Poor Mash Efficiency

[Mister clark]

Hi guys,
I'm new to brewing and have just finished up my first brew day but experienced poor mash efficiency using a 20L braumeister.

A quick calculation puts my pre-boil gravity at 61% and post boil in the same ball park.

I appreciate being an absolute beginner that any number of things could have caused this but I *think* it may have been the grain.

To my eye the grain didn't look all that well crushed, but, again, not too sure.

Not sure if it helps, but, I've attached a picture.

Other pertinent details:

Grain bill: 5.73KG
Mash volume: 25L
Sparge Volume: 5L

Any ideas as to where I may have gone wrong would be much appreciated and I hope I've included enough info

Thanks in advance, Mr C.

 

[dicko]

G'day Mister clark,

Buy zooming in on the pics I think you are correct in saying that you efficiency has been affected by a poor crush.

There seems to be a number of whole grains still intact and in these will be trapped valuable sugars for your wort.

If you have your own mill then ensure the gap is set to around 1.1mm to 1.2mm. Or if the local HBS is doing the job then ask them to mill at that setting. Most HB Shops tend to mill a little finer than the 1.1mm required for the BM and this may cause wort fountains in beers with a small grain bill.

I have a BM and my mill is set to 1.1mm and I get around 80% MASH efficiency, not to be confused with Brewhouse efficiency.
I also condition my grain prior to milling with a light spray of water so as to ensure most of the husks are in tact but the malt is exposed for conversion.

If you decide to wet the grain go very lightly with it as if overdone you will clog up your mill.
I use a "squirty" bottle and with the grain in a bucket, I give the surface a few pumps and then mix by hand.
I generally do this about five times for a 5 kg grain bill mixing the grain by hand after every few squirts.....It is better to go lightly with the spray than to overdo it.....you can trust me when I say, "you will only overdo this once"
If you let the grain sit for a short while after squirting with water the dry grains seem to take up water from the wet ones.

Good luck with you ur next brew.

 

[dicko]

I should also add to this that it is extremely important at time of "doughing in" is to ensure that you have no "dough balls" in the mash.
Dough balls are lumps of dry malt that have not been broken up and the water cant get to the sugars.

I find with a 5 kilo grain bill I divide my dough in procedure into approx 5 steps, adding around 1 kilo at a time and after each addition of grain to water in the malt pipe I stir the mash very thoroughly until I am sure there are no dry clumps of grain.
I use a large stainless caterers spoon but many use a mash paddle to stir the mash.

 

[Mister clark]

Hi dicko, thanks for your detailed reply, really appreciate it.

Being a newbie it's hard to work out what went wrong so I appreciate the pointers!

I was wondering, do you use beersmith at all? Would you be able to share your settings if so?

I've been using the default provided by beersmith and would be interested in comparing if possible.

Many thanks!

 

[wobbly]

Man I'm on the same page WRT mash efficiency and having sorted my crush I have turned to looking at my brew water which if you are new to brewing can be very daunting.

Sure there are other things to get control over before moving onto water quality such as get your crush right and temperature control of the fermentation stage

I have recently downloaded a couple of brewing water spread sheets (EZ Water and Bru'n Water both available on the web for free)

Both of these programs tell me that without treatment my house water won't deliver good mash efficiency and requires additional Acid (lactic or Phosphoric) to control the mash depending on grain bill to around 5.3 pH and the sparge water to <6 pH and will also benefit from the addition of Calcium Chloride to get my calcium levels to around 50 = 60 ppm in the mash

As I stated above all of this water stuff can be quite daunting and can take quite a bit of research and reading to work out where you need to go. If you don't already know a starting point is to obtain a report on your water quality from your local authority. Post the details on here and others will give you some indication of what you should consider doing/adding as a first step

Wobbly

 

[Mister clark]

Also, forgot to ask, what mill do you use?

I'm looking into buying one and it would seems sensible to get one that does the job for a fellow Braumeister owner!

