My poor efficiency

[Barley Water]

Ok, you lost me with that one Daab. My understanding is that the starch needs to be released from the husk of the grain before anything good can happen. Once the starch strands are free of the husks, then the enzymes can attack the long starch strands and start the process of breaking them down into various sugars that the yeast can later dine on. When doing an iodine test, all you are really doing is looking for starch in solution. If there is still starch in the crushed grain, you won't find it in the wort so your iodine test will come up negative however your mashing efficiency can still be poor. Another way of saying the same thing is that converson can be complete but efficiency can also be lousey because you are not releasing the starch to allow it to be converted in the first place. That's why I stated that if the enzymes were not converting the starch, you would likely see and taste it. The enzymes themselves do not have anything to do with the starch being released from the grain itself. That is also why, everything else being equal, a grain bill crushed finer will yield a higher gravity wort (since more starch is physically available for converion by the enzymes). Is there any chance that we are quibling over semantics here?

[Whorst]

I batch sparge and get 60% consistently.

[Should drink more]

Thanks BW.

Currently i brew how i do cos thats how i've been told. I haven't ever been explained why. Which is why i bombard the forum with a lot of questions.
Anyone feel like explaining the whole process, what happens when you do each step etc? Or just post a link and i'll have a good read.

Download this, it will tell you everything but it is complicated, more home brew focussed books are available, but this is free.
http://www.ebookee.com/Brewing-Science- ... 30618.html

I would also recommend Dave Line's Big Book of Brewing, incomplete, but a good start.

[Should drink more]

Incidently, since I started to check that I don't sparge below 1008, my efficiency has dropped by about 5%. It seems I was getting greedy and trying to increase efficiency too much.

[mysterio]

I used to consistently get 65% fly sparging, which I put down to Beersmith's grain extract figures, deadspace in the kettle/mash tun, poor crush etc. As soon as I started adjusting for Ph in the mash it jumped to about 73%.

[Graham]

In my experience, when sorting problems that other brewers have had, poor efficiency is almost always down to poor sparging, or sparging too fast, all other things - such as pH and temperature being equal. Visiting these brewers on their brewing session, I always take my spinny sparge-arm with with me, and my HLT, and more often than not their efficiency shoots through the roof.

A bad crush, or more correctly "crack", is another reason that I have come across. Home brew shops that crush their own grain are notoriously good at getting the crush wrong, but it is often over-crushed rather than under-crushed which causes a set mash rather than poor efficiency - which amounts to the same thing in the end. I always advise people to get their malt from a shop that buys it in ready-crushed, crushed by the maltster, who ought to get it right. Unless they are sure the shop knows what it is doing.

Another classic case of poor efficiency was caused by relying on the silk-screened graduations on the side of home brew-buckets. They are notoriously miles out. You won't get an accurate figure without an accurately calibrated vessel.

In Martin's case though, I would think it essential to get some calcium in the water or mash. Something like 100ppm calcium which equates to either 430 mg/l gypsum or 360mg/l calcium chloride should do the trick.

[Gurgeh]

might i ask about the weight of your grain and the amount of wort you collect?

[Graham]

If Martin doesn't want to mess around, at this stage, with full water treatment for pH reasons, chucking 100mg/l or more of calcium into his water, even indiscriminately, would make a big difference and would be much better than nothing at all. Apart from the reasons already mentioned, it would also temperature-stabilise his enzymes.

Look at the difference it made to Vossy. Well, not actually to Vossy, but you know what I mean.

The time I added gypsum to the mash to acidify it my efficiency shot up significantly yet I was back to taking around 60mins to complete the sparge.

Another good example of the benefits of calcium.

...the next big step in efficiency was after trying out a 3.5hr mash where I hit all the numbers making Dave Lines 6X without modifying the recipe (so that had to be 90%+), I had also switched to using my plastic plate false bottom and was completing the sparge in 40 mins or less.

Dave Line had the habit of mashing overnight. Not something that I would advocate, really.

I did try it once, and didn't notice anything wrong with the resulting beer, but there you go.

BTW. I noticed some rather large plastic plates in Robert Dyas (sp?) the other day. They seemed quite light, so they might float, but they are bigger than the millets / blacks ones by a handsome margin - almost the size of ordinary china dinner plates.

False bottoms are definately better than the thing that people call a manifold, for a mash tun at least.

[Martin the fish]

Er, i may have calculated my efficiency wrong.

Here's where someone who's not me could probably help. I hate math.

i used
6916g MO
294g crystal
150g malted wheat

i ended with 32 ltr at 1054.


previous brew i used
5222g MO
418g crystal
30g choc
plus a moth

i ended with 30ltr at 1046

What is the efficiency of these brews???

[Graham]

Er, i may have calculated my efficiency wrong.

Here's where someone who's not me could probably help. I hate math.

i used
6916g MO
294g crystal
150g malted wheat

i ended with 32 ltr at 1054.


previous brew i used
5222g MO
418g crystal
30g choc
plus a moth

i ended with 30ltr at 1046

What is the efficiency of these brews???

I don't think that 81.3% is anything to be ashamed of.

[Martin the fish]

81.3% sounds good to me.

I think i want one of those program thingy's to work stuff out.

[prolix]

MTF I have gone the other way chasing the efficency for me lead to beers that were not as full and maltly. My last brews have been <70 and tasted better and been crystal clear. a few more pence yes but less stress and fuller beers.

Good beer is in the taste and the experience not the figures

[Martin the fish]

MTF I have gone the other way chasing the efficency for me lead to beers that were not as full and maltly. My last brews have been <70 and tasted better and been crystal clear. a few more pence yes but less stress and fuller beers.

Good beer is in the taste and the experience not the figures

I see your point. I'm quite happy, actually really happy with the taste and body of my beers now. I wouldn't like to change that part of them much.

[Martin the fish]

I've used a different grain supplier and the grain seems a lot more 'crushed' than before. Also my efficiency has increased a lot. I've done two brews in two days and hit 85% efficiency both times.
I'm doing nothing different. In fact i had run out of crushed choc and black so i whizzed some up in an old coffee grinder to use in a porter recipe. Brewhouse efficiency was 84.91%.
So i think my low efficiency was down to the grain as someone pointed out. Well done that person