# My efficiency sucks, can you help?



## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Hi All,
I’m having a somewhat frustrating time with my efficiency and I’m wondering if anyone can give me some pointers. When I started brewing AG on my system I was hitting around 72%, I’ve done 20 brews now and for the last 5 or 6 brews my efficiency has plummeted to an average of about 62%. I made a few adjustments to a brew on the weekend, including building a new copper manifold for my mash tun and adding Calcium Chloride at approx. 1/1000 (a reccomendation I got from here for melbourne water), but was only able to get it up to 64%. I’ve always been pretty close with my volume estimates, usually within 0.5L


To be honest I’m still making beer that I really enjoy, and I’m compensating for my low efficiency when I design my recipes (in Beersmith) so the only real detriment is the cost of an additional ½ kilo or so of grain and a few extra grams of hops so that extra $2 or so is really not killing me, but knowing that I should be getting better efficiency is nagging at me, I want to do this right. I'm re reading John Palmer's How To Brew but if there is anything that stands out to any of you I would love to hear it.


So if you can be bothered you can read my brew day process below, it’s a bit ghetto in a few spots but if this forum has taught me anything it is that ghetto is the essence of brewing 


*Equipment:*

1 x Keggle with 3 ring burner
1 x 44L square esky mash tun with copper manifold (pic below)
1 x 8L bucket for moving water around
1 x 25L esky for storing first runnings while sparge water goes into the mash tun





*Method (using a medium body pale ale as an example):*

Grain goes into the mash tun
Heat Mash In water in keggle to 76C (1C higher than beersmith calculates to account for loss of temp during transfer)
Transfer Mash In water to mash tun via 8L bucket
Mix well with mash paddle, cover with a piece of foil to keep heat in, seal esky lid
Mash for 1 hour
Heat Mash Out water in keggle to 96C
Transfer Mash Out water to mash tun using 8L bucket
Stir with mash paddle, cover & seal
Leave for 10 minutes
Gently run off around 4L of liquor (until clear) and return to top of mash (poured gently over foil to not disturb grain bed)
Drain liquor from mash tun to 25L esky (tap set at about ½ open so it is a gentle drain, takes 15 to 20 minutes)
Heat Sparge water in keggle to 76C
Once first runnings have drained from mash tun seal 25L esky
Add Sparge water to mash tun, stir, seal and wait 10 minutes
Pour first runnings from 25L esky into keggle (and down my shirt, over my hands & feet etc) and turn burner on
Drain 2nd runnings liquor from mash tun to 25L esky (tap set at about ½ open so it is a gentle drain, takes 15 to 20 minutes)
Pour 2nd runnings from 25L esky into keggle
Bring to boil, add hops, add whirlfloc, flameout & cube


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## Cosh (23/7/13)

You mention that your efficiency has dropped from 72% to 64%; what have you changed in your process since then?

Are you taking accurate temperature measurements during the mash?

An important thing to check is the grain crush; do you mill the grain yourself, or do you get the HBS to do it for you?


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## GalBrew (23/7/13)

I remember Palmer discussing dead spots in mash tuns that use manifolds. Basically he said that any sugars that fall below the level of the manifold slits will be lost and hamper efficiency. I think he even suggested putting the slits on the underside of the manifold to maximise the amount of useful sugars that can be lautered from the mash tun. Either way a false bottom may increase your efficiency purely because you have increase lauter efficiency. Just a thought.


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

I don't think I've changed anything process wise, that is the real head scratcher. 

I have 2 thermometers I use for measuing temps and they are close to the same, I don't measure the temp during the mash as I havent wanted to disturb it, and I usually forget to check it after the mash (although I can tell you the spent grain is the perfect temp to jam a bottle of Saki into before serving). I'll be taking a heap of measurements during my next brew so I can see exactly what is happening.

I get my grain milled at my HBS and have been using 2 stores regularly, Keg King & Core Brewing Concepts with the same results from both. Micah at CBC ran my last lot through the mill twice to give me a finer crush but I still had no change in efficiency. I always use the grain within a couple of days of it being milled.


