# All Grain Efficiency Very Low - What am I doing wrong



## NzBrewerMatt (20/11/17)

Hi all

Hoping you can help.
I'm currently brewing on a three-tier system consisting of 3 56L stainless steel kettles.

Unfortunately, I'm getting a really bad efficiency. Yesterday I did a brew and it came out at about 58% efficiency.

I did a SMaSH recipe which is below;

Batch Size: 23L
Strike Water: 17.5L
Sparge Water: 18.5L

6.5kg Golden Promise Malt
30g Mosaic @ 60mins
40g Mosaic @ 15mins
1g Kopperflock @ 15mins
40g Mosaic @ 0mins

1x US-05 yeast.

I did the following steps;

1. Heated 17.5L of strike water to 74 degrees.
2. Mashed in at 68 degrees
3. Let the mash sit for 60 mins. Did not stir it during this time.
4. Recirculate using a pump. Valve was open fully. Recirculated into the top of the mash tun into a strainer with holes in the bottom of it. Recirculated for 15mins
5. Drained all of the wort in the mash tun to the boil kettle.
6. Added about 18.5L of sparge water and stirred this through the grains. (Batch Sparge)
7. Let the sparge water sit in the mash tun for about 30 mins.
8. Recirculated the sparge water using the same process as listed in step 4. Recirculated for 15 mins.
9. Drained the sparge water into the boil kettle.
10. Boiled the wort and added hops.
11. Using an immersion chiller, cooled down to 20c.Took about 45mins.
12. Took OG which came in at 1.052 where I was aiming for about 1.058 - 1.060. (Beersmith had been advising I should be around this OG).

This brew day came in at about 58% which is seriously low. Is there anything from the above that I'm not doing right or should look to change?

I've read in some places that having the values open completely allowing the wort to come out quite quickly during the 15min recirculation can hurt efficiency? I've also heard that stirring during the mash can help increase efficiency.

My water profile is below:
Calcium: 7.7
Magnesium: 1.6
Sodium: 8.7
Chloride: 13.08
Sulfate: 7.97
Alkalinity: 18

I've never really paid much attention to the pH but have seen this could also cause some issues.
Hoping this is enough information for you guys.


----------



## Liam_snorkel (20/11/17)

what volume of wort did you end up with in the kettle?
It's just as likely to do with managing your losses (mash tun dead space, kettle trub) rather than mash conversion.
Get in the habit of measuring your kettle volume and specific gravity pre-boil as well, this will help you pinpoint what's going on.


----------



## malt junkie (20/11/17)

Ph and salts can knock your efficiency, but at most 5-10 points. The most likely cause is your crush, if you mill yourself mill a couple hand fulls and take a pic for us. If your grain is milled by your LHBS try a different supplier, I'd recommend any of our site sponsors. You haven't given us too much idea on your mash tun setup F/B? manifold? Linear flow through the bed can also cause efficiency issues. And as above check your loses volumes across your system.

When recirculating any mash:

mash in allow the mash to rest 5-10 min (this allows the grain time to absorb the water)
when first starting the pump, close the outlet to max 1/3 open
 SLOWLY over 10-15 minutes open the valve to desired flow (i'm yet to see any reason to be going flat out unless your using rims or herms and trying to step temps).


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (20/11/17)

Liam_snorkel said:


> what volume of wort did you end up with in the kettle?
> It's just as likely to do with managing your losses (mash tun dead space, kettle trub) rather than mash conversion.
> Get in the habit of measuring your kettle volume and specific gravity pre-boil as well, this will help you pinpoint what's going on.



Ended up with about 27 or so litres in the kettle. About 22 litres made it into the fermenter. 

Yeah I did suspect that about the mash tun dead space. My mash tun does have a dome style of false bottom that only covers up about 2/3 of the mash tun bottom. 

I also suspect some of the values I might have set in BeerSmith to be wrong. (E.G Trub loss)


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (20/11/17)

malt junkie said:


> Ph and salts can knock your efficiency, but at most 5-10 points. The most likely cause is your crush, if you mill yourself mill a couple hand fulls and take a pic for us. If your grain is milled by your LHBS try a different supplier, I'd recommend any of our site sponsors. You haven't given us too much idea on your mash tun setup F/B? manifold? Linear flow through the bed can also cause efficiency issues. And as above check your loses volumes across your system.
> 
> When recirculating any mash:
> 
> ...


