Biab Process Inconsistency

[GuyQLD]

Got to brew the other day, but haven't had time to get back to this discussion till now.

Went with the advice above, single infusion @ 67'C with a ramp up to 78'C then pulled the bag out. I use one of those BCF crab cooker combos (37.5L) and I've attached 4 SS bolts to the insert to
form a colander which sits on top of my pot. When mashout temp is reached, I pull the bag out, put the insert on top and put the bag in it, and it drains over the next 15 minutes or so while I bring it up to the boil.

The good news is I hit my temps spot on this time and with the higher volume maintaining them wasn't a problem. I think I started my mash at 66.8'C and finished 60 minutes on 66.5'C so pretty good. Took about 12 minutes to ramp it up to 78'C and then we grabbed that sucker out.

I took some volume measurements and with my giant colander I ended up only losing .5L/kg to grain absorption, not too shabby at all.

It was a pretty tight fit though, with 4.7KG of grain and 32L of water pretty much left me with no space left in my kettle so I'm thinking I'm pretty much at my limit for full volume.

Boil off is still a bit of an unknown, as my 3 ring is a bit temperamental but I ended up with about 24L post boil. This is where things went a bit off. I seemed to have a lot more trub than usual, losing almost 3L to it, not sure if it was a result of the mashout or just poor whirl-pooling. Trub seemed a bit fluffier than usual and I couldn't get it to compact (only used half a whilfloc).

By the time I topped it up to 23L in the fermenter I ended up with 68% efficiency in the fermenter. Overall not terrible as my recipe was designed on 70%, but compared to the 73-75% I was getting with my dunk sparge it was a little disappointing . Was a hell of a lot easier though.

I'll stick with it for a couple more and see if I can ensure consistent results before I play with it again (Although the temptation to pour 2-3L of water into the grain bag while it's sitting there itches like crazy!!)

Thanks all.

 

[Crusty]

Your efficiency is still way to low for some reason. How are you working out your efficiency?
Points to look at if you are not already doing so.

1. How fine is your grain crush. You can go a little finer with BIAB, don't over do it as you will yield more trub loss. My mill is set at 0.9mm on the MiniMill & last brew I got 82% efficiency. My recipes are based on 80% efficiency.
2. A 90min sacc rest is better than a 60min rest with BIAB. I would strongly recommend 90mins.
3. After the 90min sacc rest, heat to 78deg mash out whilst continually pumping the mash up & down with a paint stirrer. This really helps with efficiency.
Before you topped the wort up in your fermenter, what was the actual amount of wort that went into the fermenter? What was the temp corrected gravity of that wort + your trub loss amount? These figures added together will tell you your efficiency.

I get 20.5lt into my no chill cube + 2.5lt trub loss =23lt batch @1.049

 

[GuyQLD]

Hmm, trying to remember Crusty. I know I had to top it up a fair bit. Usually I end up with about 21.5-22L into the cube but I think this time we struggled to make 20L. So diluting it all the way up to 23L definitely hurt the numbers a bit. I'm pretty sure when all was said and done I ended up with 23L at 1.042. If I backtrack a bit using a dilution calc I would have started on about 1.048 since I remember we had to add 3L to this one.

Lets say 20L @ 1.048, that's about as good as I can recall.

I think the trub loss really killed me. My last couple of brews before that I'd gotten really low levels of trub and pretty decent whirl pool cones so I'd been getting really good recovery and I'd put those figures into brewmate for my recipes. Didn't go so well this time and I think this hurt me more than anything else.

I'll stick with it for now but I'll probably start doing 90min rests (My highest efficiency ever was an accidental 90min rest) and keep everything else equal and just keep taking notes until I've got a baseline. Once that's done I'll worry about improving things.

Edit: As to crush size - No idea. I order it from Craftbrewer and it just comes as is. I suppose I could tell them I BIAB and ask for a finer crush perhaps? I assume their default is for 3v.

 

[Crusty]

Just give Ross a buzz & tell him you BIAB & they will probably run it through the mill twice.
A 90min sacc rest is far better for BIAB so look at that next time.
In BrewMate, what % evaporation rate have you got it set at for your equipment? 10% for my gear.
Is your boil 60mins?
I end up with 20.5lt into my cube & get around 2.5lt of trub for my 23lt batch.
Your low efficiency might improve with a finer crush, a 90min sacc rest & a continual rousing of the mash when ramping from sacc rest to mash out.
For your hop additions, one of these are good. Peg it around the pot after you get to the boil & toss your hops in there. It will save you a bit of trub loss as well.

