Efficiency Problem

[horner34]

I have put down 7 AG brews and 5 of them have all been around the 68% mark, in one I had a bit of wheat and only got 62% and the other day I did a half and half and I only got 55%.

So my question is does wheat malt effect efficiency or is it just a coincidence that my two lower yields had wheat in them

I look forward to you help.

Thanx Horner

 

[Adamt]

Wheat malt should yield you higher efficiency if anything (due to makeup of the husk).

What is your sparging method? If you fly sparge... you may have channeling problems due to a stickier mash (caused by the wheat).

 

[dr K]

Wheat malt should give you more sugars per kilo but your brewgram will take that into account and thus balance.
Anything could have happened, the wheat may have caused some sparging problems and you may have got channeling for example.

K

 

[horner34]

Argh the plot thickens

I batch sparge and towards the end of my first sparge it got stuck, I also noticed something diffrent with the sparge, it seemed to all run to the one area.

I think i'll use some rice hulls next time until I get my 38l round eskie running.

Thanx Guys

 

[Tony]

how fast are you sparging?

Im a bit concerned by the comment...... say it all run to the one spot. Sounds like you sparge is too fast.

This stops the water picking up available sugars still in the grain on its way to the bottom of the tun and will actually encourage chanelling as it doesnt have time to slowly steep through the grain.

I could drain and sparge my system in 15 minutes but i stretch it our over an hour or more to encourage said sugars out into the water.

If i get 75% efficiency ive had a shocker these days. usually more like 80 to 82% consistently....... sometimes up around 88% if i do a decoction mash.

And thats efficiency to the fermenter too, which includes kettle losses to hops and trub.

you shouldnt need rice hulls with small amounts of wheat malt if you drain slowly.

cheers

 

[horner34]

Thanks tony

I never knew how fast to sparge but seems to be a problem.

I'll have to slow it down next time.

horner.

 

[Ross]

Thanks tony

I never knew how fast to sparge but seems to be a problem.

I'll have to slow it down next time.

horner.

Horner,

If you are batch sparging correctly, run off speed has no effect on efficiency.

cheers Ross

 

[browndog]

Are you giving the mash a good stir after sparging Horner ?

cheers

Browndog

 

[dr K]

Are you giving the mash a good stir after sparging Horner ?

I always find my mash is too thick and heavy to effectively stir after sparging..not much point either...
K

 

[browndog]

I always find my mash is too thick and heavy to effectively stir after sparging..not much point either...
K

Maybe I didn't express myself properly K, what I meant is, after adding the sparge water, is he giving the mash a good stir.

-BD

 

[Kenny the plumber]

Have you double checked your temps?

I had a dodgy thermometer!

 

[newguy]

A friend of mine was getting horrible efficiency too - then I asked how much water he budgets. He didn't, and that was part of his problem.

Here's my budgeting routine:

Start with the finished volume of wort you want in your fermenter.
Add the wort you won't be able to collect in the bottle of your kettle lost to trub & hops.
Add your evaporation losses.
Add the amount of water lost to your spent grains.
That's the total amount you start with - no more, no less.

- So let's say you want 20 litres in your fermenter.
- Assume you lose 1l in your kettle.
- Evaporation depends on your system. I've brewed 5 gal batches indoors on an electric stove and I currently brew 10 gal batches outdoors on a propane burner. On my electric stove I lost 3.3l/hour. Outdoors on my propane burner I lose 5.8l/hour. If I use the 3.3l/hour rate and a 90 minute boil, that's another 5l.
- I lose 1.54l/kg of malt in my mash. For example, if you used 5.5kg of malt, you'd lose 8.5l in the spent grains.
- Your total volume of water is then 20 + 1 + 5 + 8.5 = 34.5l

Once my friend started sticking to the budget, his efficiency went from ~55% to over 70%. I routinely hit 85% but I have a HERMS and the recirculation increases efficiency (I think so anyway).

 

[rich_lamb]

I don't think it's his absolute efficiency that is the concern - just the drop he's getting when using wheat? I may be wrong.
I had about 63% efficiency usually, when using my smaller kettle, and that was no problem at all - my sparging was limited and I just used more grain. Low efficiency can ensure clean maltiness in the final beer - moreover, very high efficiency can put you in danger of "over extraction" and into astringency territory.

My efficiency is around 78% now, and I couldn't care less except when I create a recipe, but I am more comfortable that my final runnings are still up around 1.016 in gravity (miles away from the danger zone).

From the sound of it you might have some sparging issues though. Randy Mosher harps about not sparging too fast as you create a vacuum in the grain bed and it sticks and channels, etc. Guess it's one of those things you need to judge. Doing a mash out (raising the temp before sparge) really helps too. And the stirring between sparges; already mentioned.

 

[drsmurto]

Do people crush their barley and wheat using the same mill settings? I do but since they are different size and shape maybe i should be adjusting the gap?

The single biggest influence on efficiency is the crush (according to BYO).

My marga gets me 70% consistently and i figure, consistency is more important than trying to get into the 90s.

 

[Bribie G]

My marga gets me 70% consistently .......

Buying a Marga soon, I take it that you converted it to electric, did you use the method in the "converting Marga" thread? I realise that the cracking is crucial, not only too little but too much i.e. set mashes?

 

[newguy]

Do people crush their barley and wheat using the same mill settings? I do but since they are different size and shape maybe i should be adjusting the gap?

I grind wheat with a smaller gap than I do barley. I set the mill to the smallest gap with wheat.

 

[drsmurto]

Buying a Marga soon, I take it that you converted it to electric, did you use the method in the "converting Marga" thread? I realise that the cracking is crucial, not only too little but too much i.e. set mashes?

No motor here mate, i eats me spinach so its not a problem.

I grind wheat with a smaller gap than I do barley. I set the mill to the smallest gap with wheat.

Cheers for that, something i will look into next time i use wheat.

 

[newguy]

Cheers for that, something i will look into next time i use wheat.

Eat more spinach. Setting the gap small and crushing wheat is tiring to say the least.

 

[bigholty]

I've found that with my Marga mill, a finer setting is no good because the grain just doesn't get pulled into the rollers. My mill setting is a balance between fineness of crush and feed-rate. My extraction efficiency is also consistently in the high 70's, and I don't mind 15 or so mins of hand-cranking (no wise remarks about my beefy right arm from too much hand-cranking thanks....).

On the subject of efficiency, does everyone out there tend to refer mainly to 'extraction efficiency' (which I understand to be the amount of sugars extracted into solution as a percentage of the theoretical maximum for a given grain type determined by a defined laboratory procedure)? Reading an old thread, there were some saying they quote 'brewhouse efficiency' which takes kettle losses, etc, into account, or even just the total extracted sugars as a percentage of the total grain mass, regardless of grain type.

 

[buttersd70]

Personally I use both. I use overall brewhouse efficiency in the context of how much grain for OG to the fermenter, but I'm more concerned with efficiency to kettle, to work out the hopping. Evaporation, trub, shrinkage, loss to kettle, etc. are all to be expected, and will be set depending on your equipment.....but the eficiency in the mash, to me, is the one with the most ability to manipulate the variables and make improvent, and the one with which I'm more concerned. Get that right, and the brewhouse efficiency will follow.
2c