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

I used Palmer's guide when measuring up my manifold so it should be well away from the sides, will definetley add some slits to the bottom before the next brew though


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## MastersBrewery (23/7/13)

after each your 10min rests, for mashout and sparge, I would be giving it a good stir, then drain and return until clear.
I hope that isn't too ambiguous


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## donburke (23/7/13)

has your water profile changed ? might not have enough trace minerals

were the beers that you managed better efficiency darker ? might be a ph issue

are you checking your gravity at the same temperature ? check your hydrometer is calibrated


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Haven't tried that MB, I thought that rest was for the grain bed to settle again. I will definetley try this, thanks.


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## Ross (23/7/13)

pm sent.

cheers Ross


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

I don't think my water profile has changed donburke, I'm still using the same melbourne tap water so I would guess there would be a a whole lot more people with issues if it had changed. I drank all the beers from the first brews already so cant compare unfortunatley.

I've calibrated my hydrometer to 15.6C and I use Brewzor on my phone to do the calculations if the wort is at a different temp


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## RelaxedBrewer (23/7/13)

Is the mash temp you listed (76C) correct? That is a very high mash temp.
I use 66C for medium body beer and 69C for fuller body.

Not 100% sure what happens when you mash that high.


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Thats the temp Beersmith reccomends to add, drops to 66ish once mixed with the grain etc. 

Mash in temp is actually 73C, forgot I had beersmith on my phone to refer to


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## RelaxedBrewer (23/7/13)

Ah, ok those temps make much more sense now.

I also mash in an eski, but I give it a quick stir every 15 min or so. I found this improved my efficiency.

Also how much water to grain are you using for mash and sparge?


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## dicko (23/7/13)

ro55c0 said:


> I used Palmer's guide when measuring up my manifold so it should be well away from the sides, will definetley add some slits to the bottom before the next brew though


Just turn the manifold over so that the slits are ALL at the bottom. More will run off that way.

Grain crush is the main cause of poor efficiency or in your case the efficiency changing.
There are a lot of Braumeisters around now and maybe the HBS is milling with a gap to suit these units which generally is wider than what you would want for a manifold...just a thought!!

Cheers

Cheers


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## manticle (23/7/13)

At what point are you coming in low? Knowing whereabouts in the process will help you iron it out. For example, is it conversion/mash efficiency or sparging?

And yeah - slits on the bottom. Could add in a third section to the manifold (longitudinal central piece)


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## Truman42 (23/7/13)

Is the picture of the manifold your new one or your your old one? You could try adding a few more sections of copper in the middle to increase the surface area you have to collect wort or switch to a false bottom as Galbrew suggested.

I have a copper manifold you can have, (and Im just around the corner from Micah in Lyndhurst)



> Grain crush is the main cause of poor efficiency or in your case the efficiency changing.
> There are a lot of Braumeisters around now and maybe the HBS is milling with a gap to suit these units which generally is wider than what you would want for a manifold...just a thought!!


Dicko has a point. Ive seen the gap size on Micahs mill and it may be a bit too large for a manifold. I have mine set to .9 mm. As an experiment if you buy your grain from him unmilled next time, I can crush it for you and see how much difference it makes. But I have noticed an increase from 70% up to 82% since I started milling my own grain.


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Wow, I'm feeling the love from you guys today 

Relaxed Brewer, Stirring during the mash is an interesting idea, do you lose a lot of temperature that way? I'll have a shot at it. For a 25L brew with 7kg of grain I mash in with 18.5L, mash out with 10.5L and sparge with 10.5L. 

Dicko, great idea with turning the manifold, will flip for the next brew.

Manticle, I'm not sure exactly where but I'll be taking every kind of reading I can at every point for my next brew to see where the issue lies. I'll add a crossbar or two next chance I get.