 

[Mister clark]

Man I'm on the same page WRT mash efficiency and having sorted my crush I have turned to looking at my brew water which if you are new to brewing can be very daunting.

Sure there are other things to get control over before moving onto water quality such as get your crush right and temperature control of the fermentation stage

I have recently downloaded a couple of brewing water spread sheets (EZ Water and Bru'n Water both available on the web for free)

Both of these programs tell me that without treatment my house water won't deliver good mash efficiency and requires additional Acid (lactic or Phosphoric) to control the mash depending on grain bill to around 5.3 pH and the sparge water to <6 pH and will also benefit from the addition of Calcium Chloride to get my calcium levels to around 50 = 60 ppm in the mash

As I stated above all of this water stuff can be quite daunting and can take quite a bit of research and reading to work out where you need to go. If you don't already know a starting point is to obtain a report on your water quality from your local authority. Post the details on here and others will give you some indication of what you should consider doing/adding as a first step

Wobbly

Thanks Wobbly.
I'll take a look at that shortly a create a thread - Australia day craft beer festival is calling me so I'll take a look at it tonight!

 

[wobbly]

I guess the other point to be made is that if you are "new to brewing" then if you haven't already you could do worse than having a read of John Palmer's "How to Brew"

There is a free on-line copy here http://howtobrew.com/book/introduction which will cover all of the basics. This isn't Palmer's latest book but at least it is a starting point

Wobbly

 

[dicko]

When I get back to the desktop I will send you my beersmith profile.

At the moment I am using a Mashmaster mini mill that I bought new a short while ago.
Apparently there is a series of rollers in these mills that are soft and wont hold the original knurl.
The manufacturer has released a new model with fluted rollers which I am now waiting for to arrive by post.

I was originally using a Crankenstein 3 roller from the USA with good results.
I have since had the rollers re knurled on both the Crankenstein and the Mashmaster and both give excellent results.
I like the Mashmaster because it is a geared roller model and does not rely on the grain being drawn through the mill to turn the rollers.
Apparently the new Mashmaster with the fluted rollers is a good mill.
If buying new dont buy old stock with the knurled rollers as you will most likely have trouble.

 

[Mister clark]

Thanks dicko appreciate that.

Currently the shop crush for me and being new and impatient, in retrospect, didn't read as much as I could and was unaware what crush size would be optimal for the bm. I'm going to phone them tomorrow and see what size they usually use.

I work in engineering and can be a fastidious sod so I plan on milling my own grain if I can decide on a setup and source the parts.

I would rather control all the variables myself so that when I have issues its possible for me to more effectively track the issues down!

 

[dicko]

View attachment 005 SNPA.bsmx

HI Mc here is a BS file of a beer I made today.

If you open it in your beersmith you should access all the perameters that I currently use.

I do an 80 minute boil and I use a home made hood but most reports are saying that there is very little difference in boil off between the hood and no hood.

Pay particular attention to grain absorption in Tools..Options..Advanced and to my Equipment profile.

Please let me know how you go..

 

[wobbly]

Hi Dicko

Off topic I know but not sure where else to post for interest

My take on your numbers indicate your mash will be around 5.2pH
Here is an interesting article/discussion by AJ deLange at http://www.wetnewf.org/pdfs/alkalinity-reduction-with.html where he references (about half way down the page) that Sierra Nevada treat all their brewing mash water to pH of 5.5

He has a whole lot of article/discussions on water etc here http://www.wetnewf.org/

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[dicko]

G'day Wobbly,

I am not on my desktop at the moment but if you click on "notes" it should give you my additions as a PPM figure.

I have read AJ Delanges writings and I have read Gordon Strongs taking on water as well in which he tends to follow AJ.

What Gordon Strong appeared to suggest was to adjust the PH of the water ( he mainly uses RO ) to 5.5 and then add calcuim in the form that will suit the style of beer you are brewing..and steep all dark grains if used in the grist. He also stated that this is what Sierra Nevada do.
He also measures his additions as half teaspoon full measurements so his final result would be hard to determine on the fly.

