Efficiency frustration

[Blind Dog]

Somethings going wrong somewhere. Your water may be a factor, but I doubt it's the whole answer (or even part of it without knowing where you're getting it from)

One other (possibly obvious) question - how did you calibrate your thermometer?

 

[jibba02]

One other (possibly obvious) question - how did you calibrate your thermometer?

Thermometers checked with boiling water. on brewday there were 6 Thermomoters used and all withi +/- 1 Degree of each other

 

[jibba02]

Just out of curiosity, what malt have you been using?
Is it possible that it old and slack
Because; yes I agree your gravity should have been higher, around the 1.080+ you mentioned, I get 1.0825 just doing a quick calculation.
Where do you live maybe someone local can provide some information on your water, but I cant believe that any local water supply can be so bad as to knock 12.5-25% out of your mash efficiency (depending on which of your numbers you trust) - and still be classed as potable water under the relevant Australian standards.

Just chew on a bit of your malt, if its nice and crunchy its probably fine, if its doughie and mushy it could be the cause of your problem.
Mark

Malt was JW traditional ale. only about 2 months since i purchased and was placed into air tight drums the day after i picked it up. Malt is very crunchy .

 

[MHB]

Well without being there and having a look for myself I'm basically out of ideas
Except one have you tested/calibrated your Refractometer?
Mark

 

[jibba02]

Well without being there and having a look for myself I'm basically out of ideas
Except one have you tested/calibrated your Refractometer?
Mark

refrac was 1 point different form hydrometer

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Make another brew. Take it easy all the way. Take notes. You learn every brew.
I mash in an esky. Get strike water temperature right and just leave it for the 60min, 90min, I have left it overnight. No stress to worry about take the possess with lessure or while doing other things. Its so simple but from reading I don't think its a common practice. I get great efficiency without all the extra level of technology and my home brew is better than anything I have ever bought.

 

[motman]

I'd suggest checking the ph every run. Only thing that seems to be missing from the above. I have been lucky enough to hit the mark all my limited brews but all the books seem to suggest it is critical to optimal enzymatic activity.

 

[enoch]

Have I got the things covered thus far about right?
Thermometer calibration (in boiling water, are the six saying same at mash temp?)
Grain to water ratios
Fly versus batch sparging
ph
Mash temps
Grain milling
I haven't seen volume measurement but may have missed it.
Unless you are adding by weight or from a graduated jug I find it really hard to get this accurate.
My boiler has markings on one side but a slightly off level surface causes a material error. A wide pot is more prone than a tall pot as the litres per cm of height are less.
Measuring mash water in an esky is harder still.
Are you comfortable you are ok with volumes? To test you could fill to volume you believe is x litres, immerse a tape measure at a few spots near the edges, convert the water heights to volumes and average the implied volumes and compare to your expected volume x.

 

[Nizmoose]

I think someone mentioned grain before, what is your source? Is it all from the same bag? If so I'd be ordering some of the same Malt, milled by them from the hbs (even a different hbs if possible). If you get better efficiency with that grain you know that it's either your unmilled grain or your milling of it. This is all assuming you're using a large store of grain and are milling yourself

 

[Jack of all biers]

Mash tun is direct fired and temp is constant through out mash duration.

My first brew had the grain much courser and i still had low gravity problem.

Excuse me for any ignorance here, but "direct fired Mash tun"? I don't have one of these, but I'm guessing you use a heating element in the mash tun or gas fired underneath? Could it be that the source of your temp readings is showing you a correct temp (the mash temp you quoted), but underneath the temp is hotter?
I may be way off with my understanding of 'direct fired Mash tun' and how one uses it, but given you seem to have ruled out most things (and I agree that water profile and pH can't account for such a poor efficiency) then could temp pockets be an issue. I feel a direct answer coming on 'I stir the s**t out of it' or similar, but just having a stab.

If temp is not the issue and channelling also not the issue (given your experiment with the small test mash), may I suggest you give up where you live and meet up with someone else on this forum who lives nearby and they may see where you are going wrong.

 

[jibba02]

First of all, thanks everyone for your input. Ive taken on board everything and now back to basics.

So tonight i conducted a little test as follows.

I made up a mash of JW pale malt with a ratio of 3:1 0.5kg malt, 1.5l water
I used my small Esky / Lunchbox to mash in.

I added boiling water to the esky to warm it up then tipped it out and added 1.5l of strike water @ 70 Degrees
I then added 0.5kg of milled grain. After milling the grain i could not find any whole grains, and husks were in good shape, not shredded to pieces .
The results were as follows.

0min @ 67 Degrees
30min 1.053 @ 66 Degrees
42min 1.057 @ 63.5 Degrees
55min 1.060 @ 63 Degrees
60min 1.060 @ 62 Degrees

After each gravity reading i vigorously stirred the mash.

