlauf again and sparge slowly
10) repeat 8 and 9 until complete wort is gathered
11) boil with the hop regimen

I was using a braided hose as a filter for my mashtun, just recent purchased and installed a false bottom hoping that would improve efficiency. Can anyone tell me if I am doing anything else wrong?

 

[pvpeacock]

Try milling your grain finer or milling it twice. Also, I don't understand how you are doing both steps 7 and 8? Step 7 appears to be a fly sparge and step 8 a batch sparge. How exactly are you sparging?

 

[TheBigLebrewsk1]

Crush, water temp, and mash PH.

 

[CanuckHomeBrew]

Try milling your grain finer or milling it twice. Also, I don't understand how you are doing both steps 7 and 8? Step 7 appears to be a fly sparge and step 8 a batch sparge. How exactly are you sparging?

I'm batch sparging, draining the mashtun completely for first runnings, then filling with the sparge water, waiting for 10 minutes, drain again and repeat.

The LHBS mills the grains so I will have to talk to them about the crush.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I've read a whole bunch on sparge water temps since it was unclear to me if my sparge water should be 170 or if the grain bed should be no more than 170.

With my equipment and process I always heat my sparge water upwards of 180-190 and sometimes more. I batch sparge and only have found the grain bed to get over 170 a few times.

I've never had that astringent mouthfeel that people are afraid of getting from this and I always hit my gravity.
I've heard a number of times of people sparging way cooler than is recommended and getting good extraction.
So this doesn't seem to be the most obvious place for low efficiency but I would take a temp reading of your grain bed next time.

Like someone already said, check your crush and definitely look into mash PH. PH meter is a simple and inexpensive purchase and depending on your water could set you down a path of making better beer too.

 

[Aristotelian]

I get about 65% and don't worry it. As long as your process is efficient, the difference between 65% and 75% is about $1 worth of grain for a 5 gallon batch. Not a big deal. Consistency is much more important than efficiency.

 

[Cyclman]

Sounds like the mill is set too wide at the LHBS.

Not a huge cost to low efficiency, as mentioned, but you could try to borrow a mill or run the grain through the mill twice.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Extract brewer here, but consider that the maltster that produces your malt may be doing a poor job. Maybe double check by getting some malt that others have had success with and keep in mind this is clearly a "how much do you bench" question, so be sure that you are getting solid information about the malt you are buying.

 

[doug293cz]

It's pretty hard to really mess up a batch sparge and get significantly less than theoretical lauter efficiency. About the worst things you can do are not stirring well: at the end of the mash before running off the wort, after adding the sparge water, and prior to running off the sparged wort.

Your problem is most likely poor conversion efficiency. As noted by a previous poster, this is often the result of too coarse a crush. The first step of conversion (gelatinization) happens from the outside of the grits towards the center. The larger the grits, the longer gelatinization takes to complete. You can't convert the starch to sugar (saccharification) unless the starch is gelatinized. You can compensate for a coarse crush (at least partially) by doing a longer mash.

You can test the completeness of your conversion by checking the SG of the wort in the mash (a refractometer makes this practical.) The maximum possible mash SG turns out to be a function of the water to grain ratio, independent of the amount of grain. Kai Troester published a table of max SG vs. mash thickness here: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Measuring_conversion_efficiency (read the whole page, lots of good information.) If your mash SG isn't close the the value in the chart for your mash thickness, then you need to mash longer to get more conversion.

Brew on

 

[Qhrumphf]

As mentioned multiple times already, principle source of poor efficiency (especially since you're batch sparging) is crush.

I would check read this article, but specifically look at the chart: http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Conversion_efficiency

Based on your water to grist ratio, you should be very close to what's listed there. You won't necessarily hit it exactly, as it assumes a certain grain potential extract that, while fairly average, may not match your grain bill, and it also assumes 100% conversion efficiency, which you will not achieve. However, if you're getting <90% conversion efficiency there's definitely something wrong with your mash. Crush is the big one. Mash time, mash temp, mash thickness, mash pH, mash diastatic power are others.

If you're getting 95% or higher conversion efficiency, then the issue is likely with your equipment or your sparging process- excessive deadspace in the mash tun, or just not sparging enough.

 

[Qhrumphf]

As usual, @doug293cz beat me to it.

 

[doug293cz]

As usual, @doug293cz beat me to it.

But you provided some additional info that I was too lazy to type out tonight.

As mentioned multiple times already, principle source of poor efficiency (especially since you're batch sparging) is crush.

I would check read this article, but specifically look at the chart: http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Conversion_efficiency

Based on your water to grist ratio, you should be very close to what's listed there. You won't necessarily hit it exactly, as it assumes a certain grain potential extract that, while fairly average, may not match your grain bill, and it also assumes 100% conversion efficiency, which you will not achieve. However, if you're getting <90% conversion efficiency there's definitely something wrong with your mash. Crush is the big one. Mash time, mash temp, mash thickness, mash pH, mash diastatic power are others.

If you're getting 95% or higher conversion efficiency, then the issue is likely with your equipment or your sparging process- excessive deadspace in the mash tun, or just not sparging enough.

Actually the chart "defines" 100% efficiency by telling you what the SG would be at 100% conversion. It is possible to actually achieve 100% conversion (my last two brews calculated out at greater than 100% conversion, which means I have some measurement errors), but then I crush at 0.016", which is less than half what most folks crush at.

Brew on

 

[Qhrumphf]

But you provided some additional info that I was too lazy to type out tonight.

Actually the chart "defines" 100% efficiency by telling you what the SG would be at 100% conversion. It is possible to actually achieve 100% conversion (my last two brews calculated out at greater than 100% conversion, which means I have some measurement errors), but then I crush at 0.016", which is less than half what most folks crush at.

Brew on

I would venture to say that 100% conversion efficiency is a physical impossibility, I would assume it's more of a curve that approaches 100% but never actually reaches it. You can get so close as to where you couldn't measure a difference. Even under lab conditions I doubt that every single molecule of starch is broken down.

But that's semantical. I've never achieved 100% conversion. I also crush at 0.032". However, I achieve 98-99% on every single batch I brew.

 

[doug293cz]

I would venture to say that 100% conversion efficiency is a physical impossibility, I would assume it's more of a curve that approaches 100% but never actually reaches it. You can get so close as to where you couldn't measure a difference. Even under lab conditions I doubt that every single molecule of starch is broken down.

But that's semantical. I've never achieved 100% conversion. I also crush at 0.032". However, I achieve 98-99% on every single batch I brew.

100% is defined by what is actually obtained by the maltster in their lab using a Congress mash, so it is not a theoretical number. So, the 100% potential probably does have a small amount of unconverted starch for the reasons you mention.

Brew on

 

[Qhrumphf]

100% is defined by what is actually obtained by the maltster in their lab using a Congress mash, so it is not a theoretical number. So, the 100% potential probably does have a small amount of unconverted starch for the reasons you mention.

Brew on

Like I said, semantics. Accepting that the potential extract achieved in a lab is the maximum that can be reasonably achieved and calling that 100%, then yes, it's possible in a brewery to achieve it, but I'd say it's not common.

Derailed enough.

Point is, OP, measure either the mash, or your first runnings (I measure first runnings on the way into the kettle), and see where your actual mash is ended up vs. where it theoretically could/should end up. My money says you'll find your problem there. At least it'll narrow down where you should be looking.

But ultimately if you're not milling your own grain, getting high or consistent efficiency and predictable results will be challenging. The way I see it, if the mill gap is too wide, milling twice will only go so far.