Low Efficiency Woes... Just Venting Really

[Sammus]

Well, first time I've brewed in ages. 50% wheat, 45% pils, 5% crystal (all weyermann). Mashed at 67, hit my temps spot on.

at 70% eff figures I expected 23L of 1.048, got 25L of 1.030.

49% efficiency

This is my 3 years experience with AG. No matter how low I set my sights, even when I was brewing weekly, I just keep getting less and less efficient. God knows what I'm doing wrong. I've tryed everything! calibrated all my thermometers, used lab standard glass doobies to make sure, used herms and got no difference in eff. gain, just more mess and more loss to coils. tried biab, no chill, currently using my old trust 3 vessel system with a false bottom, batch sparging and chilling the old fashioned way. 49%. WTF?!

 

[tangent]

Maybe use the force, just brew some beer and stop being an efficiency nerd?
You never mentioned if the beer is OK, so I guess that's the last thing on your mind.

 

[Doogiechap]

Well, first time I've brewed in ages. 50% wheat, 45% pils, 5% crystal (all weyermann). Mashed at 67, hit my temps spot on.

at 70% eff figures I expected 23L of 1.048, got 25L of 1.030.

49% efficiency

This is my 3 years experience with AG. No matter how low I set my sights, even when I was brewing weekly, I just keep getting less and less efficient. God knows what I'm doing wrong. I've tryed everything! calibrated all my thermometers, used lab standard glass doobies to make sure, used herms and got no difference in eff. gain, just more mess and more loss to coils. tried biab, no chill, currently using my old trust 3 vessel system with a false bottom, batch sparging and chilling the old fashioned way. 49%. WTF?!

Do you crush your own grain bloke ?
I found my eff dropping a while ago and couldn't put my finger on it for love nor money until it finally twigged that I hadn't looked at my gap setting since I built my mill. Nearly 2mm................ My eff is now back up to where I would like it to be with a reset 1mm roller gap
(and my beer tastes nice too Tangent )
Good luck bloke
Cheers
Doug

 

[buttersd70]

I'd be looking at the crush as well.....

edit....worst comes to, take grav samples from both the first and second runnings, seperate to a sample from them mixed....then you can pinpoint if the problem is in the mash, or the sparge.....

 

[matti]

Wheat beer Efficiencies

And as above, finer crush and "ricegulls"

 

[glennheinzel]

As the others have pointed out, grain crush is a likely cause.

Another factor is sparge speed. ie, How fast are you running the wort off the grain? The following is from How To Brew-
"what is the optimum outflow rate? There is a trade-off: if you lauter too quickly you will collect a lot of wort but have a low extraction, if you lauter too slowly you will have great extraction but you will take all day to do it. Most homebrewers use the rule of thumb of 1 quart per minute. If your extraction is low, i.e. less than 28 points/pound/gallon, you should try a lower flow rate. The best way to control your flow rate by using a ball valve or stopcock on the outflow."

Equipment design could be an issue, however I'd look at grain crush and flow rate first.

 

[geoffi]

As well as looking at the crush etc, try adding a teaspoon of citric acid to your mash to lower ph, especially when brewing with pale grains.

No doubt someone will respond to this suggestion with 'but you must know the exact ph before you do this...' blah blah blah.

I have never tested ph. Don't own a test kit. Don't intend to buy one. I use rainwater, so in principle low ph for starters. I was getting 65-70 pc eff. I started adding citric acid (as well as brewing salts like gyspum depending on style) and my efficiency went up by about 10 pc. Beer tastes better too, I believe fwiw.

It works for me. It won't kill you. Give it a go.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Mate,
Im just round the corner from you at the foot of Mt Keira.
If you want to swap gear for a week, you can see if its your gear or your methods.
I regularly get 65% -75%, but Im in my first year, and dont really know my arse from my elbow.
PM me if you want to swap mill or mash tun.

 

[Adamt]

It may sound off-topic but I assure you it's suggested in a serious mindset: Did your efficiency drop when you shaved off that champion mo' after Movember?

 

[Swinging Beef]

It may sound off-topic but I assure you it's suggested in a serious mindset: Did your efficiency drop when you shaved off that champion mo' after Movember?

Hmm.. good point, I still have quite a beer filter on my upper.

 

[buttersd70]

re the flow rate...If I read the OP right, it's batch sparged. So flow rate is irrelevant. It's only an issue in fly sparging.

 

[Sammus]

Yep, batch sparging. Crush shouldn't be a problem, its from the LHBS and everyone else getting grain from there is 80-90+. I might ask him to do it a touch finer next time, I can run off at full tilt with no problems.

tangent you're also right, i dont give a shit about my beer or any beer in general, and having to buy 6kg of grain to make an ultralight beer is totally fine with me, so yeah, ill stop worrying. especially when I have to use an $80 odd bag of grain if I want to make an IPA. Thanks for the useful response.

Soemthing else just occured to me, the grain had be crushed for about 3 weeks. Sealed, but yeah, probably wouldn't help it I guess.

Meh, keep trying.

 

[buttersd70]

What's your mash schedule, sammus? rest times/rise times? is there a mashout? and whats your grist ratio?

Do you know if any other brewers in your area use water additions or not?

 

[glennheinzel]

Soemthing else just occured to me, the grain had be crushed for about 3 weeks. Sealed, but yeah, probably wouldn't help it I guess.

Meh, keep trying.

I've used pre-crushed grain that was stored for a couple of months before use and didn't experience any loss of efficiency.

 

[Ronin]

Soemthing else just occured to me, the grain had be crushed for about 3 weeks. Sealed, but yeah, probably wouldn't help it I guess.

I normally order several batches of grain from craftbrewer at once, they sit for many weeks before I get around to brewing them sometimes (not recently though, damn friends drinking my beer <_< ). I've never had a noticeable drop in effiency over several weeks. Ross does vacuum pack them quite well though.

 

[glennheinzel]

re the flow rate...If I read the OP right, it's batch sparged. So flow rate is irrelevant. It's only an issue in fly sparging.

Thanks for the clarification. (It looks like my brew day will be a bit shorter from now on!)

 

[Fourstar]

This may not have been overlooked but have you considered a protien rest with Weyermann malts? Aren't the Greman malts undermodified compared to the local or british grains we can get our hands on? Better conversion, thinner mash, higher extraction?

Butters, im looking in your direction for guideance

 

[peas_and_corn]

How do you stir your mash? Doughballs can reduce your efficiency.

 

[buttersd70]

This may not have been overlooked but have you considered a protien rest with Weyermann malts? Aren't the Greman malts undermodified compared to the local or british grains we can get our hands on? Better conversion, thinner mash, higher extraction?

Butters, im looking in your direction for guideance

Honestly, I don't know. I've not used wey basemalts as a significant portion of the grist. AFAIK, though, it's not the case. I know that Boston used 100% Wey pils for his ginger pilsner, and his measured OG gave him 75% efficiency to the fermenter, with just a single infusion, 2.6L/kg for 60min sacch rest.... if wheat would effect it I couldn't say, cos I know 4/5ths of nothing about wheat beers.

 

[PostModern]

Yep, batch sparging. Crush shouldn't be a problem, its from the LHBS and everyone else getting grain from there is 80-90+. I might ask him to do it a touch finer next time, I can run off at full tilt with no problems.

The size of the wheat kernel is much smaller than a barley kernel. If the grain was run thru the mill at one setting, the wheat will certainly have taken less damage than the Pils. Who's your LHBS?