Truman, it's my new one (still shiny), previously I was using a coil of stainless braid. Thanks for the generous offer, I'd like to persevere with making my own one for the moment, just so I can say I did  Micah has always been really accomodating so I'll ask him if he can set the gap to 0.9mm next time I buy grain from him, if not I'd love to take you up on your offer of milling at your house, will make sure there are a few bottles of beer in the car with me so we don't dehydrate while the mill is doing its work, will PM you if Micah cant help me. Looks like a mill should be next on my wish list, will have to butter the missus up before the tax return comes in.


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## Ducatiboy stu (23/7/13)

I found grain crush caused probs... you actually need a reasonable amount of flour as well...upto 25-30%...

Also I recirc the sparge water thru the tun untill it is clear and use boiling water to sparge


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Ducatiboy Stu, what do you mean by recirculating? I currently draw off around 4L (more if I don't feel the liquor has cleared enough) and add it back to the top of the mash, is that what you mean?


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## Truman42 (23/7/13)

If you explain the situation to Micah he should change the gap for you. But if he doesnt want to or is unable to for some reason, the offers there.


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## GalBrew (23/7/13)

I guarantee you (by looking at the pic of your mash tun) that you are leaving behind quite a bit of good stuff in your mash tun with your current manifold setup. Sure youwill never get a 100% efficient lauter, but if it was my system I would redesign the manifold from scratch or scrap it and go to the biggest falsie (round or rectangular) that will fit your esky.


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## felten (23/7/13)

Where and how are you measuring the efficiency? I think it would be worthwhile to troubleshoot via this braukaiser article.


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## dicko (23/7/13)

Over the years I have gone from a manifold, similar to the above pic to a false bottom and on to a BM and I found I could run a smaller gap on my 3 roller Crankenstein for the manifold than I could on the false bottom or the BM.
The FB system had a herms and the mash used to stick until I opened the mill up one notch. Then I had to open it again for the BM.
Take Truman up on his offer and crush a bit smaller, you might be surprised exactly how much you will gain.

Cheers


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

GalBrew, while I recognise a false bottom will give me better efficiency than a copper manifold, surely 64% is horrendously low?


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Felten, I'm using the calculator in beersmith, will have a look at the article you linked.

Dicko, a finer crush will absolutley be a part of my next brew.


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## GalBrew (23/7/13)

ro55c0 said:


> GalBrew, while I recognise a false bottom will give me better efficiency than a copper manifold, surely 64% is horrendously low?


I think it you increased the size of your manifold, made it as low as possible with the slits on the bottom you will improve lautering without switching to a falsie. Perhaps you need to start measuring how much wort you leave behind to get an idea of how efficient your lautering is? It's all guesses until you have some hard data. Also 64% is not great, but its not THAT bad either. Start off with a finer crush (seems to be the easiest to implement) and just keep an eye on how much wort you leave behind, make a descision based on that.


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## WarmBeer (23/7/13)

I've found 3 things that have contributed to a low, or inconsistent, efficiency on my system. Like you, I mash in an esky, but use a Beerbelly triangular false bottom.

These were; water chemistry, performing a double batch sparge rather than a single sparge, and grain crush size.

You seem to have your chemicals under control, and Core Brewing should be doing a fairly accurate grain crush.

Try swapping your Mash Out for a second sparge batch? If you're transferring straight into the kettle and hitting it with heat, the wort is going to be above mash out temps pretty quickly regardless. It helped me get a pretty consistent ~75% efficiency.


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## peter.brandon (23/7/13)

Maybe be a silly question but have your recipes for last 5 or 6 brews been any different to the last 20?
- Higher gravity planned? therefore lower eff
- different grain?
- different mash water levels?


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## Ducatiboy stu (23/7/13)

ro55c0 said:


> Ducatiboy Stu, what do you mean by recirculating? I currently draw off around 4L (more if I don't feel the liquor has cleared enough) and add it back to the top of the mash, is that what you mean?


Yep


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

GalBrew, since I'm such a dab-hand with a hacksaw (refer to the craftsmanship in the pic of my manifold) I'll definetley be pimping my manifold with extra bars. I did measure how much fluid sits in the bottom of the esky before it can drain into the manifold and its around 1L, less with grain mixed in, but there is a rise of about 1cm from the manifold to the tap which I havent accounted for. Will definetley take this measurement in my next brew.