The grain crush happens at my LHBS. I inspected the grains and they looked to be crushed well.

My mash tun is 56L and has a domed false bottom as pictured below. When I recirculate, I'm recirculating into a strainer pot sort of thing that disperses the wort. Not sure how effective this is, however.


----------



## Liam_snorkel (20/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Ended up with about 27 or so litres in the kettle. About 22 litres made it into the fermenter.


27L post-boil? You're leaving a lot of wort behind if only 22 makes it into the fermenter. I generally try to only leave 2-3L behind, max.
All else being equal, if you sparged with 3L less, your OG would have been around 1.058


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (20/11/17)

Liam_snorkel said:


> 27L post-boil? You're leaving a lot of wort behind if only 22 makes it into the fermenter. I generally try to only leave 2-3L behind, max.
> All else being equal, if you sparged with 3L less, your OG would have been around 1.058


Yeah, I think it was about 26-27 litres post boil. Unfortunately, i don't have a site glass on the kettle so I can't exactly tell.Also, I think I'm losing about 3-5 litres during the boil.


----------



## Liam_snorkel (20/11/17)

You may also just be overfilling the kettle, remembering that the sparge runoff is going to be much lower gravity. 
Maybe try marking the inside of the kettle with your target pre-boil volume and stop the runoff when it is reached, and go from there.

you can use a steel ruler to measure kettle volume. 
V = pi/4 (D)^2 x d
where D is diameter of kettle, and d is the liquid depth. You only need to do this calculation once to get a conversion factor for depth to volume (and vice versa).


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (20/11/17)

Yeah, I'm going to stop by a place today to see if I can get some stainless steel bars that I can use to make a measuring stick with. I'll test with properly marked water and will make the spots on the bar.


----------



## Black Devil Dog (20/11/17)

Just get a 600mm long stainless steel ruler and add water to your kettle with a large metric jug, which you are certain is accurate.
Make a note of the volumes which you can then mark on your ruler with a permanent marker.
If you make a note of every 10 litres, you can work the rest out afterwards.


----------



## TheWiggman (20/11/17)

Your brewhouse efficiency depends on the 2 things - the original gravity and volume. If you do in fact have 27 litres in the kettle then your mash efficiency isn't probably all that bad. If you were able to get every last drop in the fermenter this would correspond to 70% efficiency. Looking at your process it looks like you're doing everything right in your process and you probably should be hitting around 75-80%.

First things first, double check all your measurements and ensure the measuring devices are calibrated correctly. Are you using a hydrometer or refractometer? Have you checked them against another device or calibrated them? Are your water measurements accurate? If one or more things are out correct them and try again.

Once that's been ruled out, make sure the crush is good. A poor crush will have a significant impact on efficiency. I won't explain it, there's plenty of info out there on what to look at for a good crush (like this page). An experienced AG brewer can provide good input.

Lastly, check the gravity at a few steps of the process so you can target where you might be going wrong -

First runnings after the mash cycle
Gravity and volume before the boil
Gravity and volume after the boil (in the kettle)
Volume into the fermenter (which is what's used to determine brewhouse efficiency)
Once you have all the above come back to us and I'm sure you'll get a straight answer.


----------



## Cocko (20/11/17)

Also, a needed piece of info - Pants while brewing? or No?


----------



## timmi9191 (20/11/17)

My suggestions fwiw.
1. Measure mash ph
2. Double batch sparge 
3. Check grain bed for channel ing as that false bottom may be concentrating the draw.
4. Slowly ramp up the recirc rate so grain bed can settle without channelling 
5. Extend the pick up under the falsey to minimise dead space
6. Mash with pants off


----------



## 2cranky (20/11/17)

Cocko said:


> Also, a needed piece of info - Pants while brewing? or No?


Yeah my efficiency goes up sans pants.


----------



## 2cranky (20/11/17)

You can measure all your losses and adjust your brew rig profile in BeerSmith. If you haven’t already done so you need to do this. I just used a galvanised bar from Bunnings as my measuring stick (I’ve seen other guys just mark their mash paddle). I have the mash tun marked on one side and the kettle marked on the other. I used a 5l jug to measure in 5l increments. I then filled 1l in between. 
Once I had my mash filled with the marks on my stick I emptied 5l at a time into the kettle. I marked the other side of my stick at each 5l and at the end I recorded the loss. This is what’s left in the mash tun. I then measured it out of the kettle and took note of my kettle loss.
But I always adjust my sparge volume depending what volume I get from my first runnings. I think a sight glass on my HLT would help here. 
I don’t recirculate but I have learnt when mashing out or sparging the slower the better. Too fast and you can induce channeling or a stuck sparge. Small batches seem to channel easier as well.


