aceofspades9911
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- Joined
- Sep 9, 2018
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Hi all,
I posted a few years ago about efficiency issues I was having, the advice given was get a good recipe (mine was crap), get a grain mill, which I did, and get temperature control (which I did although I know it doesn't effect efficiency).
I've brewed about 6 batches since then (I took a hiatus) but I haven't been able to get my brew house efficiency above mid 60's and I'm pulling my hair out over it. Below I describe the recipe, procedures used, and numbers I got. I was wondering if there's anything I'm missing that's preventing me from getting close to normal efficiency
I brewed the AVG Perfect Neipa recipe (details listed below). I used bottled distilled water. I used beer smith to calculate volumes and water adjustments. The only modification I made to the original recipe was to sub the wheat for additional oats as the SWMBO is allergic to wheat.
BIAB full volume mash, mashed in cooler with a bag for 2 hours stirring every 30 minutes.
I have a cereal killer mill and crushed once, and realized the lock nuts were not set and crushed again at .025, there was lots of flour and no untracked grains.
Grain bill was 10LB 12 OZ 2Row, 2LBS 12.8OZ flaked oats, 11.2 OZ acid malt, and 8OZ honey malt.
Beersmith indicated using 8.59 gal of water, I withheld one gallon as a potential top off in the event of low efficiency
I adjusted the water (the entire 8.59 gal, before pulling one gallon for top off) with 1.25 TSP of cacl, gypsum and Epsom salt (Beersmith has the measurements in grams, I don't have an accurate gram scale so I converted them to TSP and got as close as possible with kitchen measuring spoons).
I mashed in at 152, over the course of the 2 hr mash, the temp dropped to 146F
I measured my temp and SG @
Mash SG and T @60min 147.7f @ 1.054
Mash SG and T @90 min 146.4f @ 1.056
Mash SG and T @ 2 hrs 144f @ 1.059 .
The volume post mash, pre top off was 6 gallons
I poured 4 cups of 170f water over the bag while draining, the squeezed the crap out of it.
After boiling for an hour and transferring to the fermenter, I has 5 gallons of wort @ 1.064
As far as I understand, my mash efficiency was 69% and my brewhouse efficiency was 60.66.
I don't care to spend an extra dollar or two on grains and I think I could get repeatable results with these numbers, but everything I've read says you should get mid 70-80% efficiency or you have a big problem. Am I calculating things wrong? Is there something else in my process I need to adjust? At this point I'm thinking of buying water test kit and ph meter to make sure everything checks out on that end, but I;be read that should not effect things this much.
Thanks for any advice.
I posted a few years ago about efficiency issues I was having, the advice given was get a good recipe (mine was crap), get a grain mill, which I did, and get temperature control (which I did although I know it doesn't effect efficiency).
I've brewed about 6 batches since then (I took a hiatus) but I haven't been able to get my brew house efficiency above mid 60's and I'm pulling my hair out over it. Below I describe the recipe, procedures used, and numbers I got. I was wondering if there's anything I'm missing that's preventing me from getting close to normal efficiency
I brewed the AVG Perfect Neipa recipe (details listed below). I used bottled distilled water. I used beer smith to calculate volumes and water adjustments. The only modification I made to the original recipe was to sub the wheat for additional oats as the SWMBO is allergic to wheat.
BIAB full volume mash, mashed in cooler with a bag for 2 hours stirring every 30 minutes.
I have a cereal killer mill and crushed once, and realized the lock nuts were not set and crushed again at .025, there was lots of flour and no untracked grains.
Grain bill was 10LB 12 OZ 2Row, 2LBS 12.8OZ flaked oats, 11.2 OZ acid malt, and 8OZ honey malt.
Beersmith indicated using 8.59 gal of water, I withheld one gallon as a potential top off in the event of low efficiency
I adjusted the water (the entire 8.59 gal, before pulling one gallon for top off) with 1.25 TSP of cacl, gypsum and Epsom salt (Beersmith has the measurements in grams, I don't have an accurate gram scale so I converted them to TSP and got as close as possible with kitchen measuring spoons).
I mashed in at 152, over the course of the 2 hr mash, the temp dropped to 146F
I measured my temp and SG @
Mash SG and T @60min 147.7f @ 1.054
Mash SG and T @90 min 146.4f @ 1.056
Mash SG and T @ 2 hrs 144f @ 1.059 .
The volume post mash, pre top off was 6 gallons
I poured 4 cups of 170f water over the bag while draining, the squeezed the crap out of it.
After boiling for an hour and transferring to the fermenter, I has 5 gallons of wort @ 1.064
As far as I understand, my mash efficiency was 69% and my brewhouse efficiency was 60.66.
I don't care to spend an extra dollar or two on grains and I think I could get repeatable results with these numbers, but everything I've read says you should get mid 70-80% efficiency or you have a big problem. Am I calculating things wrong? Is there something else in my process I need to adjust? At this point I'm thinking of buying water test kit and ph meter to make sure everything checks out on that end, but I;be read that should not effect things this much.
Thanks for any advice.