Hit And Miss!

[funkydiscochicken]

So First post.

I've been lurking here for a while, I think I either need to invest some more, or improve my processes.

I'm on my fourth AG, an IPA for the sydney brewshare at the taphouse in darlinghurst, and I have been very hit and miss so far. I'm not worried by my hop utilisation, but I think my mashing has a ways to go. I aim for about 67C, and am generally within 1C off.

First, some background.

My first AG was a 11L pils, BIAB. I hit all the right volumes and gravities using a 20L stockpot to mash and boil in. not quite as hoppy as Qbrew or BrewTarget lead me to believe, but I was quite happy with it. I used about 2.4kg grain.zzsz

Second was a 20L batch, mashed in a 40L eski, I lost about 3L of wort to a leak from the handles of the eski, but ended up with about 18L of lower SG wort, and a much worse efficiency for about 5kg grain.

Third AG was a 22L Schwartzbier, 5.4kg grain. which, I think, after losing about 3L of wort to holes in the eski worked out ok. I boiled in 2x20L pots on this one, and hopped one of them.

My last brew was an ill fated IPA for the brewshare at the taphouse in late August. I mashed this in two batches to get more practice. about 3kg grain in 6L water, with about 6L water to sparge. I boil on the gas wok burner, which is pretty brutal to a 20L pot. I loose a lot to evaporation with a 20L boil over 1h.

Rather than 20L of 1.064 wort, I ended up with 15.5L of 1.067wort, after I NC'd or about 16.5L of 1.064 wort. I pitched a very healthy 500mL starter of fermentis US-05, it is currently bubbling away nicely. Still waaaay under my target of 22L. According to Qbrew, that's about 58% efficiency.







So, what I want to know is...

Am I just buggering my mash? Too high? Too low? Not long enough? Am I being screwed on crush and should I buy a crazy mill with my next bag of grain? I think I should I be able to get more from my grains with what I'm getting. What should I do?

And I know I need a larger boil pot.

 

[funkydiscochicken]

Also: I just saw this on that american forum. does anyone else think that skateboard grip tape might work rather than a proper mill? or am I just hopeful.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-past...84/index48.html

 

[felten]

If you haven't read the all grain section on howtobrew.com that would be the first thing I suggest. I'm not a traditional masher so I'm a little rusty here, but I would say that 2L to 1kg ratio is a little on the low side for mashing, I think 3:1 is the minimum suggested; and use 1.5 to 2 times as much sparge water as mash water. The grain is going to hold on to about 1L per kg, so a quick calc gives me 19.5L all up which might be alright in a 20L pot.

Anyway I'm sure more experienced people can be of more help than me.

 

[amiddler]

Chicken,

What are you using to crush your grain? My biggest jump in efficiency was going to a slightly finer crush by modifying my Marga mill a bit.
The other thing is to consider is investing in a brew calculator. Promash and Beersmith are cool but I use Brewmate. It is a free down load and the guy(s) designing it are also on AHB frequently. I too had troubles with estimating volumes but since downloading a calculator I have had much more success.

Drew

 

[matho]

first thing i would do is to stop the leaks out of your mash tun, if your losing 3l of first runnings wort then your losing alot of sugar.
the next thing is your volume of water you are using a good rule of thumb is mash in with 3l/kg and sparge with about 4l/kg, so with 5kg of grain you use 35l of water you lose about 5l of water from absorption by the grain and lose a little bit more from the deadspace in you mah tun so you'll end up with a bit under 30l. So after boiling and losses to trub you'll end up with about 22- 24 l into the fermenter.

There is two types of efficencies that are commonly quoted one is mash efficency which is how well you extracted the sugar from the grain quoted as a percentage of the maximum possible extract from those grains and that is meausured in the boil pot.

The next is brewhouse efficency which is a measurment of sugars into the fermenter this takes into account of losses in your whole brewing process like to trub and deadspaces.

if you get a mash efficency in the mid 70's then your mash process is going pretty well and there is nothing to worry about.
brewhouse efficency can be increased by reducing deadpaces in your equipment but it will change depending on the type of beer being brewed, you will lose more to hop matter in an ipa than in a lower hopped beer.
the last thing is to get to know your system so that you can compensate for your losses, that is know were your losses are and compentsate for them in the recipe and don't worry to much because at the end of the day no matter what your efficency is your going to make good beer :icon_cheers: .

cheer's matho

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Definately sort out the leaks in your tun mate... pretty hard to calculate anything with an unknown quantity being lost in your tun everytime (especially first runnings as matho said).

When you're getting predictable results you can tinker and work on refining the process (no good trying to fine tune if you can't measure if its had the desired effect)

 

[Bribie G]

I'd get the equipment sorted first, a new esky for starters. The mash tun is the heart of the system.

 

[manticle]

The most important thing that's missing from your information above is how do they taste? Are you making decent beer. While 58% is reasonably low and you may want to stop your losses, are the beers turning out tasty or not?

Firstly - your evaporation losses.

Every system is different - you need to calculate what your system will give you and base recipes on that. No point wondering why your losses are higher than the software tells you if you know the wok burner is brutal to a 20 L pot Maybe you need to look at getting a bigger pot - it will make hop calculations easier. I started as a two pot boil man too (actually a 2 pot, two boil each man) so I know you can't always immediately just upgrade but you may find a bigger pot either changes your rate or allows you to factor in the losses.

