Efficiency frustration

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The thing that first catches my eye is a grain bill with more than 25% rye. It's not BIAB by the sound of it, and there's no mention of rice hulls or similar, so I'm rather surprised your not complaining of a stuck sparge (since it was a fine crush).

As several others have suggested, mash tun tunnelling seems a real possibility.

Edit added 8:00 pm. Plus what MHB said regarding the water:grain ratio with >25% rye.
 
MHB said:
To me it sounds like your L:G is way too low, if you are mashing in at 2.5:1 and aiming at a strike temperature of 66.5 I suspect your strike water is so hot it's killing a lot of your enzymes before it cools down enough to activate your Amylase - Your Beta Amylase would be in serious danger. Without doing the calculations I guess your strike water was up around 80-84oC.

You will be exacerbating the problem if you have milled fine as you say above.
with 8+kg in a 23L batch I would be expecting an OG over 1.100.
Try 5kg, cracked medium mashed in at least 3:1 (3.5:1 would be better), should give you a strike water temp around 71-72oC, fine grinds can be very difficult to sparge efficiently.

Back to basics
Mark
L:G ratio is what Beersmith has calculated so thats what i rolled with. my strike water is only a couple of degrees above mash temp. 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.
 
antiphile said:
The thing that first catches my eye is a grain bill with more than 25% rye. It's not BIAB by the sound of it, and there's no mention of rice hulls or similar, so I'm rather surprised your not complaining of a stuck sparge (since it was a fine crush).

As several others have suggested, mash tun tunnelling seems a real possibility.

Edit added 8:00 pm. Plus what MHB said regarding the water:grain ratio with >25% rye.
I am using a direct fired recirculating mash tun. no issues of stuck sparge.
 
Well, jibba, lots of people here (including several professional and very experienced brewers) have offered you advice; and yet it seems you'd prefer to ignore it. That, of course, is your option, though I would have thought with an open mind it could have been a great learning opportunity. The final thought I can leave you with is:

Brewing with rye can be tricky proposition though, especially when the proportion of rye in the mash increases above about 15% of the total malt bill. To date, I have brewed quite a few rye beers, including a RoggenBock (55% rye), a 100% Rye Mash Ale, and a Rye ESB (10% Rye).
Here are some of the takeaways that I have learned that should help you tame this ingredient. The top few tips deal mostly with beers that will have between 5-15% of the malt bill be rye, I will include a couple high proportion (greater than 50%!) tips at the end of the post.
  • Recipe Design – Rye will give a spicy flavor to the beer and give the beer a drier mouthfeel than your final gravity may indicate. Keep this in mind when converting recipes to include rye. Also keep in mind that the lighter flavored the beer, the more potent the effects the rye will have on the beer.
  • Rice Hulls – Use them, even if you are only using a small proportion of rye in the beer. Rye does not have a husk and at mash temperatures becomes very sticky. This can lead you to very slow lauter times and even stuck mashes! Rice hulls will help replace the husks missing from the barley that would have been used in the mash instead of rye. In small proportions this is not typically necessary, but an ounce of prevention is much better than the headache that is a stuck mash.
  • Milling Rye – Even though rye malt does not have a husk it does need to be milled before mashing. Rye malt is smaller than barley malt and you will need to tighten the gap on your mill. Generally what I do is mill all of my barley first and then tighten the mill down about an 1/8th of a turn (BarleyCrusher mill) and mill any rye malt second.
When brewing in small proportions that is all you really need to keep in mind when brewing with rye. For the most part, any malt bill with less than 15% rye can be brewed with minimal deviation from your normal brewing procedures. If you are brewing a beer with more than 15% rye, extra steps should be taken to ensure a smooth brewday. The importance of these tips increase as the amount of rye you are using increases.
  • Multi-Step Mash – The outer “shell” of the rye malt is extremely high in beta-glucans. Long story short, at saccharification temperatures (140-160°F) those beta-glucans become very sticky. This combined with the huskless nature of rye leads to many of the stuck mashes when brewing rye beers. In order to combat the sticky nature of beta-glucans when brewing with rye, a step mash (multiple infusion or decoction) can be employed. A Beta-Glucanase rest at 110F for about 30 minutes will help improve your lauter and prevent a stuck mash.
  • Sparge Slow – The higher the proportion of rye, the thicker the resulting wort will be. The wort from my 100% Rye Ale was the thickness of a thin syrup. This will greatly increase sparge times, so be prepared. Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done about this except open another beer.
Source: http://homebrewacademy.com/tips-for-brewing-with-rye/

All the best of luck anyway. Farewell.
 
Ill also not that my previous brew was a SMASH and i have the same low efficiency!
 
