Efficiency With Marris Otter

[hanzie]

Hi all

Im brewing BIAB at the moment and I just took the mashout SG reading. I have done 5 brews and my efficiency has been consistant at around 61%(beersmith). Wel I am brewing a pale beer and I used 100% imported pale malt for the first time with nothing else. I did everything almost the same as before and I just got 84%. 1070 from 6kg of grain in 23l!! Whats going on!!

Minor changes I made: Pot insuladed a bit better, stirred less times, dunked the bag twice and sqeezed the bag after.

Did these changes improve my process or is it the tipy of grain or the fact that its 100% base malt?

cheers Hanzie

 

[hanzie]

Sorry people I wasnt fudging the numbers correctly.......

Its more like 64% 1052 @ 24L from 6kg.

Cheers Hanzie

 

[Tony]

I dont think i could brew at 60% efficiency and not change my process/system to get better.

I get 80% efficiency in the fermenter with MO these days.

From what i have found..... i do get different efficiencies with different malts. I think this is due to the different varieties cracking differently in the mill.

Different malt varieties are kilned differnetly. They are also different sized grains. A larger grain will more likley crack finer with more powder than a smallt grain with till pass through with less preasure exerted on it.

A small change in mill gap and have a hard to pick change in the grist but efficiency will change notably. Good efficiency can be extracted from both a course and fine crush but the mash and sparge needs to managed differently to get this.

I have looked at brewers grists before and said it was too course........ thats why we only get 70% efficiency was the answer. I use a finer crush and wet the husks a few minutes before cracking to soften them and keep them whole. Big efficiency, good sparge speed, cant complain.

As for BIAB.......... is this the usuall efficiency achieved with this method. I would only use 5kg to get a beer of similar numbers.

Do you have a photo of the grain when its cracked? I would like to see it.

cheers

 

[buttersd70]

Tony is spot on with his comments on the crack....and particularly with pre wetting the grain. I did this to his instructions which were in another thread, and it made a huge difference, and now do this as a matter of course.. I don't know how that would translate to BIAB, though, I'm not familiar enough with the process. My understanding is that biab will give lower overall efficiencies than non biab, but you should still be able to hit 70%....I've done no-sparge brewing, and hit 70 (even though it wa a concentrated wort), and have read many BIAB posts where efficiencies are higher still, up in the mid 70's. So I would say, without further information, that crush may well be the culprit here.

 

[NeilArge]

Tony is spot on with his comments on the crack....and particularly with pre wetting the grain. I did this to his instructions which were in another thread, and it made a huge difference, and now do this as a matter of course.. I don't know how that would translate to BIAB, though, I'm not familiar enough with the process. My understanding is that biab will give lower overall efficiencies than non biab, but you should still be able to hit 70%....I've done no-sparge brewing, and hit 70 (even though it wa a concentrated wort), and have read many BIAB posts where efficiencies are higher still, up in the mid 70's. So I would say, without further information, that crush may well be the culprit here.

I hate to be a pain but would you mind directing us to the thread on pre-wetting grains? I'd certainly be very interested in seeing that. With a new mash tun and all round better set up I cracked 70-75% efficiency with my last two brews but I think a finer crush would see that lift quite a bit.
Cheers

ToG

 

[Tony]

Its easy

I measure out all my specialty grains (grains that dont need mashing) and crack them dry. They crack finer this way and you ger more bang for your buck

I then put all my base grains (pils, ale, vienna, munich, wheat ect) into a big green garbage bin.

For 5kg i use a small baby food jar of water and for a 10kg batch i use a large baby food jar.

Hang on... will go measure it now...... the things i do at 10pm

OK........ 20mls per kg of grain.

Pour it over the top of the grain and get into it with your arms to mix it in. The grain will be wet enough to just stick to your hands. Cover and wiat 2 or 3 minuits. The grain husk should have now soaked up the water and no longer stick to your hands.

Mill it now.

It wil lallow you to crack a bit finer and stops the husks breaking up too much

cheers

 

[Stuster]

I'd warn you though that this method doesn't seem to work with all mills. I tried it with my Barleycrusher and it clogged up the thing completely. Does your mill have knurled rollers, Tony?

 

[Darren]

Great way to get rusting on your mill'

cheers

Darren

 

[Tony]

Yeah mate.

Either you used too much water of milled it before the husk soaked it up.

I have never had the mill get "clogged" and have done it for years. Even over dosed it with water. It made the malt very soft and warmed the motor up but didnt clog it up

I use it with all base malts. Englisg, Aussie and german. Pils, ale, munich's ect.

I mill wheat and rye malts seperatly and dry, thats a given though. no husk to soften

cheers

 

[Stuster]

Either you used too much water of milled it before the husk soaked it up.

Could well be. I might try it again, although Darren does have a point, at least for the Barleycrusher. <_<

 

[buttersd70]

I don't know about the barleycrusher, but for the Marga, I found that I had to leave it longer. 15 minutes, and it ran through no problem. Lots of lovely intact husks. No excessive moisture.

 

[PostModern]

Just open the gap a bit. Screw this rusty roller action! Open the gap, float the mash!!! Float it!!!

Good point about the differing kernel sizes... Will take that on board.

 

[Guest Lurker]

The difference in grain size and shape becomes really obvious when your roller mill has done so much work that the knurl is really worn. Some grain, Kirin in particular, just refuses to go through the rollers at any gap, MO gets dragged through and crushed perfectly.

 

[Tim]

Slightly off topic...

Is Kirin malt the same as Flagship malt? As described here?

 

[afromaiko]

Its easy

I measure out all my specialty grains (grains that dont need mashing) and crack them dry. They crack finer this way and you ger more bang for your buck

I then put all my base grains (pils, ale, vienna, munich, wheat ect) into a big green garbage bin.

For 5kg i use a small baby food jar of water and for a 10kg batch i use a large baby food jar.

Hang on... will go measure it now...... the things i do at 10pm

OK........ 20mls per kg of grain.

Pour it over the top of the grain and get into it with your arms to mix it in. The grain will be wet enough to just stick to your hands. Cover and wiat 2 or 3 minuits. The grain husk should have now soaked up the water and no longer stick to your hands.

Mill it now.

It wil lallow you to crack a bit finer and stops the husks breaking up too much

cheers

Hi Tony, is there any chance of you uploading a photo of your pre-wet crush next time? I've just tested this out and had to run it through twice. The husks held up ok though, but the crush wasn't as fine as I'm used to. Wondering if I need to reduce the gap a bit for this method?