Warmbeer I added the Mash Out step because my understanding is raising the temperature increases the solubility of sugars in the water, I think the word fluidity was used too but I can't remember exactly how so I will say it also makes it more fluidity. I'll try the stirring again before draining frst and if that doesnt work I'll give a second sparge a go.

Plyers I brew all sorts of different stuff but always come back to pretty standard american pale ales, I've only raised my grain bill from 6 to 7kg in reaction to my decreased efficiency (so I don't brew midstrength)

Ducatiboy Stu, sweet


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## Ducatiboy stu (23/7/13)

You dont need a mashout step if you sparge with boilng water as this essentially is a mashout


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## WarmBeer (23/7/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> You dont need a mashout step.


FTFY


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Haven't got time to type up everything I just learned but wanted to take a moment to say thanks to Ross at Craftbrewer who just spent 45 minutes on the phone patiently explaining everything to me and showing me where I can improve. It's attitudes like this that make the homebrewing world such an awesome place. Thanks Ross, you have made my week!


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## Phillo (23/7/13)

Interested to hear how you go mate. I just switched from BIAB to 3V (3 brews ago) and am trying to sort out my lousy efficiency. I went from ~75% efficiency with BIAB to 66% 3V. I'm sure I'll get there, but more advice is always good.

This weekend just gone, I tried the following.


Finer crush (BIAB style, plenty of flour)
Stirred the mash halfway through, adding boiling water to bring temps back up
Did two sparges, stirring the crap out of the mash each time

Still only got 66%.

Not overly bothered, as long as the numbers are consistent each time, but I think there's a small matter of pride in there somewhere. :lol:


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## r055c0 (23/7/13)

Phillo, pride is a big part of why I want to improve my efficiency 

I'll just summarize what Ross went through with me, hope I got it close to right, my apologies if I've buggered it up, Ross went into a heap more detail than this and I was a little worried about posting the info in case I get a part of it wrong and dilute his message, however I know I would want to see the info if I was reading this post.

1 - Turn my manifold the right way around, slots to the bottom. Redesign if possible, drill holes instead of slots as the size of the gap between the bottom of your mash tun and the top of the highest hole will be the place where air is sucked in first and as soon as air is sucked in the siphon effect is lost and no more wort will be drained from the mash.

2 - Mash in volume - aim for 2.3L to 2.5L of water per kg of grain

3 - Mash out volume & temp - Mash out water should be close to boiling. Calculate the additional volume as Mash in + Mash out - liquid lost to grain soaking it up (around 1L per kg of grain) should come to 50% of your target preboil volume

4 - There is no point draining slowly for batch sparging, as long as the grain bed is set drain as fast as you like, can always stir the mash again if you get a stuck sparge.

5 - Sparge volume & temperature - sparge volume should be 50% of the pre boil target and temperature should be hot, use the water that was brought to boiling for the mash out step (turn off the heat at mash out, the temp should drop a couple of degrees but will be fine for sparge), aim for a temp of about 80C once sparge water has been added to grain.

I can't stress enough how helpful Ross was, he didn't make me feel silly at all and showed none of the brewer elitism that can discourage new brewers from asking questions. If I'm ever in QLD I'll be sure to drop by the store


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## Phillo (23/7/13)

Nice one. Thanks mate And thanks to Ross as well. :beerbang:


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## Bizier (23/7/13)

I would switch to ghetto version of a fly sparge after a good runoff, it is not that hard and you should be able to get good eff.

If you are happy with infusion and batch sparge, I have a couple of suggestions:

I don't know if it would work, but if you do a little first wort runoff BEFORE mashout, you might get some "free" undiluted sugar straight off the bat, with the mashout liquor having to pull more from the grain. Just run off what is easy.

I don't know if you mentioned stand times, but ensure you are allowing time for any additional liquor added to osmotically balance sugar contents with the mash solids. I would also stir the crap outta these to ensure homogeneity. If you were hell bent on efficiency, then you could divide your sparging into more than one (obviously smaller volume) steps.

