What can I do to improve my next beer if nothing went bad with this one?

[linusstick]

Last question of the night and this is very vague. My beer ended up 16 points off of my OG. It was my first batch sparge beer. My BIAB beers were always spot on or very close. I mashed in at 1.5qt-gallon and I hit my initial mash temp perfectly. I was mashing at 149. My mash temp barely dropped a degree over an hour. I stirred every 15 minutes. My drain was very bubbly and not very flowing. I believe when I was stirring I lifted the manifold and made it uneven. Unless I had the valve open all the way, the wort drained about 50% liquid and 50% air. I sparged at 168, stirred and drained again. I collected the exact amount of wort Beersmith said I should. After the boil I ended up with the exact amount that was estimated. I just hit way too low of an Preboil gravity and OG. Ended up with around 62% mash efficiency. So what should I do with my next batch? Just change my equipment profile to reflect a 62% mash efficiency? I'm assuming that will adjust my grain bill when I scale my recipes down. Other than that I can't think of what else I could do different. I did (what I felt) everything text book.

 

[mongoose33]

Here are several thoughts in no particular order:

Did you stir the mash when you added the sparge water?

Was your crush any different? I just recently moved from 3-vessel to BIAB, and I moved my mill gap from about .035 to .020. I am getting the same efficiency doing that. I'm squeezing the bag at the end, not sparging.

What was your grain bill? If I used very much wheat or rye, I'd toss a scoop of rice hulls into the mix to account for the fact that neither rye nor wheat have hulls, and without them the mash is more likely to turn into a sticky thing that's harder to lauter.

Something I did with my own system: i have a torpedo screen, not a manifold. I used to tie a hop sock over that torpedo screen which greatly improved lautering for me.

Was the grain possibly old?

These are some things that came to mind.

 

[bassmang4]

1 don't lift the "manifold". Which I assume is the false bottom. If it want to lift. Maybe use another tool to hold it down as you stir. Or stir a lot more gentility
2 use rice hulls. May not be the problem though. You may have partially plugged whatever dip tube you're using. Larger diameter the better.

Also were you really drawing air from somewhere or was it just not flowing fast enough to fill the hose? More details on your equipment may help people w input.

 

[linusstick]

Here are several thoughts in no particular order:

Did you stir the mash when you added the sparge water?

Was your crush any different? I just recently moved from 3-vessel to BIAB, and I moved my mill gap from about .035 to .020. I am getting the same efficiency doing that. I'm squeezing the bag at the end, not sparging.

What was your grain bill? If I used very much wheat or rye, I'd toss a scoop of rice hulls into the mix to account for the fact that neither rye nor wheat have hulls, and without them the mash is more likely to turn into a sticky thing that's harder to lauter.

Something I did with my own system: i have a torpedo screen, not a manifold. I used to tie a hop sock over that torpedo screen which greatly improved lautering for me.

Was the grain possibly old?

These are some things that came to mind.

To answer your questions:
Yes I stirred the mash as I batch sparged.

My LHBS crushes my grain for me. They did a standard crush

2lb 15oz smoked malt
1lb 12oz us 2 row
5oz Munich
8oz crystal 40
4oz chocolate
3pz black malt
Mashed at 149 with 10.57 quarts of water

I mixed up my terminology. I don't have a manifold I have a stainless steel braid on the bottom of my tun

Grain was purchased on Friday.

Thanks for the input!

 

[linusstick]

1 don't lift the "manifold". Which I assume is the false bottom. If it want to lift. Maybe use another tool to hold it down as you stir. Or stir a lot more gentility
2 use rice hulls. May not be the problem though. You may have partially plugged whatever dip tube you're using. Larger diameter the better.

Also were you really drawing air from somewhere or was it just not flowing fast enough to fill the hose? More details on your equipment may help people w input.

I messed up
When I said it was a manifold. It is a stainless steel braid. I didn't lift it on purpose. When I drained the mash I saw that half of it was raised upwards at about a 45 degree angle

I think it wasn't flowing fast enough to fill the hose at first but it started flowing like a heartbeat halfway through. Like some wort would drain, pause for a second, then more would drain again so on and so forth. Here's a pic View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1503460351.126614.jpg

 

[linusstick]

1 don't lift the "manifold". Which I assume is the false bottom. If it want to lift. Maybe use another tool to hold it down as you stir. Or stir a lot more gentility
2 use rice hulls. May not be the problem though. You may have partially plugged whatever dip tube you're using. Larger diameter the better.

Also were you really drawing air from somewhere or was it just not flowing fast enough to fill the hose? More details on your equipment may help people w input.

And here's the braidView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1503460770.067085.jpg