How Can I Increase Efficiency?

[Gustavoj]

Im making all grain beer and is coming out great but i want to increase efficiency , right now is at 62% i want it at 80% at least any ideas ty

ps: im crushing my grains , but grain crushing is not all i guess temp and other stuff too but i don't know how :-(

 

[megs80]

Hey,

Why the need to have an efficiency as high as 80? Slowing down your sparg will increase your efficiency. If you could tell us more about your system/ process we might be able to offer more options.

Cheers,
Alex

 

[megs80]

Also if you could post a pic of your mashtun that would help too

 

[RdeVjun]

Obligatory: Get yourself a BIAB bag? h34r: I'll be off then, just getting my coat... :icon_cheers:
Actually, in all seriousness the team really needs more info to work with Gustavo, so post some details about your equipment and process. Glad to hear you're happy with your beer though, that's half the battle won already.

 

[Crusty]

Im making all grain beer and is coming out great but i want to increase efficiency , right now is at 62% i want it at 80% at least any ideas ty

ps: im crushing my grains , but grain crushing is not all i guess temp and other stuff too but i don't know how :-(

I got my efficiency from low 70 to mid 80 by simply doing a double batch sparge.
After the 60min rest, I would recirculate the first 3-5 litres back to the mash tun & drain to the kettle.
My batch sparge volume of 20 litres was broken up into two equal 10 litre sparges. This really ramped up
my efficiency. Depending on your system, a mashout can be omitted which is how I ended up going when
using my 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler as my mash tun. As I now have a pump & PID, I will be doing a mash out
again simply because it will fit my new process better, not to increase efficiency.

 

[cdbrown]

I got my efficiency from low 70 to mid 80 by simply doing a double batch sparge.
After the 60min rest, I would recirculate the first 3-5 litres back to the mash tun & drain to the kettle.
My batch sparge volume of 20 litres was broken up into two equal 10 litre sparges. This really ramped up
my efficiency. Depending on your system, a mashout can be omitted which is how I ended up going when
using my 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler as my mash tun. As I now have a pump & PID, I will be doing a mash out
again simply because it will fit my new process better, not to increase efficiency.

Is that enough sparge volume to cover the grains?

I have found increasing the length of the mash helps suck a few more points out. 10-15mins more so 70min for high mash, 90mins for a low mash.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Equal drains of the mash tun boosted my efficiency

Cheers

 

[Wolfy]

ps: im crushing my grains , but grain crushing is not all i guess temp and other stuff too but i don't know how :-(

The crush of your grain will be the most important factor when dealing with efficiency, all other factors including sparge technique might give you a small % increase, but the crush is what you should look at.

 

[argon]

The crush of your grain will be the most important factor when dealing with efficiency, all other factors including sparge technique might give you a small % increase, but the crush is what you should look at.

Yep have a read here and adjust your crush to your setup. Not only is gap of the crush important, but the quality of crush. Not too fast and not too slow will effect quality.

 

[Bribie G]

Also I note you are in Puerto Rico which I guess is some way away from the barley growing areas in the USA
You might want to investigate the freshness of the malt you are using, as old malt or malt kept in unsuitable conditions can go "slack".

 

[ekul]

How fine are you crushing? I tried crushing extra fine to try increase efficiency but it actually made it go down because of all the crap down the bottom of the kettle.

I biab and if i do a mash out and sparge i can hit 85%, however i don't like to do that for two reason 1. Its more work and 2. the beer doesn't taste as good. These days i keep efficiency at around 70-75%, to my taste the beer is maltier and less chances of being astringent.

 

[Crusty]

Is that enough sparge volume to cover the grains?

I have found increasing the length of the mash helps suck a few more points out. 10-15mins more so 70min for high mash, 90mins for a low mash.

Plenty for a 5kg grain bill ( non recirculating mash ) I have a few recipes with only an 18lt sparge volume that I will only single sparge with.
I am mashing in @3.75l/kg due to the new Rims system but the manual system I had used previously, I had more sparge water as
I was typically striking in with 2.75l/kg.

 

[felten]

It's also important to ask where and how you are measuring your efficiency, there are a lot of different places you can measure and will get different numbers.

Braukaiser has 2 great articles on this that I would suggest you read, they can be a little confusing at first (to me anyway) but well worth reading.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Troub...ouse_Efficiency
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Under...ding_Efficiency

 

[peaky]

I crush my grain with a 0.9mm gap on the Monster mill, always have. The mill is motorised and turns at about 130 rpm, I get a good crush. I was getting 75% into the kettle every time until I worked out I had a system loss of 3 litres in the mash tun. Fixing this got me up to 85% into the kettle every time. Then I slowed my fly sparge down from 1 litre a minute to about 400ml a minute plus monitor my sparge temp and now I get 95% into the kettle on a crap day. Brewhouse efficiency is around 87% after losses to trub etc. My point being there are a number of issues that can cause low efficiency, in my experience grain crush was not it. System loss is probably quite a common cause I would imagine.

 

[kelbygreen]

true felton my LHBS works it out to knock out efficiency to what I gather but you can only put in knock out volume and loss to kettle. where beersmith I put all losses in threw out. LHBS I get 77% eff beersmith 70% so its a bit confusing I just work off LHBS one as thats where I order from and use beersmith for water volumes and temps works fine

 

[Gustavoj]

mi camera is not working
my mash tun is like this http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/all_grain_how_to.htm
and i use fly sparge whit the regular orange one usually it only goes down 2 to 3 F temperature

ty for all the reply

 

[megs80]

Looking at the mash tun in the link you posted. You would increase your efficiency by adding a manifold to pick up the liquid in stead of the one piece of hose. The method you use is really susceptible to dead spaces for draining. John palmer did loads of test and has a good guide on how to build an efficient mash tun in his book how to brew. His book can be viewed online. Check out http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD.html.

Cheers