At the end of the day it is just homebrew, more science and technique allows me better efficiency, but I hardly measure anything. It will be beer, potentially award winning, but no-one lives or dies by our decisions to alter our mash schedule.


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## r055c0 (28/7/13)

Installed my new manifold last night (same style but drilled 2mm holes and turned it so the holes were facing downwards) and tried it out with some plain water to see how much got left behind. The manifold sucked it pretty much dry, there was only 330ml left and probably half of that was from the little well under the tap. Cant wait to try it out with a brew next weekend


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## jdooley (28/7/13)

Mash overnight. Problem will be solved.


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## 431neb (29/7/13)

From my experience in chasing better efficiency(BIAB) - which has met with only limited success - I got better results from a finer crush than I did from a three hour mash. I'm still sitting on around 70 % with no sparge so I have a way to go.

There could be other factors at work, water chemistry, mash temperature, the composition of the grist etc so all I can offer is a little more anecdotal evidence that might be useful to someone.


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## bum (29/7/13)

431neb said:


> I'm still sitting on around 70 % with no sparge so I have a way to go.


What's wrong with 70%?


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## JDW81 (29/7/13)

431neb said:


> From my experience in chasing better efficiency(BIAB) - which has met with only limited success - I got better results from a finer crush than I did from a three hour mash. I'm still sitting on around 70 % with no sparge so I have a way to go.


Why do you want to increase you efficiency? There is nothing wrong with 70%. Hell there is nothing really wrong with 65%. Consistency is far more important than efficiency. If you are consistent then you can be sure your brews are balanced (as far as IBUs:Gravity ratios go). I'd much rather hit a regular and consistent 65%, than float between 80 and 85%. For me, hitting targets is far more important than chasing (in many cases) the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow known as high efficiency.

If you want to aim for 85% then more power to you, but high efficiency isn't necessarily the sign of a good brewer and won't guarantee you will make a good beer.

Let me just don my flame suit before I continue.

I think there are quite a few brewers who over-inflate their efficiency numbers in the interest of competing in the pissing competition that is the efficiency race.

Grain is cheap, so chuck in a extra few hundred grams to get your numbers up and concentrate on making good beer.

My 2c and more than happy to cop abuse from those who believe high efficiency is essential to making excellent beer.

JD.


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## 431neb (29/7/13)

Bum / JDW, I guess I bought into the pissing contest. From my reading (here)I figured it was a bit low.


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

A proper crush is essentiall for improved eff. I aim for about 20-30% flour and no whole grains but try to keep the husk in tact.


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## Phillo (29/7/13)

3V or BIAB Stu?


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

3v.......but I cant see why it would make a difference between the two....but I have never BIAB...


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## Phillo (29/7/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> 3v.......but I cant see why it would make a difference between the two....but I have never BIAB...


Because the holes in a mesh bag are a wee bit smaller than holes in a manifold or falsie AFAIK, so most BIABers use a finer crush.


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

Hole size should have minimal effect on efficiency when it comes to crush...regardless of which method if you go to fine or to much flour you will end up with a stuck sparge....or drain in the case of BIAB


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## Donske (29/7/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Hole size should have minimal effect on efficiency when it comes to crush...regardless of which method if you go to fine or to much flour you will end up with a stuck sparge....or drain in the case of BIAB



I went for a really fine crush on the brew I did on the weekend (BIAB with craftbrewer bag) and had the best drainage I've managed from the bloody thing, my efficiency still sucked but the time it took to drain wasn't unfuckingbearable like normal.

Just my 2 cents, I'm at the point where I'm just going to work with the 60% efficiancy I'm getting and get over it, pulling my bloody hair out trying to get anywhere near 70%.


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

Inteteresting....how fine was it...one mans fine is anothermans medium. Husks also help..the more intact the better.

A good tip is to wet your grain lightly before milling. this allows the husk to soften and remain intact but still allowing the hard endosperm to be crushed.You only need about 150ml to 5kg of grain.