 

[GuyQLD]

Just give Ross a buzz & tell him you BIAB & they will probably run it through the mill twice.
A 90min sacc rest is far better for BIAB so look at that next time.
In BrewMate, what % evaporation rate have you got it set at for your equipment? 10% for my gear.
Is your boil 60mins?
I end up with 20.5lt into my cube & get around 2.5lt of trub for my 23lt batch.
Your low efficiency might improve with a finer crush, a 90min sacc rest & a continual rousing of the mash when ramping from sacc rest to mash out.
For your hop additions, one of these are good. Peg it around the pot after you get to the boil & toss your hops in there. It will save you a bit of trub loss as well.

I'll give the 90mins sacc rest a go.

1. Using 10% evap in brewmate
2. I'm stirring the buggery out of it while ramping to mash out - This was the only way I got consistent temp readings for both mash in and mash out.
3. I'm using some home made hops bags (made from Voile, same stuff I use for my grain bag)

One thing that's bugging me about your description - Does the "23L batch" in brewmate include trub or is it post trub loss? I've always assumed it was into fermenter but I might be wrong?

 

[Crusty]

I'll give the 90mins sacc rest a go.

1. Using 10% evap in brewmate
2. I'm stirring the buggery out of it while ramping to mash out - This was the only way I got consistent temp readings for both mash in and mash out.
3. I'm using some home made hops bags (made from Voile, same stuff I use for my grain bag)

One thing that's bugging me about your description - Does the "23L batch" in brewmate include trub or is it post trub loss? I've always assumed it was into fermenter but I might be wrong?

A 23lt batch for me is 20.5lt into my no chill cube + 2.5lt of trub loss = 23lt batch. This may vary slightly from batch to batch but should be fairly consistent.
So if you add your actual trub loss to the losses to trub & chiller box & measure the amount of wort that goes into your fermenter ( temp corrected gravity reading ) + that trub loss, it should add up to the 23lt. Working out the efficiency, you add your actual wort volume into the Actual volume in kettle column, add your temp corrected gravity reading into the Actual original gravity column & Actual brewhouse efficiency column will be what you ended up getting.

 

[breakbeer]

A 23lt batch for me is 20.5lt into my no chill cube + 2.5lt of trub loss = 23lt batch.

I was thinking the same as Guy, to me a 23L batch means I should get 23L of fermentable wort. If the software factors in other losses such as evaporation & grain absorption then why not trub loss?

 

[Steve@PMF82]

I was thinking the same as Guy, to me a 23L batch means I should get 23L of fermentable wort. If the software factors in other losses such as evaporation & grain absorption then why not trub loss?

It just depends how you look at it mate. Half full/ half empty.

Most people / software when calculating your into fermenter efficiency or brew house efficiency do not count trub.

Do what ever works for you as long as you can consistently calculate things for your system efficiency means absolutely stuff all.
IMO anything over 75% mash efficiency is not beneficial for the beer / end result. I stopped full on sparging altogether and regularly get 70 - 75% mash efficiency and my beers have never been better.


Off topic but concentrate on your yeast management and packaging that is where great beers are made.

Edit: Drunken slight rant i know...i dont care

 

[Crusty]

I was thinking the same as Guy, to me a 23L batch means I should get 23L of fermentable wort. If the software factors in other losses such as evaporation & grain absorption then why not trub loss?

You do get 23lt of fermentable wort. Trub loss is still wort & this should be included as it's part of the total volume of liquid we produced. We don't use it for obvious reasons but in theory, you can dump the whole 23lt into your fermenter, trub & all so it's 23lt into the fermenter. It's still factored into the 23lt batch & it's a guide for other factors in the software.
The losses to trub & chiller help us determine our strike water volume, liquor to grain ratio & overall total mash volume. I do 23lt batches & get 23lt of fermentable wort. I dump the 2.5lt of trub & get 20.5lt into my no chill cube. This is not a 20.5lt batch, it's 23lt that I have produced.

