Which has more effect on efficiency? Crush, or Sparge?

[sparkyaber]

Here is the situation, I brewed an Indian Brown Ale from midwest. How do you folks post the info from Beersmith here? I will do that so you have the recipe.

First of all I noticed the grains did not look crushed enough. I have found that I get a much higher efficiency when my grains are double crushed from midwest. I would get efficiencies in the high 60's low 70'son a single crush, and up into the high 70's low 80's when double crushed.

About the brew, I got distracted during the sparge, (fly sparging) and ended up having the sparge water fill the mash tun. I shut it off, let it drain down, to much of course, so the grain bed was showing. I let it fly again, this time watching the water level keeping it an inch or so above the grain bed as it should. I added a bit more water to the sparge because I thought I may need it.

Any who, I got a preboil gravity of about 1.042 temp adjusted. Should have been about 1.064 I then ran out 8 gallons of wort into my brew pot. I boiled for two hours to get the volume down to normal amounts. I ended up with my 5 gallons at an O.G. about 1.055, which should have been in the 1.068-1.072 range.
Now which had more effect on the gravity? I was about ready to call midwest and give them a hard time. I have done many of there kits and hit my efficiency every time but this one, well as long as they had been double crushed. I am concerned that the sparge may had some effect on the efficiency. Maybe a little from column A, a little from column B?

Yes, I know I should have added DME to bring up the gravity, but I was sure having the extra volume in the boiler would have brought up the gravity.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sparkyaber]

Type: All Grain
Date: 10/25/2009
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Brewer: Abe
Boil Size: 7.27 gal Asst Brewer: Ike
Boil Time: 120 min Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
11 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 85.44 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.88 %
4.0 oz Coffee Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 1.94 %
2.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 0.97 %
1.00 oz Palisade [6.90 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Summit [18.50 %] (60 min) Hops 29.8 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (10 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (2 min) Hops 1.5 IBU
0.25 gm Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
4.00 ml HCL (hydrocloric Acid) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1 lbs Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 7.77 %
3.75 gal Local Water Water
5.00 gal Local Water Water



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.073 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.055 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.019 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.019 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.07 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.69 %
Bitterness: 37.8 IBU Calories: 249 cal/pint
Est Color: 18.5 SRM Color: Color


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 11.88 lb
Sparge Water: 5.78 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 175.0 F TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

 

[sparkyaber]

One last thing, could I boil up some dme to the ratio of 8 cups dme to two liters of water which,I think, gives me a gravity of 1.160, and add it to the primary? Sound about right?

 

[sparkyaber]

Anybody? Nobody?

 

[Denny]

Crush is the #1 factor affecting efficiency. Besides that, you might look at your equipment. Is there a lot of deadspace in your mash tun? How fast do you fly sparge? What is your lauter system design? To eliminate that last one as a variable, try batch sparging which will remove lauter design as a factor.

 

[Richabt]

+1 on Crush!

 

[hal2814]

Crush, logically. Take the zero case. No crush is darn near 0% efficiency. No sparge with a decent crush will be much higher.

What's happening specifically in your case is hard to tell. Did you take a reading on your last runnings? If so, what was the gravity? That would be your best indicator. If the gravity was high, you needed to sparge more. If it was very low, you got bad extraction that no amount of sparging would make up for.

 

[maltymike]

I've been ordering from Midwest on my last couple of batches. Since then my efficiency has dropped pretty dramatically. Their base grains don't even look crushed.. I have decided to switch sources.

 

[The Pol]

I've been ordering from Midwest on my last couple of batches. Since then my efficiency has dropped pretty dramatically. Their base grains don't even look crushed.. I have decided to switch sources.

Lots of posts here lately about thier poor crush... they are having real problems over there

 

[sithspitt]

Just crush your own. I get kits from midwest all the time and always hit the high end of OG but i've always crushed my own.