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## Donske (29/7/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Inteteresting....how fine was it...one mans fine is anothermans medium. Husks also help..the more intact the better.
> 
> A good tip is to wet your grain lightly before milling. this allows the husk to soften and remain intact but still allowing the hard endosperm to be crushed.You only need about 150ml to 5kg of grain.



Fairly fine, I'd say at least 30% flour and husks shredded, not on purpose, just kind of worked out that way using a mates home made mill.

Going to get my own mill soon I think so I can perfectly control my crush and remove another variable from my brewing.

I like the idea of wetting the grain before crushing, is there any methodoligy involved like leaving to soften up or merely throw some water over the grain bill and then mill?


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## bum (29/7/13)

You don't need to be terribly concerned with the quality of husks with BIAB. You don't use a grain bed in that method so you can cope with much higher levels of flour.


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

You have to stir the water through...basically put your grain in a bucket tip in the water then stick your hand in and stir so all the grains get damp. You dont need much water...less than a cup. Too much water will soften the grain. Let it sit for 5-10mins.


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/7/13)

bum said:


> You don't need to be terribly concerned with the quality of husks with BIAB. You don't use a grain bed in that method so you can cope with much higher levels of flour.


True. But it wont hurt either. Would be interesting to see the diff with BIAB. I know with mash tuns it does help


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## bum (29/7/13)

When you pull the bag out all the wort basically run out around the outside(ish). There's no real concept of lautering with BIAB. I mean some guys set up all these pumps and stuff so they're setting up a grainbed but it is all undone when they pull the bag out.


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## r055c0 (6/8/13)

So I followed Ross' advice with a brew over the weekend and found a couple of things I'll need to adjust for. 

My mash temp was 4C lower than I expected, looks like although I calculated for the change between the grain and the water I hadn't allowed for the temperature of the mash tun itself.
My prowess as a Microsoft Excel Wurzurd has been called into question as I completely stuffed up a calculation and didn't allow for grain soaking up water in the mash, meaning I fell 6L short of my target. The good news about this part is if I had added the extra water I would have nailed my volume so the rest of the calculations seem sound.
I was happy with the rest of my results, mash tun only dropped 0.5C over the course of a 2 hour mash (yep, I was chatting with mates and forgot, drinking may have been involved), my gravity came out close to what I had been looking for and the overall process was pretty smooth. Looking forward to doing it again with the adjusted temps and volumes.


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## mash head (6/8/13)

Good work.


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## Dunkelbrau (7/8/13)

JDW81 said:


> Why do you want to increase you efficiency? There is nothing wrong with 70%. Hell there is nothing really wrong with 65%. Consistency is far more important than efficiency. If you are consistent then you can be sure your brews are balanced (as far as IBUs:Gravity ratios go). I'd much rather hit a regular and consistent 65%, than float between 80 and 85%. For me, hitting targets is far more important than chasing (in many cases) the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow known as high efficiency.
> 
> If you want to aim for 85% then more power to you, but high efficiency isn't necessarily the sign of a good brewer and won't guarantee you will make a good beer.
> 
> ...


As a New-ish AG brewer, I've come in with 57.5% efficiency, I'm not saying that its everything, but if I CAN make some small changes to my gear/process to make my brewing that slight bit more economical, I think it's a good idea to try, especially if it helps be more consistant. Without knowledge we are at the mercy of the day, if we brew with the same methods, we will be getting the same results. 

I think knowing where you sit with efficiency is important, especially for accurate recipe formulation.


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## MCHammo (7/8/13)

Jurt said:


> As a New-ish AG brewer, I've come in with 57.5% efficiency, I'm not saying that its everything, but if I CAN make some small changes to my gear/process to make my brewing that slight bit more economical, I think it's a good idea to try, especially if it helps be more consistant. Without knowledge we are at the mercy of the day, if we brew with the same methods, we will be getting the same results.
> 
> I think knowing where you sit with efficiency is important, especially for accurate recipe formulation.