Water is in my opinion the most variable ingredient in brewing...the attached recipe is my first go at that clone so I had to start somewhere.
From memory my salt amounts are what is generally recommended for an APA.

Anyone who downloads and brews that beer needs to know that as far as I am concerned it is not a proven recipe...yet, but if I run with it I am sure I will make some adjustments.

Cheers

 

[Mister clark]

G'day Mister clark,

Buy zooming in on the pics I think you are correct in saying that you efficiency has been affected by a poor crush.

There seems to be a number of whole grains still intact and in these will be trapped valuable sugars for your wort.

If you have your own mill then ensure the gap is set to around 1.1mm to 1.2mm. Or if the local HBS is doing the job then ask them to mill at that setting. Most HB Shops tend to mill a little finer than the 1.1mm required for the BM and this may cause wort fountains in beers with a small grain bill.

I have a BM and my mill is set to 1.1mm and I get around 80% MASH efficiency, not to be confused with Brewhouse efficiency.
I also condition my grain prior to milling with a light spray of water so as to ensure most of the husks are in tact but the malt is exposed for conversion.

If you decide to wet the grain go very lightly with it as if overdone you will clog up your mill.
I use a "squirty" bottle and with the grain in a bucket, I give the surface a few pumps and then mix by hand.
I generally do this about five times for a 5 kg grain bill mixing the grain by hand after every few squirts.....It is better to go lightly with the spray than to overdo it.....you can trust me when I say, "you will only overdo this once"
If you let the grain sit for a short while after squirting with water the dry grains seem to take up water from the wet ones.

Good luck with you ur next brew.

Evening Gentlemen.

I spoke to the HBS today to find out what they mill at, I was told that they mill it at the finest setting they can and that it's a 3 roller job which can be made wider.

From Dickos post, I'm guessing it's quite possible that I was getting fountains, does that sound plausible?

I didn't see any fountains and tbh unless it's extremely obvious I'm not even sure I would know what I'm looking at, one thing I do remember in retrospect was that the flow of wort looked very slow compared to videos I've seen - could that been an indication of too fine a crush?

Thanks, Mister C.

 

[dicko]

Hi Mister clark,

If you had wort fountains you would have had a big mess to clean up.
There was a video somewhere on the www where the brewer had the lid on his BM and the fountains were so violent that the wort was flooding the underside of the lid a spraying out of the gap between the lid and the kettle.

When I did my first brew on my newly aquired BM I left my mill set to 0.9 mm which suited my 3 v mash tun really well without causing me any grief with stuck sparges.
Against advice offered by other experienced BM users I left my mill gap the same at 0.9mm
Ok, first brew I did not experience wort fountains but I only got a mash efficiency of 65%.
The next brew I opened my mill to 1.2mm as was suggested by the more experienced.
The result was a mash efficiency of 77%
With susequent brews I adjusted the mill gap but I settled on a gap slightly larger than 1.1mm

Your observation is correct whereby the flow will be generally quicker with a more open crush...depending on the contents of the grist eg: wheat, oats flaked grains etc. and the flow is also subject to the volume of grain you have in the malt pipe.

When I make a mid strength beer with around 3.5 kilos of grain the flow is a lot quicker than a 6 kilo grain bill with wheat..

If the home brew shop wont change the mill setting for you then try to find an all grain homebrewer close to you and ask him/her to mill your grain for you.
Also when you dough in be entirely sure that you have broken up all the dough balls in the mash.
Dough balls are clumps of dry flour which have resisted the water breaking them up and will need to be broken manually with a spoon, a mash paddle or a potato masher.
Only start your process when you ar 100 percent sure that all the dried lumps of flour have been broken up in the mash.

I hope this is a bit of a start for you and you get it sorted.

Let us know how you go

 

[Mister clark]

Hi Mister clark,

If you had wort fountains you would have had a big mess to clean up.
There was a video somewhere on the www where the brewer had the lid on his BM and the fountains were so violent that the wort was flooding the underside of the lid a spraying out of the gap between the lid and the kettle.