From what i have read i am still well under first wort SG of 1.085 for a L-G ratio of 3:1

Soooo. I then added the mash back onto the stove top and heated the mash back upto 68 Degrees (not in the esky

I then transferred back to esky and let steep for another 60 min without touching.

After a total of 120min mash time the final gravity was 1.068. Still a little low i think?


Please let me know what you think?

All gravity readings were with a Refractometer. I have just taken a gravity reading with a Hydrometer and it come to 1.066

Further testing has given me the following results.

I purchased some weyermann pale malt on the weekend and did exact test as above. All grain was milled with the same mill at the same gap. The results are as follows.

30min 1059 @66 Degrees
60min 1070 @ 63 Degrees

I am now getting 10 points higher with Weyermann malt!


Next comes the ph.
My tap water is coming out @ ph8
Mash ph6

Tonight i conducted the same test again but gone back to my stash of JW Pale malt to see if i can pull off better efficiency.
This time i added Calcium Sulfate to bring the mash ph down to 5.2. The results are as follows.

30min 1056
60min 1060

As you can see lowering the mash p.h has not altered my efficiency.

I have not had a custom water report done.

 

[MHB]

Well its nice to see something improving, 15% better yield from the Weyermann
I have to ask - How much CaSO4 did you have to add to get from a pH of 8 down to 5.2? I suspect a little acid might be a better option, once you have enough Ca in the mash use Acid to finish the job.

It might be a good idea to do a couple of your little test mashes with purified water - I always use Pureau you can get it at Coles and Woolies, add enough Ca to get your 100ppm adjust with acid to ph5.2-5.5

That could eliminate any questions about your water, the predicted OG of your mash is pretty easy to calculate.
You need the Coarse Grind As Is Potential (cg-ai) as a percentage, for W Pale Ale it will be ~76% (Fine Grind Dry - Moisture - Coarse/Fine Difference) and your L:G in this case 3:1
OG in oP = cgai / L:G + cg-ai
oP = 0.76/(3+0.76) = 0.202 oP is W/W as a percentage so that is 20.2oP converts to well basically 1.081
Still a little way to go but a step in the right direction.
Mark

 

[jibba02]

Thanks Mark.

I used approx 6 grams of CaSO4.
I have a RO system for my drinking water. I will do the same test with that and see how i go.

Thanks heaps for the predicted OG equation. Very helpful

 

[MHB]

There was something about your saying you used Calcium Sulphate to adjust the pH that rang an alarm bell.
CaSO4.2H2O is 23% Ca so 6g gives you 1380mg in 1.5L that is 920ppm Ca, just a touch on the high side, not to mention pushing the Sulphate out of bounds.
That's why I would suggest adding enough CaSO4 to get about 100 ppm (for 1.5L that's about 0.7g (0.652g) to maybe 150ppm, then use acid to adjust the pH.

The First Running's equation is very handy, bumped into it when designing a barley wine, very handy for parti gyle brewing to (as well as doing tests).
Mark

 

[jibba02]

Thanks Mark. I knew I had too much for the correct ppm. But didnt have any acid to use do you have a recommendation on acid type? Lactic? Phosphoric?

 

[MHB]

Lactic is certainly my personal 1st choice, but nitric, phosphoric, sulphuric and hydrochloric are all used. If you had any of them to hand I would use them at least for testing.
Lactic is a week acid and there is already a fair wack of it in malt so it's easier to use and you are just adding more of something that is already in the malt.
It is also a lot safer to handle than a lot of the other options, and can be a pretty powerful buffer to.

Mark

 

[Norto]

I started reading this thread because I too have had bad Efficiency resulting in lower numbers but in the first few posts I reckon someone nailed it when they suggested a tunnelled sparge I reckon that is exactly what is happening with me. Oh well time to make a new sparge arm ...any suggestions?

Norto.

 

[jibba02]

I started reading this thread because I too have had bad Efficiency resulting in lower numbers but in the first few posts I reckon someone nailed it when they suggested a tunnelled sparge I reckon that is exactly what is happening with me. Oh well time to make a new sparge arm ...any suggestions?

Norto.

I was thinking the same thing. But form the testing i conducted in the above posts, mash tunneling doesnt seem to be the issue for me.

 

[enoch]

Pardon if I've missed it but where are you? There's got to be someone nearby to sit through a brew day and look for process issues.

 

[Nizmoose]

I started reading this thread because I too have had bad Efficiency resulting in lower numbers but in the first few posts I reckon someone nailed it when they suggested a tunnelled sparge I reckon that is exactly what is happening with me. Oh well time to make a new sparge arm ...any suggestions?

Norto.

Perhaps trying a batch sparge would at least confirm if it's the sparge or not? Dump all your sparge water in, give it a good stir, let it sit for a bit if you care to then drain and see if there's a difference?