Check out SJW's Braumeister video on youtube. Efficiency is worked out exactly the same as I do it.



Look at the measured batch size of 27lt. 27lt doesn't go into the fermenter as 5lt is lost to trub.

 

[GuyQLD]

The reason for my question is my reading of this display in brewmate, apologies for the half arsed red arrows all over it but my interpretation of that display is as I dial my system in, it should be including trub in it's calculation yes; but fermentable wort into the FV MINUS trub is 23L. So when I set "23L Batch" in a recipe, i'm expecting brewmate to work that out as a post boil volume of around 25.5/26.5 odd litres to account for the trub.

From what I understand, "efficiency" is a pretty lose term, since it's measured half a dozen different times during the process, you've got pre-boil, post boil (the one everyone loves to rave about because it's always the highest) and then what I think Brewmate calls brewhouse efficiency, which is obviously lower than your post boil because yes; you do lose some fermentables to trub.

But as far as recipe formulation (and ultimately process goes - This is not about hitting high numbers, which is the natural thing that seems to come up whenever efficiency gets discussed. I'm more worried about consistency at this stage) I was just trying to straighten out the process in my head, so that I can get within 1-2% each time I do the same recipe. If I squeeze a couple of extra percent out of that later on, that's allright too, but it wasn't my main goal.

Previously I wasn't doing that and was kinda feeling my way in the dark. I feel like what I did last brew day was a definite improvement; it felt far more organised and under control. As I said the only downside was I ended up a couple of points short in the fermenter.

The only thing left to do now is practice. :lol:

 

[Crusty]

The reason for my question is my reading of this display in brewmate, apologies for the half arsed red arrows all over it but my interpretation of that display is as I dial my system in, it should be including trub in it's calculation yes; but fermentable wort into the FV MINUS trub is 23L. So when I set "23L Batch" in a recipe, i'm expecting brewmate to work that out as a post boil volume of around 25.5/26.5 odd litres to account for the trub.

From what I understand, "efficiency" is a pretty lose term, since it's measured half a dozen different times during the process, you've got pre-boil, post boil (the one everyone loves to rave about because it's always the highest) and then what I think Brewmate calls brewhouse efficiency, which is obviously lower than your post boil because yes; you do lose some fermentables to trub.

But as far as recipe formulation (and ultimately process goes - This is not about hitting high numbers, which is the natural thing that seems to come up whenever efficiency gets discussed. I'm more worried about consistency at this stage) I was just trying to straighten out the process in my head, so that I can get within 1-2% each time I do the same recipe. If I squeeze a couple of extra percent out of that later on, that's allright too, but it wasn't my main goal.

Previously I wasn't doing that and was kinda feeling my way in the dark. I feel like what I did last brew day was a definite improvement; it felt far more organised and under control. As I said the only downside was I ended up a couple of points short in the fermenter.

The only thing left to do now is practice. :lol:

If you are measuring your efficiency at different stages of the brew day, this is where you might be coming unstuck. If for example you only get 28lt before the boil & you should of got 29.4, if you top up here, this will muck you up a bit as well. I measure once only & that is my volume into my no chill cube + gravity + trub loss. This is brewhouse efficiency & it's the only one I do. My grain absorption L/KG is 0.60 & I see yours is 0.50. I hit my numbers on the nose consistently, it's a very accurate programme. When you mention fermentable wort into the FV minus trub, you have made 23lt of wort but you need to take away the trub, you should be getting 20.5lt into your fermenter not 23lt. The 23lt batch is the total amount of wort you made not what's gone into the FV or no chill cube. Is this making any sense?

 

[MastersBrewery]

ok question, when heating to MO with an over the side element should I just use the element to stir? ( in the midst of changing equipment, was previously stove top, now going with keggle and OTSE, I might eventually install an element but thats a month or 2 off)

 

[GuyQLD]

Given that Brewmate has a setting for trub loss and includes this in the post boil amount, a 23L batch to Brewmate should mean 23L into the fermenter, 23L into the fermenter with 2.5L trub loss, total post boil amount of 25.5L (Or 26.5L as per that screen shot. Brewmate includes 4% loss to cooling). Your example states a post boil volume of 23L, with 2.5L trub and only 20.5L into the cube. We're talking two different 23L here. You're talking post boil (inc trub) I'm talking into fermenter (ex trub).