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (21/11/17)

Thanks for all your suggestions! I'm going to retry another batch tomorrow following as much of these points as I can. I also have a grain mill arriving tomorrow so fingers crossed this will help.



TheWiggman said:


> Lastly, check the gravity at a few steps of the process so you can target where you might be going wrong -
> 
> First runnings after the mash cycle
> Gravity and volume before the boil
> ...


In regards to measuring each of the different stages, I have a refractometer (is calibrated) so thankfully I can do this easily. Is there a calculator that each of these can be put into (first runnings, gravity/volume before boil) that tells me if I'm going to hit my OG?

What I feel could be happening is when I'm transferring some of that first runnings into the boil kettle, I'm perhaps leaving some behind. This could be because I'm opening the valve up fully and letting it flow out quite quick. Is there a way to ensure all wort is collected?

I'll also try mashing with my pants off


----------



## timmi9191 (21/11/17)

Another tip. Drain the wort very slowly


----------



## Cocko (21/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> I'll also try mashing with my pants off



Keep us posted... Without getting ahead of ourselves, pretty sure a solution is found....... just saying. Do the work and we will see....


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (21/11/17)

timmi9191 said:


> Another tip. Drain the wort very slowly


Thanks, this is something that I'll definitely do tomorrow. I've just been opening the valves fully so I'll definitely only open the valve 1/4 of the way.


----------



## TheWiggman (21/11/17)

I don't batch sparge, but if it's sitting for 30 mins I don't think the rate of draining the mash tun will matter. If fly sparging however it's a completely different story.
Matt, check your refractometer against a hydrometer. They can be out of scale as well as incorrectly zeroed (think y = mx + b from back at high school). If you want to make up a solution, get out the scales.

A solution of 50g of table sugar in 500ml of water will give an SG of 1.051. If you mix that up you can check your refractometer with confidence.


----------



## Zoetemeyer (21/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Hi all
> 
> Hoping you can help.
> I'm currently brewing on a three-tier system consisting of 3 56L stainless steel kettles.
> ...


I recently did a brew with 6.5kg grain bill and it used a lot less water than that.


NzBrewerMatt said:


> Hi all
> 
> Hoping you can help.
> I'm currently brewing on a three-tier system consisting of 3 56L stainless steel kettles.
> ...



I recently did an all grain brew with a 6.5kg grain bill. My calc suggested just over 32l all up (strike and sparge water). I ended up with 24.5l post boil and just under 22l in the fermenter (OG 1.070). My efficiency was around 90%. I'm no expert by any stretch, but it seems like a lot your recipe calls for a lot of water.


----------



## Jack of all biers (22/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Thanks, this is something that I'll definitely do tomorrow. I've just been opening the valves fully so I'll definitely only open the valve 1/4 of the way.



Try 1L per minute during initial sparging. It's easy to measure this during vorlauf (recirculation of initial runnings). Then mark the spot on your valve where that speed works. You can speed up later during the sparge (I don't bother) as the speed of the initial part of the sparge is what is most important, but as the mash becomes less concentrated with sugars it frees up a little and can be sped up (but don't go crazy)


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (22/11/17)

Zoetemeyer said:


> I recently did an all grain brew with a 6.5kg grain bill. My calc suggested just over 32l all up (strike and sparge water). I ended up with 24.5l post boil and just under 22l in the fermenter (OG 1.070). My efficiency was around 90%. I'm no expert by any stretch, but it seems like a lot your recipe calls for a lot of water.



Thanks Zoetemeyer. I suspect my numbers in beer Smith could be a bit wrong. Are you using beer Smith? Could you share what values you're using for the likes of boil off etc.


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (22/11/17)

OK guys, an update on today's brew and unfortunately it's not good news...

So firstly, the recipe:

Nelson Sauvin SMaSH
Batch size: 23 litres
Total time: approx. 4 weeks
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.011
IBU: 40
EBC: 10
ABV: 5.75%
Mash time: 60min
Boil time: 60min

5.5kg Gladfield American Ale Malt.