+1.

I know my first brew was a bit of a mess. Just worked out that I got 48% efficiency... Improved a few things (mainly temperature wise) for the second brew and came out at about 59%. I know I've got a way to go yet experience wise, but... onwards and upwards. It's nice to know a few of these little tips to try and get a bit more consistency and extract.


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## Aydos (7/8/13)

Are people talking mash eff or into fermenter eff? Those figures are pretty low for mash eff but if your achieving 70% into the fermenter then you would he achieving around 80% mash eff. That by no means is a bad effort.

How do you add your grains to the mashtun?


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## Dunkelbrau (7/8/13)

I'm talking mash efficiency.. My into fermenter efficiency was 50.7%


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## MCHammo (7/8/13)

My numbers were brewhouse efficiency (into the fermenter). Can't speak for anyone else.


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## r055c0 (7/8/13)

My numbers are brewhouse efficiency as calculated by Beersmith, to be honest I didn't realise the distinction between brewhouse efficiency and mash efficiency until about 20 posts into this thread 
As noted by a few others here I'm not trying to increase my efficiency simply because of the economics of brewing (although that is a small part of it), it's more because if I'm doing something wrong I would rather be doing it right. It's been a great learning process for me, cant wait to apply what I've learned to my next brew, and what I learn from that to the brew that comes after, and so on


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## JDW81 (7/8/13)

Jurt said:


> As a New-ish AG brewer, I've come in with 57.5% efficiency, I'm not saying that its everything, but if I CAN make some small changes to my gear/process to make my brewing that slight bit more economical, I think it's a good idea to try, especially if it helps be more consistant. Without knowledge we are at the mercy of the day, if we brew with the same methods, we will be getting the same results.
> 
> I think knowing where you sit with efficiency is important, especially for accurate recipe formulation.


I totally agree. Efficiency isn't everything, but it is important to try and get to minimum of about 65%. Anything above that is a bonus, but IMHO there isn't a great need to push for anything much greater than 70-75%. Consistency is far more important, and the more you brew the more consistent you will become. And you're right, consistency helps your brews become more predictable.

Depending on what your setup is it shouldn't be too hard to jump from 57% to 65-70%. What sort of set-up do you have, and what is your process?


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## Dunkelbrau (7/8/13)

I have moved from BIAB to 2 Kegs and a 36L pot, mash, sparged with 2 lots of water, reciculating to settle the grain bed, boiled. 

A lot of mine was kettle loss (into fv efficiency) as I hadn't installed a pickup tube. And I believe I crushed too coarse on the mash side of it all.


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## felten (8/8/13)

JDW81 said:


> I totally agree. Efficiency isn't everything, but it is important to try and get to minimum of about 65%. Anything above that is a bonus, but IMHO there isn't a great need to push for anything much greater than 70-75%. Consistency is far more important, and the more you brew the more consistent you will become. And you're right, consistency helps your brews become more predictable.
> 
> Depending on what your setup is it shouldn't be too hard to jump from 57% to 65-70%. What sort of set-up do you have, and what is your process?


What efficiency though? into the bottles? into the fermenter? pre-boil, post-boil, mash efficiency?

I may get 75% mash efficiency, and then 65% into the fermenter, and 55% into bottles (pulling these numbers out of the air).

Efficiency percentage needs a context.


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## Dunkelbrau (8/8/13)

My numbers are specified above.. 57.5% mash eff and 50.7% fv eff.

I spent a few minutes with my mill this afternoon and got what looks like a good crush, the hulls were intact, but the inner section nice and broken. Will try it out and report back!


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## Pickaxe (8/8/13)

mash Ph and calcium levels were mentioned to me to increase efficiency. But, as I'm learning, better to get temp and other things sorted before attempting water chem. I'm 6 in and looking at water chem, mainly mash ph to better eff, but I have managed to hit 65 a few times now..

All good beer mind you. Water volumes were my biggest first hurdle as I am using goombas 2 pot with lauter method. And temps. Good 65 degree mash tenps was my biggest improvement to date.


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