Either way; not that important. At the end of the day, you have a finite amount of sugar in your wort, and you're going to lose some of this to trub. This is unavoidable. Actually just thinking about it now, I think I know where it went wrong.

I must have had a more vigorous boil than planned, this is going to give me a higher concentration of sugar per L(Same conversion, less liquid). What I should have done is topped up the boil so that I had the correct post boil volume of 25.5 (or 26.5 blah blah). This would have meant less sugar lost to that 2.5L trub.

Where I went wrong is, I topped up my fermenter at pitching time - at this point it's too late, those lovely sugars were long gone.

This is probably all stuff you already know, but wasn't till I just sat down and put it on paper that it clicked. My efficiency was probably much higher than it looks; I just nubbed it up with the boil off and topping it up at the wrong point.

 

[Crusty]

ok question, when heating to MO with an over the side element should I just use the element to stir? ( in the midst of changing equipment, was previously stove top, now going with keggle and OTSE, I might eventually install an element but thats a month or 2 off)

I'd look at getting a 20lt paint stirrer & rouse the mash with that.
They cost around $10.00 from the hardware store.

Given that Brewmate has a setting for trub loss and includes this in the post boil amount, a 23L batch to Brewmate should mean 23L into the fermenter, 23L into the fermenter with 2.5L trub loss, total post boil amount of 25.5L (Or 26.5L as per that screen shot. Brewmate includes 4% loss to cooling). Your example states a post boil volume of 23L, with 2.5L trub and only 20.5L into the cube. We're talking two different 23L here. You're talking post boil (inc trub) I'm talking into fermenter (ex trub).

Either way; not that important. At the end of the day, you have a finite amount of sugar in your wort, and you're going to lose some of this to trub. This is unavoidable. Actually just thinking about it now, I think I know where it went wrong.

I must have had a more vigorous boil than planned, this is going to give me a higher concentration of sugar per L(Same conversion, less liquid). What I should have done is topped up the boil so that I had the correct post boil volume of 25.5 (or 26.5 blah blah). This would have meant less sugar lost to that 2.5L trub.

Where I went wrong is, I topped up my fermenter at pitching time - at this point it's too late, those lovely sugars were long gone.

This is probably all stuff you already know, but wasn't till I just sat down and put it on paper that it clicked. My efficiency was probably much higher than it looks; I just nubbed it up with the boil off and topping it up at the wrong point.

As you are using BrewMate, if you fail to include the trub loss, you will get a vastly different brewhouse efficiency. If I type into the actual volume into kettle column, 20.5lt, I get 71% efficiency with a 23lt batch recipe. This is incorrect because BrewMate is calculating the total wort that I have made which should include the trub loss.
Before boil - 29.4lt
Evap - 10%
After Boil - 26.5lt
Trub loss - 2.5lt
Final volume - 24lt
After cooling - 23lt

To correctly measure your efficiency with BrewMate, you need to include that trub loss, don't forget, it's still wort, we're just not going to put it into our fermenter. Next brew, try adding the actual amount of wort you get into the FV, test your SG + your trub loss & see what you get with efficiency.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I found the "Calculator" spreadsheet on the other forum (biabrewer.info) to be really handy for working out my averave efficiencies, boil off rate, and trub loss.

 

[GuyQLD]

I think we've sort of moved away from the original point by a fair amount now. The question is not so much is brewmate right, my own manual calculations back it up. We seem to be in disagreement about how brewhouse efficiency should be calculated. I'm not sure why Crusty is including trub loss, because to my mind anything that is a loss shouldn't Be recorded when calculating how effecient a system is, hence brewmates calculations match my findings if I consider trub loss a loss. The matter is mostly academic now anyway, the initial advice in the thread was what mattered.

 

[Crusty]

I think we've sort of moved away from the original point by a fair amount now. The question is not so much is brewmate right, my own manual calculations back it up. We seem to be in disagreement about how brewhouse efficiency should be calculated. I'm not sure why Crusty is including trub loss, because to my mind anything that is a loss shouldn't Be recorded when calculating how effecient a system is, hence brewmates calculations match my findings if I consider trub loss a loss. The matter is mostly academic now anyway, the initial advice in the thread was what mattered.