 

[Jipper]

Dont get caught up in your eff. numbers - they are just a baseline for you. I'd ask them what eff. they plan their recipies around (ours is 70%). If they plan their beers at 80% and you are getting low 60's, I's say its the sparge that needs work, because if the guys who work there and brew with that same crush you are getting are getting 80%, then you should be too, with that same exact crush. And I don't think 10% eff. would get you 12-14 points that you lost. Would it?

Also, it is a good idea to have some DME on hand for situations like that

 

[The Pol]

One thing you may want to do, to determine WHAT is happening... is to track your conversion eff. and lauter eff. My last brew was 97% conversion eff. and 91% lauter eff. giving me 88% to the kettle. By tracking these #s from brew to brew I can see which process, if either, is not consistent and see which one is affected by different changes in the process.

By doing so, you can find where the problem is and correct it.. or if you are not consistent, you can at least see what process is not consistent and work with that.

That being said... there are several vendors here that have excellent crushes, others whos crushes are less than desireable. I cannot count the # of threads where someones eff. has jumped 10% by going to say BMW or AHS for thier crush.

Some of the photos posted here from online vendors crushes, are sickening, I have sacks of grain that looks just as crushed... that arent.

 

[sparkyaber]

Crush is the #1 factor affecting efficiency. Besides that, you might look at your equipment. Is there a lot of deadspace in your mash tun? How fast do you fly sparge? What is your lauter system design? To eliminate that last one as a variable, try batch sparging which will remove lauter design as a factor.

One hour fly sparge, my equipment has not changed at all, I had a very consistent low 80's efficiency for many brews in a row until this.

 

[The Pol]

One hour fly sparge, my equipment has not changed at all, I had a very consistent low 80's efficiency for many brews in a row until this.

This is why it is good to check conversion eff. and lauter on each brew. If your conv. is low, and the crush looked suspect... then you pretty much know what is happening.

 

[sparkyaber]

Crush, logically. Take the zero case. No crush is darn near 0% efficiency. No sparge with a decent crush will be much higher.

What's happening specifically in your case is hard to tell. Did you take a reading on your last runnings? If so, what was the gravity? That would be your best indicator. If the gravity was high, you needed to sparge more. If it was very low, you got bad extraction that no amount of sparging would make up for.

funny you should mention that. I did take a reading, at about the time I should have stopped (6.5 gallons in the brew pot) I was about 1.014. Pretty close to the end of the road if you ask me.

 

[sparkyaber]

Pol, thanks for sticking around, what numbers/formula do I use to compare the two efficiencies? First runnings to og and then final runnings to og?

 

[Malticulous]

I've bought crushed grain from many different online stores and none look like what my stock barley crusher does.

I just ordered some specialty grains and some 6-row from Midwest and forgot to check the do not crush box. The specialty grains were crushed pretty good but the six row defiantly needs another run through the crusher.

I don't think any store would want to sell the crush I use anyway. You just can't please everyone. Someone would complain of stuck sparges, and another of low efficiency.

 

[sparkyaber]

Dont get caught up in your eff. numbers - they are just a baseline for you. I'd ask them what eff. they plan their recipies around (ours is 70%). If they plan their beers at 80% and you are getting low 60's, I's say its the sparge that needs work, because if the guys who work there and brew with that same crush you are getting are getting 80%, then you should be too, with that same exact crush. And I don't think 10% eff. would get you 12-14 points that you lost. Would it?

Also, it is a good idea to have some DME on hand for situations like that

I was in there today, and they said they base their efficiencies on 65% HUH? I said. I had 60 percent with an og of 1.054, and their recipe says og should be 1.068-1.072 that seems like more than a 5% difference. Remember, I was getting about 80% before this one time. This was beating there numbers by at least 5-10 gravity points og.

 

[sparkyaber]

Thanks for the info on the bad crushes lately from midwest, if I find the topics, I will forward them to midwest and let them know something is not right. I would like to continue to go there because it is close to me and they have most anything I need. Maybe I will have them make up the kit and I will go into grain room and crush them myself.

