Lousy efficiency

[runkelia]

My efficiencies are consistently lousy, ranging 67% to 71%. Rather than adjust my grain bill to suit, it's time to address the problem.

Today's brew resulted in the following:
2.66 lbs Munich malt
9.05 lbs 2 row
1.06 lbs caramunich malt
1.33 pilsener
Collected slightly more than 5 gal., say 5.2 gallons @ 17 brix in fermenter. According to a calculator It use puts me at 68%

I mill my own grains with a Barley Crusher - factory setting. Maybe I run the drill motor to fast, I don't see how that would compromise the crush though.
I batch sparge, stir good, and collect close to 8 gallons at 13 brix and boil for 90 minutes.

My thoughts for improvement are:
buy feeler gauge, adjust mill to finer setting.
or double mill by grains - I just worry about a stuck sparge, never had one.

What would you do?

 

[grathan]

Speed doesn't matter on the crush. The factory setting is too large. start there and post back. Go as tight as you can. You can get some rice hulls until you feel comfortable about stuck sparge.

 

[cease]

Yup, adjust your grain mill gap and you should see better efficiency. You are running the risk of slower or stuck sparges if you crush too fine, some rice hulls can help with that.

Honestly what's the problem with 70% efficiency? If you bump that up you will save maybe two bucks come brew day just to run the risk of extracting tannins from the grain husks.

Spend the extra $ on grain and stay at 70. Get consistent at 70%, most recipes you see posted assume 70% efficiency.. there is a reason for that.


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[RM-MN]

Yup, adjust your grain mill gap and you should see better efficiency. You are running the risk of slower or stuck sparges if you crush too fine, some rice hulls can help with that.

Honestly what's the problem with 70% efficiency? If you bump that up you will save maybe two bucks come brew day just to run the risk of extracting tannins from the grain husks.

Spend the extra $ on grain and stay at 70. Get consistent at 70%, most recipes you see posted assume 70% efficiency.. there is a reason for that.


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Nope, won't happen. I BIAB and I don't think any mill is adjusted tighter than mine and I don't get tannins. Why? Because tannin extraction is driven by the mash pH and somewhat by temperature. If your mash pH is in a decent range (under 6.0) you won't extract tannins.

 

[cease]

Nope, won't happen. I BIAB and I don't think any mill is adjusted tighter than mine and I don't get tannins. Why? Because tannin extraction is driven by the mash pH and somewhat by temperature. If your mash pH is in a decent range (under 6.0) you won't extract tannins.

If you biab and keep mash PH below 6 you probably won't but the OP batch sparges and with a fine crush you can start to get astringency from husks if your second runnings start to get below 1.016.


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