30g Nelson Sauvin @ 45min
1g Kopperfloc @
20g Nelson Sauvin @ 10min
20g Nelson Sauvin @ 0min

So based on Beersmith, it told me the following details:
Mashed in with 17.3L of water @ 65c. I hit this temperature perfectly and maintained it for the whole mash.
Double Batch Sparge, first with 5L of water and 15L of water.

Steps completed:

Heated Strike Water to 70.5c
Mashed in at 65c for 60mins and stirred every 20mins
Vorlaufed until the wort was running clear. Did this slowly.
Drained wort into boil kettle very slowly to sit and wait for the rest of the wort.
Sparged with 5L and stirred
Vorlaufed the second runnings until it was clear
Drained second runnings into the boil kettle.
Added last sparge water (15L) and stirred.
Vorlaufed one last time.
Drained all wort into the boil kettle (total 28 litres)
Boiled for 60mins and added hops
Wort chilled to 20L and final gravity taken... 1.044
As you can see, I was way off my original gravity. I was meant to be hitting 1.055, however, I hit 1.044 post boil.
My pre-boil gravity was 1.039.

That's 60% efficiency.

Pre Boil Volume was 28L. Volume into fermenter was 24.5 Litres.
I also milled my own grains for the first time. (Picture of the milled grains attached.)

Any ideas where I could have gone wrong again? Putting the values into Beersmith, I've got exactly 60% efficiency.

Thanks.


----------



## wereprawn (22/11/17)

My efficiency took a dive a few of months ago. I looked into every possible reason I could think of. Turns out I was over thinking it. My thermometer was out by 8c. If you haven't already, you may want to calibrate your thermometer. It's often the simplest things.


----------



## barls (22/11/17)

for that amount of liquid you should be getting more out of it. 
id expect to loose 1L/kg of grain which leaves 4L unaccounted for.
how much are you leaving in the kettle at the end of the boil.
the only thing i do differently is i sparge with equal volumes when i do it.
my last single bacth was two more kgs of grain than what you used and i got 1071 out of it.


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (22/11/17)

wereprawn said:


> My efficiency took a dive a few of months ago. I looked into every possible reason I could think of. Turns out I was over thinking it. My thermometer was out by 8c. If you haven't already, you may want to calibrate your thermometer. It's often the simplest things.


Yeah i thought this at the start so as well as the thermometer attached to my mash tun and kettle, i grabbed my digital one i had and put the probe into the wort. Both were reading the same.



barls said:


> how much are you leaving in the kettle at the end of the boil.


I'm leaving about 3.5 or so litres at the end of the boil. Most of that is hop trub as I'm just throwing the hops directly in.


----------



## Danscraftbeer (22/11/17)

Keep working on it you'll find it and forget about these woes. A simple key IMO is: More sparge/larger pre boil = higher efficiency given you've got the basics of mash technique and chemistry as well. My brew day is long. You cant rush or speed up the chemistry other than has already been done by the producers of your grain ingredients.
My brew day is 12 hours but that is multitasking other things as well. If Its a no chill brew its 8 hours then add on the time proccessing when you get around to fermenting it etc. I'm often getting 80+% total brew house efficiency with a 70lt esky with no temp control only infusion mashing and sometimes small decoctions to raise up mash temps.
Decoctions can get yummy malty characters too so its all good.


----------



## labels (22/11/17)

Try switching to batch sparging with two batch sparges. Fellow brewer here in Adelaide had exactly the same problem as you have, around 60% efficiency and since switching to batch sparging efficiency has gone up to 75% which is normal. IMHO batch sparging is better suited to home brewing especially for newer brewers as it is fairly foolproof providing your set-up allows for it


----------



## Danscraftbeer (22/11/17)

labels said:


> Try switchingThen siphon that to batch sparging with two batch sparges. Fellow brewer here in Adelaide had exactly the same problem as you have, around 60% efficiency and since switching to batch sparging efficiency has gone up to 75% which is normal. IMHO batch sparging is better suited to home brewing especially for newer brewers as it is fairly foolproof providing your set-up allows for it


To add to this.
Trick is to get the first run off boiling while doing the next sparge. This breaks up the froth (hot break) scenario. To maximise your equipment for volume. 
I batch sparge 4 times. Basically the equal water to grain weight at minimum each time.
Give gentle stir, let sit, Vorlauf until the run off is fairly clear. Then add that to the boil etc etc.
A note that sparging until your run off is around 1.010 you get good efficiency.


