I had an excellent brew day yesterday! It was my second AG batch and I hit 86% efficiency this time. Way better than the 68% I got on my first batch.
I'd love to know what you guys think about my mashing and sparging process. What steps do I focus on, what do I drop. My goal is to streamline the process and maintain a consistently "good" efficiency while getting faster each time. I'll try to keep it short and concise.
I have a 10 gallon cooler mash tun. Yesterday I started with a 1.25grain/water ratio. My strike temp wasn't high enough again so my mash temp was low by almost 2*. I poured in an extra 1L of boiling water from a tea pot I had already going. Mixed well and hit my mash temp of 152-153. I checked the temp and stirred at 30 minutes. 1* Lost. By 60 minutes I'd lost 2*.
I then "stole" 2L of my already heated sparge water and added it to mash (for a mash out?). I stirred it in then vorlaufed about 6L setting my flow rate to 1 liter/min. I made sure to tip and drain the mash tun getting as much out as I could for every drain. I finished with a two step batch sparge with the remaining water splitting it into two equal sparges.
With about 20L of water left I poured in 10L at 168-170*, stirred and vorlaufed another 4-5 liters before draining again at 1 liter/min then repeated with the last 10L. For the last sparge I added 2L of water, worried I didn't have enough, which then put me over my target pre-boil volume by exactly 2 liters... I drained every last drop into the kettle and topped out right at 30 liters of wort.
It took me 3hrs from when I started heating my strike water to setting the kettle of wort on the stove. I targeted 28L for final volume and got 30L, I added 3L extra to my system from what I calculated so while I picked up 2 extra I lost 1 that wasn't planned for somewhere in the process.
In the end the 30L turned into exactly 5 gallons in the fermenter. 28L using extract was getting the 5+ I wanted but I'm losing more wort to evaporation because it's taking me longer to get to a boil with my AG setup.
What do you guys think? I'm sure there are lots of ways to make it faster, simpler or easier while still maintaining consistency and efficiency.
I'd love to know what you guys think about my mashing and sparging process. What steps do I focus on, what do I drop. My goal is to streamline the process and maintain a consistently "good" efficiency while getting faster each time. I'll try to keep it short and concise.
I have a 10 gallon cooler mash tun. Yesterday I started with a 1.25grain/water ratio. My strike temp wasn't high enough again so my mash temp was low by almost 2*. I poured in an extra 1L of boiling water from a tea pot I had already going. Mixed well and hit my mash temp of 152-153. I checked the temp and stirred at 30 minutes. 1* Lost. By 60 minutes I'd lost 2*.
I then "stole" 2L of my already heated sparge water and added it to mash (for a mash out?). I stirred it in then vorlaufed about 6L setting my flow rate to 1 liter/min. I made sure to tip and drain the mash tun getting as much out as I could for every drain. I finished with a two step batch sparge with the remaining water splitting it into two equal sparges.
With about 20L of water left I poured in 10L at 168-170*, stirred and vorlaufed another 4-5 liters before draining again at 1 liter/min then repeated with the last 10L. For the last sparge I added 2L of water, worried I didn't have enough, which then put me over my target pre-boil volume by exactly 2 liters... I drained every last drop into the kettle and topped out right at 30 liters of wort.
It took me 3hrs from when I started heating my strike water to setting the kettle of wort on the stove. I targeted 28L for final volume and got 30L, I added 3L extra to my system from what I calculated so while I picked up 2 extra I lost 1 that wasn't planned for somewhere in the process.
In the end the 30L turned into exactly 5 gallons in the fermenter. 28L using extract was getting the 5+ I wanted but I'm losing more wort to evaporation because it's taking me longer to get to a boil with my AG setup.
What do you guys think? I'm sure there are lots of ways to make it faster, simpler or easier while still maintaining consistency and efficiency.