 

[bakins]

Pol, thanks for sticking around, what numbers/formula do I use to compare the two efficiencies? First runnings to og and then final runnings to og?

I'm not Pol, but I use:

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency

The spreadhseet is:

http://braukaiser.com/documents/efficiency_calculator.xls

 

[Kaiser]

Pol, thanks for sticking around, what numbers/formula do I use to compare the two efficiencies? First runnings to og and then final runnings to og?

I just checked and finally my page comes up in Google when I search "conversion efficiency mash"

Some call that test the "mash gravity test" which is a name that is very fitting for it.

Just to chime in a little more high level here: Yes, crush is more important than sparging and you should not compensate the a poor efficiency that you get from a bad crush by sparging more. The latter can lead to oversparging where you are trying to wring every bit of converted starch out of the grain. And since not as much starch converted in the first place b/c of the bad crush, your efficiency is already limited and even if you get to 70% you could be oversparging. If on the other hand your crush and other mash conditions are good enough to convert most of the starch you can easily leave 10-15% of sugar in the grain during sparging and still get to 80-90% efficiency. B/c you left a decent amount sugar in the grain you run less risk of oversparging.

The mash gravity test is the key to assessing your level of starch conversion in the mash: http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency#Determining_Conversion_Efficiency (there is also a spreadsheet for this)

As for your vendor, use another one. I think that HB shops should be paying more attention to their crush. Sure they don’t want to push it too much and give a lot of brewers stuck sparges, but it the grain doesn’t look crushed there is something wrong. There seem to be a number of online vendors out there that do a better job and would welcome your business. If you are getting the hang of AG, start saving up for your own mill. It will be worth it.

Kai

 

[Kaiser]

One more thought.

Many brewers believe that merely cracking the grain open is sufficient for good conversion. The thinking is that malt is modified enough that the enzymes in the mash will be able to access all the starches in there. But this is not the case. Especially if you use non-agitated infusion mashes. Really coarse crushes may show good efficiency in decoction mashes but nobody does those just for efficiency sake.

To get good conversion in infusion mashes most of the endosperm must be milled out of the grain. Any endosperm left connected to the husks grain should be accessible from as many sides as possible. it’s ok if a grit is still stuck to the husk on one side but it is not ok for it to sit inside the grain with husks covering most of its sides.

But you can go too tight as well. If you end up with too much flour and shredded husks by crushing too tight, you’ll likely get a stuck sparge and that’s not much fun either. Based on what I have seen wit my mill, a mill gap between 0.8 and 0.1 mm (32 – 40 mil) should be a good starting point that errs on the coarse side and brewers may explore tighter settings as well. I know that the non adjustable JSP maltmill has a mill gap of 45 mil (1.14 mm) which I think is already too coarse for optimal conversion in a single infusion mash. The Barley Crusher’s default is 39 mil which will be better, but to be fair, it you get an adjustable model of the JSP Maltmill the default setting doesn’t matter. The factory setting of the Crankenstein is 45 mil, just like the JSP MaltMill.

I wonder what these fairly coarse mill gap settings are based on.

Kai

 

[sparkyaber]

Thanks for the great insight on crush Kai, I just looked over your spreadsheet, and will have a few questions when I really sit down and look it over. Same with the wiki article.
Thanks for the links.

At midwest, they have a grain room with a mill in it, which is adjustable. I may just use that one. I really don't think I could have a problem with a stuck sparge. I have a manifold system which seems to work really well. I think the only problem would be if the manifold came off.

 

[wrestler63]

I struggled for quite some time with efficency.......Ph stabilizer, decoction mash, mash out, slow slow fly sparges, even had my LHBS double crush my grains........was struggling to stay at 70%. Started ordering my 2 row from the mill pre crushed in 50# bags and whala..........efficency up to 80-82% consistantly........Crush is indeed that important.