----------



## Zoetemeyer (23/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Thanks Zoetemeyer. I suspect my numbers in beer Smith could be a bit wrong. Are you using beer Smith? Could you share what values you're using for the likes of boil off etc.


I'm using the Grainfather and associated app and calculator


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (23/11/17)

Danscraftbeer said:


> My brew day is 12 hours but that is multitasking other things as well. .


 Wow thats a long brew day! Yeah I feel that my process of Mashing/Sparging/Vorlaufing is wrong or something isn't right as I'm just not collecting all the sugars i should be.



labels said:


> Try switching to batch sparging with two batch sparges. Fellow brewer here in Adelaide had exactly the same problem as you have, around 60% efficiency and since switching to batch sparging efficiency has gone up to 75% which is normal. IMHO batch sparging is better suited to home brewing especially for newer brewers as it is fairly foolproof providing your set-up allows for it


I did do a two step batch sparge. I first sparged with 5L of water and then again with 15 litres of water as suggested by Beersmith. I have batch sparged ever since i started with a three tier system so I just can't understand why i am getting poor efficiency.



Danscraftbeer said:


> To add to this.
> Trick is to get the first run off boiling while doing the next sparge. This breaks up the froth (hot break) scenario. To maximise your equipment for volume.
> I batch sparge 4 times. Basically the equal water to grain weight at minimum each time.
> Give gentle stir, let sit, Vorlauf until the run off is fairly clear. Then add that to the boil etc etc.
> A note that sparging until your run off is around 1.010 you get good efficiency.


Yeah i did think about this and whether i should have started heating up the first running's in the boil kettle as it's just sitting there doing nothing/cooling down while i wait for all the sparges do be done and the second and third running's drained into the kettle.

So frustrating


----------



## barls (23/11/17)

have you adjusted in beer smith to account for the 4L loss at the end of the boil.


----------



## Schikitar (23/11/17)

I had terrible efficiency on my last brew, to make that worse I then got terrible attenuation. So my wort finished lower than expected on brew day and now the fermented beer finished higher than expected, very frustrating! The previous two beers I brewed I had the opposite issue yet the process was the same (albeit they were XPAs and this last one was meant to be a BIIPA).

Hopefully you find the cause of your issues and report back!


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (23/11/17)

barls said:


> have you adjusted in beer smith to account for the 4L loss at the end of the boil.


In Beersmith i have it set to 3.5L so would the .5L make a massive difference?



Schikitar said:


> I had terrible efficiency on my last brew, to make that worse I then got terrible attenuation. So my wort finished lower than expected on brew day and now the fermented beer finished higher than expected, very frustrating! The previous two beers I brewed I had the opposite issue yet the process was the same (albeit they were XPAs and this last one was meant to be a BIIPA).
> 
> Hopefully you find the cause of your issues and report back!


Sorry to hear you're having similar issues. As soon as I find the root cause, I will definitely report back on what it was.

I'm thinking its either something to do with Sparging, Water Volumes, Grain crush, Beersmith setup for my system is wrong. I can't think of anything else.


----------



## timmi9191 (23/11/17)

Is any of the malt uncracked after milling. It does look like quite a bit is unmilled, but could be the picture??


----------



## Lionman (23/11/17)

timmi9191 said:


> Is any of the malt uncracked after milling. It does look like quite a bit is unmilled, but could be the picture??



Doesnt look like the best grist. With it looking like that 60% efficiency is not a terrible result. I would definitely be making sure the your milling it fine enough.

Also, if you add the 4L you are leaving in the kettle to the batch size, you are actually getting 70% mash efficiency. To increase your brewhouse efficiency I would be also looking to reduce your kettle loss.

If you can improve the grist (if the photo indicates what I suspect, whole grains remaining) you should be able to improve mash efficiency to 75-80% and combine this with a reduction of kettle losses to 1-2L, you should be getting closer to the target OG.

You mention that 4L is hop and trub, it may contain these but there is still a lot of remaining wort in there too. Consider something like a lauter helix to help reduce the amount of wort left in the kettle, which will allow you to boil off more excess water (or add less in the sparge).


----------



## Lionman (23/11/17)

Actually your numbers are all off,

You state that pre boil volume was 28L, 24.5 ended up in the fermenter and 4L of kettle loss.

28 - 24.5 - 4 = -0.5, so you somehow managed to gain half a litre during the boil...