When I did my fist brew on my newly aquired BM I left my mill set to 0.9 mm which suited my 3 v mash tun really well without causing me any grief with stuck sparges.
Against advice offered by other experienced BM users I left my mill gap the same at 0.9mm
Ok, first brew I did not experience wort fountains but I only got a mash efficiency of 65%.
The next brew I opened my mill to 1.2mm as was suggested by the more experienced.
The result was a mash efficiency of 77%
With susequent brews I adjusted the mill gap but I settled on a gap slightly larger than 1.1mm

Your observation is correct whereby the flow will be generally quicker with a more open crush...depending on the contents of the grist eg: wheat, oats flaked grains etc. and the flow is also subject to the volume of grain you have in the malt pipe.

When I make a mid strength beer with around 3.5 kilos of grain the flow is a lot quicker than a 6 kilo grain bill with wheat..

If the home brew shop wont change the mill setting for you then try to find an all grain homebrewer close to you and ask him/her to mill your grain for you.
Also when you dough in be entirely sure that you have broken up all the dough balls in the mash.
Dough balls are clumps of dry flour wich have resisted the water breaking them up and will need to be broken manually with a spoon, a mash paddle or a potato masher.
Only start your process when you ar 100 percent sure that all the dried lumps of flour have been broken up in the mash.

I hope this is a bit of a start for you and you get it sorted.

Let us know how you go

Thanks Dicko - appreciate the post.
I'm going the recipe you sent over to me a go tomorrow or mid-week and follow to the tee - I'll get the shop to crush at 1.1mm and see what we get!!!

 

[dicko]

Mate that recipe was actually done with the "no chill" method.

You may want to change the steep/ whirlpool hop adjustment if you ar chilling to achieve a similar Final IBU.

 

[dicko]

If i was using the chill method i would up the whirlpool cascade hop addition to 25 gramms..

This is not based on any scientific formula except for my pure gut feeling of how my system works.

Mate, APA's are very forgiving when it comes to IBU just dont go too much over board

 

[dicko]

At the moment I am using a Mashmaster mini mill that I bought new a short while ago.
Apparently there is a series of rollers in these mills that are soft and wont hold the original knurl.
The manufacturer has released a new model with fluted rollers which I am now waiting for to arrive by post.

I was originally using a Crankenstein 3 roller from the USA with good results.
I have since had the rollers re knurled on both the Crankenstein and the Mashmaster and both give excellent results.
I like the Mashmaster because it is a geared roller model and does not rely on the grain being drawn through the mill to turn the rollers.
Apparently the new Mashmaster with the fluted rollers is a good mill.
If buying new dont buy old stock with the knurled rollers as you will most likely have trouble.

Here is a link to a current topic on the mashmaster mini mill with the roller upgrade.
If you consider on of these mills make sure you are supplied one with the fluted rollers and not the knurled ones.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/86495-knurling-on-a-mashmaster-mini-mill/

Apology for the 13 pages of reading but there is some good info within some posts and links on grain crush

 

[Mister clark]

Hi All,
Bit of an update.

So, not great this time around but a loooot better, hit around 65% mash efficiency.

I bought my grain from a different shop, but, again they were unable to set the mill to the exact size so they guessed as close as they could.
I had to add some DME to get the gravity up pre-boil, so not ideal but happy to get the OG I need.

Does anyone know any shops in Sydney or online that can accurately mill my grain for me? I really would like to minimize this variable as mush as possible.

I thought it might be worth adding my mash schedule as well, I was making an IPA, 5.6KG of grain.

I should add that at this point in time I'm more learning the process of making beer and following recipes/mash profiles that I've found on the net rather than trying to understand the whys at the moment (that will come once I get the basics down).

My question to the folks here is, does this mash profile look ok for an IPA?

Dough in: 10 minutes, 40.
Step 1: 40 minutes, 67
Step 2: 15 minutes, 71
Mash Out: 15 minutes, 77

Many thanks in advance for your time and help!

Cheers, Mister C.