60% efficiency batch sparge ok?

[jhsbaker]

Hi, I am mashing in a 50L Eski with a copper manifold, batch sparging. My mash is always 65-66degC, pH 5.2 - 5.5. Drop in temp typically 2-3 degC

I reliably hit pre boil gravity that correlates to 60% efficiency according to Beersmith. Does this sound reasonable? I do not want to fly sparge as I can't justify the extra time.

Any tips to get some additional efficiency out of this system? Not really fussed but if I can it would be good.

 

[Mardoo]

The manifold, milling and your measurements would be the first the first things to look at. Pix of the manifold?

 

[Adr_0]

What is your mash out temp like? I do single batch sparge on a 2V and get 77-82% mash efficiency consistently. The times it is lowI have missed my mash out temp by a couple of degrees (and higher is when I step through protein as well).

Glad that your pH is good.

As Mardoo says, check your crush and temps are accurate. The reason temps areiimportant is that if your actual temp is lower thanwwhat you measure, the beta enzymes may be favoured more which take LONGER to work, so yoummight be cutting your masha bbit short.

Are you breaking up dough balls and stirring your mash? Dough balls will knock chunks off your efficiency and it is analogous to leaving a small percentage of grains out of your mash. Make sure they are well and truly broken up.

 

[warra48]

60% seems very low to me. Are you talking mash efficiency or brwehouse efficiency?

I mash 25 litre batches. My mashtun is only a 25 litre cooler, and I drain it with a manifold. I do a mashout addition to top up the cooler, then run off. I refill the mashtun and batch sparge. If needed I top up my kettle to my desired preboil volume.

I never get less than 90% mash efficiency.

You really need to look at your system and find out where you are losing out. Perhaps with the bigger footprint of a 50 litre Esky, you could be leaving a lot behind in its dead space. That would be the first thing I would look at. Second would be to do a mashout addition to make your runoff more fluid by raising the temperature of the mash. Similarly, with your sparge addition you need to make it hot enough to have the mash at about 78ºC or so. Do you cover the mash in the Esky while mashing? If not, look at making some insulating cover for inside the Esky. Personally, I use a couple of layers of yoga mat trimmed to fit exactly on top of my mash. I lose no more than 1ºC during my usual 75 minute mash, tops.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Batch sparge with boiling water, stir, let sit for 10 or so minutes, recirculate until wort becomes clear ( as opposed to very cloudy when you first start recirculation), drain...repeat

 

[verysupple]

Batch sparging is a simple process. There's basically three ways to lose efficiency:

1) Not getting complete conversion during the mash. Unless something is really wrong you should get pretty close to complete conversion.

2) Not getting enough of the sugars into solution. As an example. this is evident when a large grain bill is used and not a lot of sparge water is used - the efficiency typically goes down because more of the sugar stays caught up in the grain.

3) Leaving too much liquid behind. Really just dead spaces.

1) shouldn't be a problem. 2) might be a problem depending on your procedures. 3) can often be a problem with poorly designed manifolds.

How much dead space do you have?

How much grain do you typically use, what's your liquor to grist ratio, and what's the typical volume of water you use to batch sparge?

EDIT: For a reference point, I use a bucket-in-bucket lauter with 1.4 L dead space. I typically mash 5.0 kg at 2.6 L/kg (13 L mash water) and use ~ 18 L for the batch sparge. This gives me 78 - 81 % efficiency into the kettle. For me it's all about grain absorption and the dead space.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Batch sparging is a simple process. There's basically three ways to lose efficiency:

1) Not getting complete conversion during the mash. Unless something is really wrong you should get pretty close to complete conversion.

Most malts now will convert fairly quickly. A a lot of conversion happens in the frist 20-30 mins. 60 mins makes sure you get as much as possible

2) Not getting enough of the sugars into solution. As an example. this is evident when a large grain bill is used and not a lot of sparge water is used - the efficiency typically goes down because more of the sugar stays caught up in the grain.