I think your measurements are off by quite a bit somewhere in your system. You should be losing a good 4L for a 60min boil.


----------



## manticle (23/11/17)

Sorry if I missed it - are you measuring preboil numbers (first runnings and total kettle volume)? Will help iron out the issue if you can pinpoint where it is in the process. Also test and calibrate all measuring equipment - scales, volume measure, thermometer, hydro/ refrac, etc and ensure you are using them correctly.


----------



## manticle (23/11/17)

Malt crack looks fine to me but take any that look whole and give a rub between the fingers. If the husk and grain remain intact, it’s not right.


----------



## TheSumOfAllBeers (24/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> OK guys, an update on today's brew and unfortunately it's not good news...
> 
> So firstly, the recipe:
> 
> ...



First of all I ran your numbers:
Your total extract for that malt is 1698 gravity points. You got 44x24.5=1078 into the FV.

That's 63% brewhouse efficiency meaning your mash efficiency is probably closer to 70% or higher

Basically you don't have an extraction problem. You have a hitting your numbers problem. Work on your liquor ratios your mash is good.

If you boiled off down to 20L you would have had 20x 1.054 wort


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (24/11/17)

Lionman said:


> Doesnt look like the best grist. With it looking like that 60% efficiency is not a terrible result. I would definitely be making sure the your milling it fine enough.
> 
> Also, if you add the 4L you are leaving in the kettle to the batch size, you are actually getting 70% mash efficiency. To increase your brewhouse efficiency I would be also looking to reduce your kettle loss.
> 
> ...



Yeah so Kettle loss is the loss of the wort to trub and the likes right?
Also i do agree that the grains could have been milled slightly finer as there were a few that looked like whole grains still.

Without using a Lauter Helix, is there any way to limit the hop/trub in the bottom of the kettle to get down to 1-2 litres lost?


NzBrewerMatt said:


> I'm leaving about 3.5 or so litres at the end of the boil. Most of that is hop trub as I'm just throwing the hops directly in.


I'm losing about 3.5 litres in the boil, not 4. I may have assumed it was 4 litres in an above post though?

@Lionman could i send you my Beersmith numbers to review? There might be some weird values in fields that I'm not realising.



TheSumOfAllBeers said:


> First of all I ran your numbers:
> Your total extract for that malt is 1698 gravity points. You got 44x24.5=1078 into the FV.
> 
> That's 63% brewhouse efficiency meaning your mash efficiency is probably closer to 70% or higher
> ...


Thanks for the calculations. Do you suspect its an issue with my water volumes?


----------



## Schikitar (24/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Without using a Lauter Helix, is there any way to limit the hop/trub in the bottom of the kettle to get down to 1-2 litres lost?



I don't know if this exactly fits the bill but I've started racking all the trub from my kettle to my 5L flask, cold crash it and then pour off the separated wort to the fermenter the next day (or make a starter from it as I no-chill). This usually nets me an additional ~2L..


----------



## NzBrewerMatt (24/11/17)

Schikitar said:


> I don't know if this exactly fits the bill but I've started racking all the trub from my kettle to my 5L flask, cold crash it and then pour off the separated wort to the fermenter the next day (or make a starter from it as I no-chill). This usually nets me an additional ~2L..


Oh yeah that's not a bad idea on the starter front. I probably can't cold crash it because I'm chilling my wort with an immersion chiller and don't want to risk more contamination.


----------



## Schikitar (24/11/17)

That's fair enough, I boil some water to sanitise my flask (also, give it some starsan treatment for extra safety) before i transfer from the kettle to it, so I'm not worried about infection but yeah, it's a good way to retrieve a good couple more litres from what would otherwise go down the drain. If you do pour it off into another vessel and you're worried about infection you can always reboil the wort on the stovetop as well.

I've got a new mill so I'm going to see if this improves my efficiency - I've suspected that my LHBS hasn't been doing a great job of milling my grains or that the grains they supply aren't as fresh as perhaps they should be (they also substitute grains without asking, grrrr). Will try and get another brew on this weekend to see.. hopefully you get to bottom of your problem!


----------



## Lionman (24/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Yeah so Kettle loss is the loss of the wort to trub and the likes right?



Pretty much.



NzBrewerMatt said:


> Without using a Lauter Helix, is there any way to limit the hop/trub in the bottom of the kettle to get down to 1-2 litres lost?



