Efficiency ?

[Archie]

Hey all,
Well my efficiency has been a little up and down. How do you go about increasing your efficiency. My efficiency has been around anything between %65 all the way up to %80. Mostly between 65-75.
The reason for the high efficiency on one of my brews was i had a stuck sparge and had to stir quite a few times. My efficieny for today was %70 which is okay but how do you go higher.

Any thought I am a fly sparger also.

Cheers

Archie

ps what effiencies are you all getting around.

 

[big d]

Check your crush size and your temperature during mashing are the first two things that come to mind Archie.Havent measured my efficiency in a long time as im happy with it.

Cheers
Big D

 

[Jye]

Consistancy come from having your brewing process down pat and doing to same thing every time (temps, pre-boil volume, crush, sparge speed) I have only just started to get a consistent efficiency after finishing modifications to my setup.

Im not a fly sparger so hopefully someone else will jump in but you might want to try a finer crush (if the HBS mills your grain try having it does twice), a slower sparge and maybe even increase your sparge water temp but you then have to watch out for tannins.

In the end dont get to hung up on increasing your eff just try to get it consistent or you could always give batch sparging ago.

 

[Archie]

Cheers everyone,
I think the efficiency may have something to do with my crush size as i have been using a variety of HBS for my grain. I might just try giving the one HBS a go for a while to see if that is what is effecting my eficiency.

Cheers

 

[Trev]

I think Jye nails it - consistancy is the key to all of our brewing. It simply isnt good enough to make the 'same' beer a couple of times and have noticably different efficiency. Now before anybody jumps, I'm certainly not saying that efficiency goes hand in hand with a good beer, but heck, if you can't maintain the same efficiency between brews then how can you expect to maintain flavour profile etc. Our aim surely has to be to makethe same good beer many, many times. Like a lot of us (I guess) some of my best beers I haven't been able to duplicate, and that means that I'm not really in control of the final product.

If your efficiency is all over the shop then try to determine why:

- are you sparging (be it fly or batch) differently, what about your Grist/Water ratio during conversion, is it the same
- does it vary with beer type, are darker beers more efficient indicating that your mash pH for the lighter ones is too high or is it the reverse?
- crush, is it the same each time? Are you doing it yourself the same way each time or are you getting crushed grain from different sources?
- Your mash schedule, are you consistant?. Are your better efficiencies coming from batches where you have a dough-in rest, or a protein rest or a rest while you're watching the footy or maybe your best ones are from a simple single infusion rest?
- Where did you buy your grain, and is there any correlation? Maybe they're crushing it too coarse/fine.

If you work out any reasons, please let us all know because I still reckon reproducability is one of the biggest things we need to master.

Trev

 

[matti]

Great advice.
I overcrush the barley a tad and fly sparge in a big colander wrapped in stocking LOL.
Yes, greater risk for a stuck sparge but greater efficiency....

Partial-Kitchen man until I get a burner.
Matti

 

[matti]

Today i brewed and didn't over crush and afficiency down to 60%
ended chucking in 1 kgs extra Light DME to end of boil to bring up the body... SULK.
my hundreth post yeah

 

[Zwickel]

howdy all,

very important for a high efficiency is the PH of the mash. The enzymes are working best around Ph 5.5 or a little bit lower.
Within a range from 5.3 to 5.5 the most of starch can be converted into sugar.

So you have to ensure, that the Ph reaches close to 5.5, it depends on your brewing water.
If your mash cant come down to that value, you may add some sour malt or some lactic acid.

Cheers


edit: I found this site about it: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-1.html

 

[tangent]

i was sitting at about 72% but since I motorised my mill i'm down to about 63% - long story about horses for courses
no big deal, throw in another couple of hand fulls of malt

 

[matti]

wow
I ALWAYS have my brew liqour ph 6.8 at doughing in and mash and sparge and lauter an alway check for starch convesion :huh: mash was ph 5.4 at conversion
Today was mainly due to my mash bed never settled because the pourly crushed malt did not allow for a dense bed and i didn't have time for a decoction this always seem to help conversion aswell.

Sorry for this justification :beerbang:

 

[Anachi]

If you found that Stirring increased your efficiency then you might find that the problem is with your lauter tun. Maybe look your water sprayer and manifold, channeling may be to blame for your inconsistent efficiency. Although i would probably try all the other suggestions first, modifying equipment can be costly, and is always time consuming.

By the way, I don't bother doing ph checks or anything at the moment as I have hit 90% efficiency on a double step infusion by batch sparging. I guess south east Melbourne water is just what i need for mashing

*woo first post*

 

[Pumpy]

I have been using some acidulated malt to get my ph correct and it has been working my efficiency is 75% I am happy with that , my crush gives me a high % of flour .but nice husks too

Pumpy