TRUE...so very true. The aim is to rinse as much sugar out of the grain bed. When your mash is done pour in a jug full of boiling water and give it a gentle stir. This will help rinse out more sugars and perform a mash-out. let it sit then start to recirculate. untill it runs clear. Then start sparge 2 with boiling water, stir it, let it sit, recirc and drain. Re circulating will help give a clearer wort as their wont be as mush grain trub in the kettle. The boiling water also raises the grain bed temp up making it easier to rinse the sugars out

3) Leaving too much liquid behind. Really just dead spaces.

Yep. If your leaving anything more than a glass full in the mash tun then you are wasting wort

1) shouldn't be a problem. 2) might be a problem depending on your procedures. 3) can often be a problem with poorly designed manifolds.

How much dead space do you have?

How much grain do you typically use, what's your liquor to grist ratio, and what's the typical volume of water you use to batch sparge?

EDIT: For a reference point, I use a bucket-in-bucket lauter with 1.4 L dead space. I typically mash 5.0 kg at 2.6 L/kg (13 L mash water) and use ~ 18 L for the batch sparge. This gives me 78 - 81 % efficiency into the kettle. For me it's all about grain absorption and the dead space.

Sorry for hijacking your post VS

 

[Adr_0]

With the boiling water, I assume you go from a sacch temp to mashout temp using boiling water, i.e. your grain bed is not already at 76-78°C?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

With the boiling water, I assume you go from a sacch temp to mashout temp using boiling water, i.e. your grain bed is not already at 76-78°C?

YES...NO......sort of

Adding boiling water does not increase the temp of your grain bed as much as you think. Remember your grain bed is already hot ~65ish*c

Take into account the volume of the grain and wort and the extra jug full of boiling water and the temp wont increase that much...

When you do your 2nd sparge run, remember that the grain bed temp is actually a bit lower, only about 1*c ( sometimes if you have a shit hot mashtun the bed temp can increase...but not by much)

So adding boiling water to a bed temp of say 65*c will actually only bring it up about the low 70^c

Your 3rd sparge will bring the bed temp up above 75*c

There are some math sites if you are really keen

NOTE: My measurements are taken from a 26Ltr esky with stainless false bottom made from 2 sheets of 3/16 perforated sheet overlapped so each hole was crescesnt shaped

 

[durgarth]

I really don't understand why we worry about efficiency. The difference between a 60% and 75% rate is approximately 800grams for a standard 22 litre batch. We ( and I James I am assuming you are too) are home brewers. We do not need to worry about efficiency, unless we are getting 50% and no matter the system we all get that, why do we worry. I buy bulk, but even if I bought from my local it would be $5 a kilo at worst. The difference is about $3.

Its all about the numbers for me. If I plan a beer and hope to get 1055 (knowing my efficiency is crap), I will happily add more grain and spend the $3, if the beer runs high, and the efficiency gods are good and I run 1065, well in my mind its a matter of water. Just add some.

I understand the need to make a better beer, I really do, but efficiency is last on my list. Trying not to be controversial

 

[wynnum1]

How do you measure gravity if there is any error may be higher efficiency and have you tried to get the residue sugar from spent grain to see if it has been converted .

 

[Adr_0]

You can do a first runnings test to see what your SG is vs SG at 100% conversion.

You need to know the extract of the malts you are using, eg 1.038. If this is expressed in %, I believe that is assuming 1.046 (sugar) is 100% so 82% extract potential (of the grain, from the datasheet) is 1.038. I don't know the metric units, but you basically go:

8lb of, 1.038
1lb of 1.035 is
9lb at 1.339
All divided by your mash water volume NOT your preboil it batch volume, eg:
1.339 / 4.5gal (ie 17L water) which gives 1.075 as a first runnings target SG. 1.071 would then be 94% conversion efficiency.