You can use a bazooka screen, the trick with these (as well as a helix) is to drain the wort slowly, only crack the valve open half way or so to limit the amount of suction. 










you can simply draw from the edge and combined with a good whirlpool you should be able to get pretty much all the wort






hop screen






lauter helix











all images shamelessly stolen off the internet....




NzBrewerMatt said:


> @Lionman could i send you my Beersmith numbers to review? There might be some weird values in fields that I'm not realising.



I think the first thing you need to do is sort out your measurements. You are relying on software that will only be able to predict accurate brew numbers if you feed it accurate data. This means accounting correctly for boil off and kettle loss and getting your pre boil volume right so you know how much usable wort you will get at the end of a boil. 

Your numbers you are quoting don't seem to be lining up right. From what I can work out, your not having that much of a problem with mashing, could maybe improve its efficiency a few points but your not way off target.


----------



## Jack of all biers (24/11/17)

manticle said:


> Sorry if I missed it - are you measuring preboil numbers (first runnings and total kettle volume)? Will help iron out the issue if you can pinpoint where it is in the process. Also test and calibrate all measuring equipment - scales, volume measure, thermometer, hydro/ refrac, etc and ensure you are using them correctly.



Do what Manticle said. Problems tend to compound and are often more than one.


----------



## TheSumOfAllBeers (24/11/17)

NzBrewerMatt said:


> Thanks for the calculations. Do you suspect its an issue with my water volumes?



It's more of a recipe planning issue - you are putting too much water through your process, or you are expecting too much from your system.

You planned for 23L x 55 gravity wort with the grist you used your system can only get 19/20 L 

It's possible that you have entered your system details wrong in your recipe software. You should fix that problem instead of trying to magic a 15% jump in BH efficiency out of thin air (not going to happen)

The key to making a recipe work is to target a specific volume into FV and hit it within 1 L.

It removes one variable from the OG: final volume : efficiency relationship.

Once you know your mash efficiency, then hitting your OG is a matter of using enough grain


----------



## mxd (26/11/17)

A hop sock will help with your trub, more importantly if you’re getting 60% then use that in your recipe, then you can produce the beer you’re trying with the correct bitterness /malt ratio.it may be an extra couple of dollars but you’re making good beer


----------



## claypot (24/12/17)

I was having drama with crap efficiency (60%) on my home made braumiser clone.
I wanted to do full volume mash to make things quicker / simpler.
I chased everything I could think of to find the loss. Even tried mashing with 20lt and sparging but the negligible increase wasn't work the hassle. 
For a while I was happy to just add more grain, until I brewed a dark ale, and my efficiency shot up!

For simple reference:
Pale beer: 5.2 kg of pale grain in 30lt mash = 19lt finished beer @ 4.3 - 4.8% ABV (FG 1.006 - 1.008)
Dark Beer: 5.2 kg of pale grain including 300gm of dark grains = 19lt finished beer @ 5.8% ABV (FG 1.012)
Same trub volume and process variables for both.

Had never bothered to measure / monitor PH. So it turns out I'm not achieving optimum mash PH on my pale brews. I've found PH metres and PH strips problematic so done away with them. I'm now adding acid to the mash water and now starting to see my efficiency rise towards what I was seeing for the dark beer.
Ass about way of doing it I know but measuring the PH was giving me the shits. I'm going to try acidulated malt at 2% next brew.

If anyone can recommend a decent brand of PH strips that are targeted for the brewing range that would be grate.


----------



## peteru (25/12/17)

I looked into pH strips and quite simply could not find anything that seemed accurate and cost effective.

In the end I ended up getting a cheap electronic meter from China. One of the newer ones, with 3 point electronic calibration and 0.01 pH resolution. Not the older ones with a screwdriver adjustment. For under $10 delivered, it came with batteries and three calibration buffers that should last a year. So far I used it on three brews and am happy with it.

I was surprised that my mash pH was much higher than expected (5.6 pH) for a red beer. Dropping sparge water pH from 7.6 to 5.2 pH took a miniscule amount of lactic acid when compared to the amount needed to take the mash from 5.6 to 5.2 pH. I can't say that it has improved my efficiency dramatically, maybe 2-3% better, but that could be down to any other factor. However, I did notice that the lower pH resulted in less astringency and more character in the beer.

Better grain crush has made a much bigger difference to my efficiency. That one was noticeable straight away, going from low 70% to mid-80%.


----------