The numbers dont make sense. One post you say pre boil volume of 29l. Another says you sparged with 30l. Are you simply over sparging?
 
antiphile said:
Well, jibba, lots of people here (including several professional and very experienced brewers) have offered you advice; and yet it seems you'd prefer to ignore it. That, of course, is your option, though I would have thought with an open mind it could have been a great learning opportunity. The final thought I can leave you with is:
Ignoring what? I have read every post and replied to most.
 
jibba02 said:
L:G ratio is what Beersmith has calculated so thats what i rolled with. my strike water is only a couple of degrees above mash temp. 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.
Frankly what you are doing isn't working, I would expect better than the sub 50% you are getting, mashing in a bucket wrapped in a towel.
Try going back to basics, a sensible amount of properly cracked grain and a practical L:G will go a long way toward fixing what is wrong.
Turn off the burner and just do a basic brew then introduce 1 change at a time until you identify the problem.
M
 
doon said:
The numbers dont make sense. One post you say pre boil volume of 29l. Another says you sparged with 30l. Are you simply over sparging?
Beersmith states a pre boil of 29.46l. I sparged untill i had 30 - 32l in the kettle. final runnings were 1.012. Sparging took little over 1 hour
 
jibba02 said:
sorry forgot to mention i sparged 30l over 65min. Using a Refrac for measurements
This is what im referring to. Just confused me as i take it as you have sparged 30l of water
 
agree with doon
8kg grain @ 2.5L/kg is @ 20L strike water. Say 8L absorption leaves 12L first runnings. You sparged with 30L = 42L preboil.
 
The liquor to grist ratio does come across as being a little on the thick side, however it's within acceptable range (2.5 - 5 L water per 1 kg of grain, Kunze).
Run a starch test before mashing out. It will at least eliminate one variable, i.e. complete conversion of starch. Given the low efficiency, we already suspect this to be true. However, theres a list of about 4 other things which I can think of, including those listed by other users.

1) Measuring equipment calibration (scales and temp. probes)
2) Improper milling (get some feeler gauges, or inspect the grist for >95% cracked grains, the remaining 4-5% should crumble with some agitation)
3) incorrect strike temperature calculation. Note: A very thick mash will be quite insulating. You will still see soluble extract even if you've largely denatured your enzymes, however your fermentability will be low.
4) water composition, would certainly be worthwhile getting a water report, and adjusting within recognised ranges for optimal mash performance.
 
antiphile said:
Well, jibba, lots of people here (including several professional and very experienced brewers) have offered you advice; and yet it seems you'd prefer to ignore it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=452XjnaHr1A
 
seamad said:
agree with doon
8kg grain @ 2.5L/kg is @ 20L strike water. Say 8L absorption leaves 12L first runnings. You sparged with 30L = 42L preboil.
Yep. what i was trying to say didnt come out right. I sparged for 65min and collected a total of 32 -32 litres in boil kettle :)
 
micblair said:
3) incorrect strike temperature calculation. Note: A very thick mash will be quite insulating. You will still see soluble extract even if you've largely denatured your enzymes, however your fermentability will be low.
for argument sake. If i were mashing at too high temp, say 80 degrees. Would i still get full conversion? All be it unfermentable sugars?
 
No you would have killed all (well nearly all) the enzymes
We normally Mash Out at 78oC, a mash out is to stop the enzyme activity and to make the wort more fluid, if we go over 80oC we tend to start to extract too much of the harsh tannins from the husks.
Mark
 
MHB said:
No you would have killed all (well nearly all) the enzymes
We normally Mash Out at 78oC, a mash out is to stop the enzyme activity and to make the wort more fluid, if we go over 80oC we tend to start to extract too much of the harsh tannins from the husks.
Mark
Thanks
 
Too much grain.
$0.02

I think this is normal. I jumped in too hard like, every other newbie all grain brewer trying to make the most mega best beer.
When I settled down a bit I tried to make lower ABV beer and used lesser grain bill. They still turned out at 5%. :huh: Your only 4 brews in its all cool. Record and recap on everything.
 
im wondering if my temp reading from the middle of the grain bed is a lot cooler than the bottom of the tun where the wort is pulled of and recirculated. On next brew, i will place a temp probe on the outlet and see what it reads.
 
Danscraftbeer said:
Too much grain.
$0.02

I think this is normal. I jumped in too hard like, every other newbie all grain brewer trying to make the most mega best beer.
When I settled down a bit I tried to make lower ABV beer and used lesser grain bill. They still turned out at 5%. :huh: Your only 4 brews in its all cool. Record and recap on everything.
Cheers mate. Still loving it, but a little frustrating. Despite all my problems the beer still taste great. just low %
 

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