 

[phatuna]

I struggled for quite some time with efficency.......Ph stabilizer, decoction mash, mash out, slow slow fly sparges, even had my LHBS double crush my grains........was struggling to stay at 70%. Started ordering my 2 row from the mill pre crushed in 50# bags and whala..........efficency up to 80-82% consistantly........Crush is indeed that important.

That's interesting Wrestler. I have read that pre crushed grains have a shelf life much less than non-crushed grains (I have read anywhere from 2 weeks shelf life on up depending on how you store it etc.)
Is that not your experience or are you brewing the 50lbs. pretty quickly?

 

[Denny]

The big thing to watch out for when buying bags of precrushed grain is stratification. The hulls and fimes can separate out. If you get a lot of fines, you get great efficiency. If you get a lot of hulls, not so much....

 

[sparkyaber]

I was reading though the link that you provided, and am wondering if fly sparging makes a difference? It looks as though this spreadsheet and article mentions fly sparging but I did not see the section about calculating fly sparging? Can it only be measured?

I will have to spend some time rereading and trying to understand the spreadsheet. I have a 18 month old running around so it does not lend well to learning or studying.

 

[wrestler63]

Yes, shelf life is shorter........I try and use up the bag within 2 weeks.......bag is plastic lined, so cool dry place works well. I was just getting too much flower and too many uncrushed kernells........ The grainery crush is superior........ I have also been speaking to quite a few brewerys in my state and they are also ordering there base malts crushed.....saves them time and thew crush is indeed good.

 

[sparkyaber]

Ok, I tried putzing around with the efficiency calculator, and am having a little trouble.
I am getting numbers in the 400 percent? wrong decimal place? I entered all of my grains in the upper portion, omitting the brown sugar, which is my next question. How do you enter sugar? Just give it 100% extract potential? I added it in the boil kettle, not the mash tun? Back to the original question. This what I entered:


GRAINS

11# +/- of .2
.5# +/- .1
.25#
.18#


Now for the mash:
15 quarts water, +/- .3
1060 gravity +/- .1

This does not make sense
639% +/- 83.2% ???? huh

Kettle:
26 qts wort
150 degrees
1040 gravity
746.5% ???

Lauter:
2 qts +/-.5 (this is what is left in my mash tun after collecting my preboil volume? (guess)

1012 gravity of above wort?

12 qts. ( a fixed amount of water that is added to mash tun to check the final runnings?)

1004 gravity of above wort? (I made a hypothesis on this one)

efficiency lost of wort not drained 8.7%
efficiency lost of wort held back by grains 61.1%
lauter efficiency: 89.1

FERMENT:
wort: 20 qts
Gravity: 1054
efficiency into fermenter: 793.0 +/-85.7% ???? almost 800 percent HUH?

OK, what did I screw up, and how the heck can I post that with out typing it all in.

Thanks for looking at this.

 

[Kaiser]

There is a problem with the default grain extract potential in that spread sheet. It works if you enter 80% for extract potential and 4% for moisture content.

I'll have to fix that.

 

[Kaiser]

I entered all of my grains in the upper portion, omitting the brown sugar, which is my next question. How do you enter sugar? Just give it 100% extract potential?

Sugar is not supported well. If all your measurements are before the addition of the sugar, you are fine and the result is truly what you got from the mash. Sugar will matter for the fermenter gravity

This is the result I got and if your numbers are correct, you are a prime example why I think just looking at efficiency is not enough. Your efficiency is 60% and based on rather loudly touted wisdom, this means that your should not have a problem with oversparging. But you got 60% b/c you converted only 66% of the starch. Then you did a really good job sparging (~90% lauter efficiency). The latter is what generally causes oversparging.

You should look at why your mash converted so poorly. If you can get the conversion efficiency into the 90s, you can back-off on sparging and still get an efficiency in the upper 70s and maybe even low 80s.

