Home Brew Forum

All done & dusted now, I had a 5:00am start! Here are some pics for you.



Big Bertha in action for the 1st time, heating the mash water.



Mash stirred & doing a temp check, hit 66c.



Doesn't it look cosy!



P.H. check.





3 tier sparge set up, spinny in mash tun lid.




I think this is known as a violent boil! The hops have just been added & it is time to switch one of the elements off.





Wort cooler in action.



Aerating the wort, now where did I put that yeast sachet!

It looks like the "Low effiency syndrome" which a few of you have already had has struck me as well, O.G. was 1038 instead of the expected 1042! It's a good job that Mrs H likes a light Pilsner. Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining!

Here is the link to the recipe.

Early start, nice work

Great pics, that is a serious boil

5 AM start, that's dedication!

That mash liquor looks lost in that boiler!

Good job. What was your efficiency?

Nice work, HH.

Re the efficiency, did you use Hop and Grape marris otter, by any chance? That's what I was using when I got my low extract the other week (though I'm not saying it's their fault - all suppliers seem to be affected).

I reckon I need to set my efficiency to about 70% from now on, until matters improve.

Looking good there HH.

I prop my HLT up on an S&N crate too

BlightyBrewer wrote:Good job. What was your efficiency?

I haven't got a clue! I still work out my recipes the old fashioned way, on a calculater!

I estimated 1042 based on 79% effiency & I ended up with an actual og of 1038, so as a guestimate I reckon mid 70's maximum. Perhaps some could work it out please!

Jim wrote:Re the efficiency, did you use Hop and Grape marris otter, by any chance?

The malt was Pilsner & I did get it from H&G. Judging by This thread it does seem to be common, so it does point towards the malt rather than our brewing techniques. I have stuck to my tried & tested methods for years now. As I mentioned on the post I made on This Page it has happened to me before a few years ago.

DaaB wrote:Assuming 23L

Pilsner Malt 2784g. = 35.8
Carapils Malt 398g. = 4.6
Flaked Maize 398g. = 5.4
Brewing Sugar 398g. = 5.2

potential 1052, actual 1038

efficiency 38/52 x 100 = 73%

(Using Wheelers figures from Homebrewing, CAMRA guide)

Cheers DaaB!

Great work HH
I bet that nice clean boiler won't look so clean for much longer

Nice one HH

I thought that 3rd pic was of the Christmas Turkey till I scrolled down a bit more

DaaB wrote:Assuming 23L

Pilsner Malt 2784g. = 35.8
Carapils Malt 398g. = 4.6
Flaked Maize 398g. = 5.4
Brewing Sugar 398g. = 5.2

potential 1052, actual 1038

efficiency 38/52 x 100 = 73%

(Using Wheelers figures from Homebrewing, CAMRA guide)

Would the brewing sugar not be propping HHs efficency up since its always going to give 100 %.
From his grains etc his efficency is more like
52-5.2 = 46.8 is 100 %, his actual being 38-5.2 = 32.8
therefore 32.8/46.8 * 100 = 70 %

Personally i'd be happy with 70 %, my last few brews have been lower than that. I haven't bothered to work it out but im probably in the mid 60s

Nice one HH.

Here's my take on it now I have worked it out. I use Brewing Sugar rather than Granulated & I used the Dextrose Monohydrate figure of 319 in my calculation from Graham Wheeler's "Home Brewing"

Based on 23L.

Pilsner Malt 2784g =35.584
Carapils Malt 398g =4.894
Flaked Maize 398g =5.375
Brewing Sugar 398g =6.934

Potential 1052.787, actual 1038.

Effiency 38/52.787 x 100 = 71. 987

Therefore I reckon I hit 72% effiency based on my figures.

I intend to brew my house bitter in a few weeks time. It does not use sugar I normally base it on 79% effiency & I am usually near enough, I will change the recipe to either 73% or 74% effiency to see what happens.

Here is the link to my house bitter recipe, the second one down on the page.

Going on your figures above HH if you take the sugar out of the equation you only get 67.75 % of the sugars up for grabs from the grains and adjuncts.

If i was hitting those figures and i was looking to do an all grain brew next i'd be dropping my likely efficency down to at least 70 % or even less. After all its always easy to dilute it back down if you do buck the recent trend and get better efficencies and get above the expected SG.