 

[Adr_0]

I really don't understand why we worry about efficiency. The difference between a 60% and 75% rate is approximately 800grams for a standard 22 litre batch. We ( and I James I am assuming you are too) are home brewers. We do not need to worry about efficiency, unless we are getting 50% and no matter the system we all get that, why do we worry. I buy bulk, but even if I bought from my local it would be $5 a kilo at worst. The difference is about $3.
Its all about the numbers for me. If I plan a beer and hope to get 1055 (knowing my efficiency is crap), I will happily add more grain and spend the $3, if the beer runs high, and the efficiency gods are good and I run 1065, well in my mind its a matter of water. Just add some.
I understand the need to make a better beer, I really do, but efficiency is last on my list. Trying not to be controversial

You're absolutely right. It's not good however if there is a batch at 60%, then 72% then 58% and, 65%. So that should be the goal(cconsistency) and understanding what impacts efficiency will help a lot with that.

Sometimes people also have a space limitation, ie pushing too much volume into their mash tun. If it's not big enough then lifting efficiency can make all the difference.

 

[manticle]

I really don't understand why we worry about efficiency. The difference between a 60% and 75% rate is approximately 800grams for a standard 22 litre batch. We ( and I James I am assuming you are too) are home brewers. We do not need to worry about efficiency, unless we are getting 50% and no matter the system we all get that, why do we worry. I buy bulk, but even if I bought from my local it would be $5 a kilo at worst. The difference is about $3.

Its all about the numbers for me. If I plan a beer and hope to get 1055 (knowing my efficiency is crap), I will happily add more grain and spend the $3, if the beer runs high, and the efficiency gods are good and I run 1065, well in my mind its a matter of water. Just add some.

I understand the need to make a better beer, I really do, but efficiency is last on my list. Trying not to be controversial

To an extent I agree - consistency is most important so you can plan a recipe and getting too wound up with chasing a percentage figure is pointless in my book.

However, should efficiency be quite low, it may indicate a problem in the process that could be improved.
As with every time this question is asked, you really need to nut out at what point in the process you think your efficiency is too low and work on improving that.

Adding water to a batch that comes out at higher gravity will change the balance of the beer, adding extra malt will need to take into account the overall percentages of base and spec in the grist so it's better to know what to expect beforehand.

 

[Blind Dog]

You also need to know your efficiency and understand what parts of your processes impact it to understand the limitations of your system and then work out how to overcome them.

For example on my 20L BM brewhouse efficiency is typically high 70s for anything up to 5.5kg or so of malt; an extended mash out (2hrs) adds a couple of points, an overnight mash out a couple more. But it drops exponentionally above 6kg, so at a certain point adding more malt makes only a negligible difference to OG (although it does seem to add flavour)

 

[marksy]

I believe you are reading your brewhouse efficiency, I batch sparge and brewhouse eff is %65. To find your mash eff, in beersmith, its under the mash tab and you have to put the numbers in to get your eff, otherwise if just est, to 70% and since you haven`t mentioned that, thats why I reckon your looking at brewhoused eff.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

There is no greater feeling than cracking 80%....nothing...non...zero....zip...SFA....even comes close



















And then you just brew at a consistent 75-ish% and wonder what all the fuss was about... :chug:

 

[sp0rk]

There is no greater feeling than cracking 80%....nothing...non...zero....zip...SFA....even comes close


And then you just brew at a consistent 75-ish% and wonder what all the fuss was about... :chug:

Hitting 85% with BIAB without sparging is the most amazing feeling (step mashing is wonderful)

 

[dago001]

I agree with the thought that efficiency is perhaps the last thing to worry about. As long as it is consistent. Its good to have a handle on it, but I dial mine in at 65%, and thats what I get. When ever I try to push that up, I get other issues that make a few points of efficiency pale into comparison. A change in my rig meant an easier day, but a loss of efficiency of about 10%. I also check the sg at the start of the boil, so if there is a discrepancy, I can adjust the hop schedule accordingly.
Get your procedures right, brew some beer, have some fun, drink some beer.
Cheers
LB

 

[a1149913]

If you're worried about time, you can try doing a full volume mash (no sparge). When i no sparge in my 3v system i get approx 60% efficiency and save myself at least an hour. All conversion is done in the first 30 mins but i mash for 75 just to make sure. You should have more than enough space in your 50L esky

J