Kai

 

[The Pol]

Sugar is not supported well. If all your measurements are before the addition of the sugar, you are fine and the result is truly what you got from the mash. Sugar will matter for the fermenter gravity

This is the result I got and if your numbers are correct, you are a prime example why I think just looking at efficiency is not enough. Your efficiency is 60% and based on rather loudly touted wisdom, this means that your should not have a problem with oversparging. But you got 60% b/c you converted only 66% of the starch. Then you did a really good job sparging (~90% lauter efficiency). The latter is what generally causes oversparging.

You should look at why your mash converted so poorly. If you can get the conversion efficiency into the 90s, you can back-off on sparging and still get an efficiency in the upper 70s and maybe even low 80s.

Kai

This is what I have been trying to tell people all along Kai... lower eff. doesnt mean you arent oversparging. The argument that high eff. creates lesser quality wort is just silly because of this right here. In this case, converting 66% of the sugars and then sparging the hell out of the grain bed would lead to lower quality wort. Though, dont tell that to the masses.

 

[sparkyaber]

Kai, Pol, thanks for looking into that for me. That is really cool. I know you don't have to and I really appreciate it. I am currently at my mothers hunting, and will be home on Tuesday. I will mess with the calculator more then. As for the over sparging, I assumed I would have since I did sparge with more water to try to grab every last bit of sugar from the grain.

I guess that the problem was with the crush in the first place. I did buy that kit again, and made sure it was double crushed. I do plan on brewing it this week. I will post photos of the grain here.

As for the extra sugars in the boil kettle, how would I compare the OG into the fermenter, and the gravity out of the mash tun?

When I get home I will sit down and get some more questions for you guys.

Thanks a ton!

 

[The Pol]

Only recently have I been REALLY looking into my eff. #'s. Mainly because I am tired of blanket statements being made that high eff. means lower quality wort.

Kai has an excellent tool there to use, and it will allow you to really KNOW what yor are doing when you mash. Like he said, if you can get nearly 100% conversion eff. you can back WAY OFF on the sparge and STILL have 80% eff.

I am trying to get my lauter eff. down to about 80% instead of the 91% currently. I am simply mashing thinner to reduce my sparge water volume... I am down to about 3 gallons of sparge water now for a pre-boil volume of 7.8 gallons!

 

[Malticulous]

I tried lowering my efficiency and really could not tell a difference in beer quality. I've made some excellent beer at 90% efficiency. The only way I managed lower than 82% was by topping off.

 

[The Pol]

I am really only looking at this for two reasons. I am bored and I want to KNOW what is going on in there... and I am going to 100% lager brewing, so I want to create the highest quality wort I can since I dont have the ability to cover flaws.

Now that I know I am sparging 90% efficiently, I see that I can do something to reduce this. I also know that I am converting nearly 100% of my sugars, so I have plenty of room to reduce my sparge volume and there is no need to work on the mash regime anymore.

I will record my lauter eff. losses as I increase my mash volume and reduce my sparge volumes until I feel it is reasonable (80%) ish

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I tried lowering my efficiency and really could not tell a difference in beer quality. I've made some excellent beer at 90% efficiency. The only way I managed lower than 82% was by topping off.

Have you compared conversion efficiency and lauter efficiency? Kai has some great tools on his website to quantify efficiency throughout the brewing process, as well as some interesting articles to read in order to make sense of it all.

http://braukaiser.com

 

[Malticulous]

Yes my conversion close to 100%. When I hit 90% BHE it's from 90 minute boils or very small grain bills. I use his chart. I've never filled out the spreadsheet.

 

[The Pol]

I am doing 90 minute boils, but my sparge volumes are getting quite small.

 

[bakins]

Like he said, if you can get nearly 100% conversion eff. you can back WAY OFF on the sparge and STILL have 80% eff.

That's what I do when I no-sparge BIAB. High 90'% conversion and no sparge gets you to just under 80% into the kettle. And no worries about over-sparging, etc.