Mate drop Randy Rob ( the creator of BrewMate ) an email & ask him how you work out your systems efficiency. BribieG will also tell you how to do it.
You include trub loss because the total amount of wort you have made is 23lt, total. BrewMate is taking into account that you are not wanting to pour the trub loss into your fermenter but is available.
You mentioned inconsistency & not great efficiency in your original post & I am simply trying to point out that you are measuring your systems efficiency incorrectly.
Good luck...................... :beerbang:

 

[glenwal]

There is a good description of Mash vs Brewhouse efficency here.

Basically - Mash efficency is pre trub losses, Brew house is after losses.

Generally Mash Efficency is measured into the kettle, however evaporation "losses" will not actually effect the calculation as you are not boiling off sugar, only water, so you will end up with less volume but a higher SG and the same result. (The same applies to diluting wort. You are not changing the amount of sugar in the soltuion, so it will not effect your efficency calcs)


To me, mash efficency is the most important factor to keep consistant, as it will have an actual effect on your beer. Varying mash efficency will result in varying FG's and hop utilisation, and hence result in a different beer. If you have say a 10% swing in your mash efficency, its the same as a brewer with consistant efficency adding a random +/- 10% of the grain bill each time.

If you have a consistant mash efficency, but your trub losses (and hence Brew house efficency) vary greatly, the only thing that will change from batch to batch is the number of bottles you get (or how full your keg is). Whilst you obviously want to get as much beer as you can, it will not change the beer itself. A 10% swing here (if you mash efficency is constant) is the difference between say 50 bottles and 45 bottles of beer.


The other reason to concentrate on mash efficeny first is because brew house efficency is dependant on your mash efficency, so to stabilise your brewhouse efficency, you need a stable mash efficency, and its alot eaiser to do one thing at a time.

 

[Crusty]

There is a good description of Mash vs Brewhouse efficency here.

Basically - Mash efficency is pre trub losses, Brew house is after losses.

Generally Mash Efficency is measured into the kettle, however evaporation "losses" will not actually effect the calculation as you are not boiling off sugar, only water, so you will end up with less volume but a higher SG and the same result. (The same applies to diluting wort. You are not changing the amount of sugar in the soltuion, so it will not effect your efficency calcs)


To me, mash efficency is the most important factor to keep consistant, as it will have an actual effect on your beer. Varying mash efficency will result in varying FG's and hop utilisation, and hence result in a different beer. If you have say a 10% swing in your mash efficency, its the same as a brewer with consistant efficency adding a random +/- 10% of the grain bill each time.

If you have a consistant mash efficency, but your trub losses (and hence Brew house efficency) vary greatly, the only thing that will change from batch to batch is the number of bottles you get (or how full your keg is). Whilst you obviously want to get as much beer as you can, it will not change the beer itself. A 10% swing here (if you mash efficency is constant) is the difference between say 50 bottles and 45 bottles of beer.


The other reason to concentrate on mash efficeny first is because brew house efficency is dependant on your mash efficency, so to stabilise your brewhouse efficency, you need a stable mash efficency, and its alot eaiser to do one thing at a time.

From Glen W link:
Brewhouse efficiency is defined as the percent of potential grain sugars that are converted into sugar in the wort. Typically this includes losses for a given brewing setup, and these losses are taken in aggregate rather than accumulated individually. It is therefore a measure of the overall efficiency of your brewing system.

 

[glenwal]

Typically this includes losses for a given brewing setup

Which brings us to another discussion on how people interperate a term. Including losses means to factor losses into the equation. Include (positive) losses (negative) of 5L (positive) = -5L (negative).

Including losses doesn't mean adding the losses back into the volumes. If you are taking the pre-loss volume, you are ignoring the losses of the system. Ignoring = excluding, not including.


From further down in the article

The actual brewhouse efficiency is measured for an entire system. Unlike the dry grain yield or potential measured in a lab, real brewers achieve only a percentage of the ideal number due to real considerations such as efficiency of the mashing process, and losses due to boiling, deadspace or trub. This percentage of the potential, as measured across the whole system into the fermenter, is the brewhouse efficiency.