Which one is "brewhouse efficiency"? I don't see that in Beersmith anywhere. I use "Total Efficiency" in Beersmith as the guide as to how much gravity I'm going to get out of my grain. With my early slow sparges, e.g. lifting the malt pipe and letting it drain until I could see the top plate, then pouring a litre in at a time and waiting for it to disappear, I was getting around 82% total efficiency. It tool 30-40 minutes. Since I've starting sparging quickly, i.e adding sparge water as soon as I see the little tabs on the top plate, I'm sparging in 15-20 minutes, but getting maybe 75% total efficiency.Coodgee said:The brew I did last night I got excellent efficiency with about a 20 minute sparge time. Beersmith calculated my brewhouse efficiency as 84.4%, and that's without tipping the grainfather to get all the trubby liquid out or anything. I add an extra 2 or 3 litres to the sparge volume so I collect about 29 litres and then do a 90 minute boil. The extra sparge volume gives the grain a good rinse and helps with efficiency. Also, I leave the grain basket to drain right up until the wort is about to boil. This let's as much wort drain into the boiler as possible.
I mostly only do 30 minute boils theses days...Coodgee said:The brew I did last night I got excellent efficiency with about a 20 minute sparge time. Beersmith calculated my brewhouse efficiency as 84.4%, and that's without tipping the grainfather to get all the trubby liquid out or anything. I add an extra 2 or 3 litres to the sparge volume so I collect about 29 litres and then do a 90 minute boil. The extra sparge volume gives the grain a good rinse and helps with efficiency. Also, I leave the grain basket to drain right up until the wort is about to boil. This let's as much wort drain into the boiler as possible.
Thanks for checking mate.Killer Brew said:Just checked mine for you, only has the same nylon washer i think i can see in yours. Have had no issues with leaking. Did you get spare washers with the upgrade kit? Perhaps change the washer in case the original is damaged.
I think one o-ring is still missing, it should be red.... No leak with it!botch said:Thanks for checking mate.
I just tried both of the spare washers that were sent with the upgrade kit but same deal.
Does your valve screw the whole way down the thread? My photo isn't great but if you can sort of see that it doesn't quite make it to the end. I am thinking it may be a problem with the thread. And if you say yours threads all the way down (with no thread showing) I reckon that will confirm it for me.
Thanks for the help
Sounds like a decent amount of primer (though i use table sugar not dex). How long have the bottles been conditioning and at what temp? There will still be enough yeast there to get the job done.nads said:I've now made 8 brews in my Grainfather and they have all been really good but the last 2 which were Dr Smurtos golden ale whilst the taste was great they needed more fizz.. I always bulk prime and bottle my brews and have always used 7gm per litre dex which on my earlier brews Citra APA's and Mad Hopper APA's was fine with plenty of fizz. I also notice there is very little trub in the bottom of the bottles compared to my other brews and wonder if maybe there was not enough yeast left after a week of cold crashing. Yeast used in both Citra APA's and Dr Smurtos was US05. I'm at a loss and would welcome any suggestions.
You are right, should be plenty of time. Are you confident that the priming liquid was dispersed evenly in the wort and bottled straight away?nads said:The two Dr Smurtos lacking fizz have both conditioned long enough I think. The first was bottled 26/9 and the last one 8/11 and at temps over 20 degrees. In the second one I used table sugar not dex thinking this may increase the bubbles but they are both pretty much the same. The other thing I noticed about these two brews is that they took a lot longer to finish fermenting than the earlier Citra APA's at around two weeks.
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