Secondly - I would look at a touch more strike water - look at a ratio of around [at least] 2.5:1 L. You may also lose a bit of heat mashing in a 40L but doing only 5 kg depending on the insulation factor of the esky. Judging by the leaking it's probably not that great.

Obviously if you are losing 3 L of sugary goodness and your final volume is coming in 3.5 L shorter tahn expected then that issue needs sorting.

Are you sparging hot? Are you batch or fly sparging? As above - who's cracking the grain and what does it look like?

Here's my process which is consistently around 70% and gives me (mostly) the expected volume give or take a litre. The main thing is that it's consistent and I get what I expecte from my recipes (can still make awful beer though - who doesn't miss sometimes?)

I calculate 2.5 L of strike water that's 9-10 degrees hotter than strike.
I stir then leave for 60 - 90 minutes depending on mash.
I mash out with approximately my expected loss from grain absorption (just coincidence that it's roughly this amount that brings my temps up to mashout). For most recipes this is around 8-9 L of near boiling water. I use a 26 L tun so sometimes a larger grain bill might allow a bit less room (maybe 6-7 L)
I batch sparge with approximately half my final expected preboil volume.
I then bring the pot to the boil with the lid on (plenty of headspace) and the burner on full. AS SOON as it hits a boil, lid goes off, burner is truned down so it is a rolling boil. Doesn't neeed to be vesuvius - just constant. Boil 15 minutes then add first hop addition. etc etc - you know the rest.

If you are careful with your temps and careful with your water amounts you will have more hit than miss.

Cheers.

PS - remember the above is what works on my system for me but there may be some useful info in there for you.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

I then bring the pot to the boil with the lid on (plenty of headspace) and the burner on full. AS SOON as it hits a boil, lid goes off, burner is truned down so it is a rolling boil. Doesn't neeed to be vesuvius - just constant. Boil 15 minutes then add first hop addition. etc etc - you know the rest.

Thats a great tip about keeping the lid on until you hit the boil manticle (hadn't thought of it) I'm wondering how much that will cut down my evaporation losses...

 

[The Mad Hopper]

Keeping the lid on until you hit the boil shouldn't affect evaporation all that much: look at how little steam you have coming off before the boil. It will help you hit boil faster though.

Regardless, it won't change your efficiency.

With the leaks, go to your nearest hardware store and grab a tube of silicone. Works wonders and it'll cost you no more than 5 bucks. I have an old esky that I use for holding sparge water that was leaking and this did the trick.

 

[manticle]

As above. It will limit the evap rate a slight touch but my main reason for doing it is simply to get to the boil quicker. Don't leave it on while it's boiling (presumably you know this)

Controlling your heat and scaling the recipe according to the losses you get are the best ways of ending up with the final volume you want.

Also take a gravity reading at various points to work out where your efficiency is lacking - first runnings, pre-boil and pre-ferment

 

[funkydiscochicken]

Most importantly, these are the best tasting beers I have ever made.I bought all my grain pre-crushed in mid may.

I've just pitched a brown ale and think I have understand things a bit better. I think I was mistaking brewhouse efficiency for mashtun efficiency, and my mash was far too thick. I have

1. fixed the leaky mashtun
2. mashed with more water, about 3L/kg
3. put a layer of foil over the grains and water to keep the heat in the grains as I only filled my eski about half way. I hit 67deg, which dropped to 65 over 70min.

so with 4.6kg of base malts and 400g of carafra/carapils I now have about 17L of 1060 wort, and probably 1.5L of trub not including hop and grain losses.

My first runnings were about 14L of 1060, Should I ask my lhbs to crush a bit finer next time? or is that not worth worrying about until I get a mill?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Had a dodgy (according to qbrew) efficiency, with my first ever BIAB AG, and still have (after just tasting) ended up with a decent beer. A little lighter, but one that I would give to non-craft brew types as a quaffer.

That was trying to do a 22L in my 19L big w pot (and watering the end result to bring up to volume). I had about 5L of grain to about 15L of water when mashing and found that the efficiency was just not there.

I did another 22L batch (with a 9L in between, more on that below), but it was only 4 L of grain and 1L of cooked white rice, which brought efficiency up nicely (as the rice is virtually liquid before you even mash and it amalgamates into the wort, as it ends up mashing the grain, if that makes sense.

The other thing I did was borrow the wife's pasta pot.

It has an insert that has holes in it, that strain into the pot part below. I put the voile bag into it, and then sparged through the voile (the more grain, the more sparge), gave it a good squeeze each time and then introduced the proceeds into the rest of the wort and boiled.

Efficiency went up massively after that.

With the 9L batches I'm doing in the 19L pot, my water to grain is about 3:1. Efficiency is in the mid 70s, so I'm happy with that. Again, I sparge the grains in the bag, so I end up with about 14L of wort (when the sparge contents are introduced into the wort), which I boil down. I have an electric element, so the heat isn't massive, but I do manage to reduce the volume down to about 10L.

According to qbrew, my OG is spot on, so I'm happy with that.