howard county homebrew

[OG]

I'd like to see a club discussion of mash efficiency and mash and sparge techniques. For example, a survey of the all grain club members of what their typical mash efficiency is for brews that are not high gravity - say beers with OG < 1.070. Also mash methods used (single infusion, step, decoction, etc.). Also do you do a mash out and how (heating, adding boiling water, etc.). And sparge methods (fly, batch, sparge water temperature). How do you determine when to stop sparging (when you run out of sparge water, when you've collected a predetermined amount of wort, runoff gravity, runoff ph, etc.)

The reason why I'm interested in doing this is because I've heard some members are not satisfied with their efficiency. So let's see if we can pool our resources and determine what the important factors are.

Personally I think that I get very good efficiency, usually between 80 - 85 % or about 30-31 Points Per Pound Per Gallon(PPG) on normal gravity beers. I do stovetop mashing. I do a single infusion conversion and then heat the mash to mashout (168 deg) on the stovetop. I use Promash to determine how much sparge water to use to get the intended volume of wort for the fermenter. I do usally look at runoff ph near the end of the sparge to make sure it doesn't get too high and extract tannins but I seldom see a problem and probably don't need to do this. I do fly sparging which I think puts me in the minority among club members.

[wortmonger]

I agree! I would love to boost my efficiency ten points. On my big mash tun/kettle I know I have to modify the false bottom to reduce the dead space at the bottom. Right now I re-circulate one gallon half way through the mash. Another thing I tried, was add lemon juice to my water to increase the ph. That didn’t have a big impact.

One thing I would like try is running my grain through the mill twice like mrsoul12 does, and see if that increases the efficiency.
Right now on my big mash tun I think I’m getting about 60% to 65%. With my modified 5 gallon circular cooler I think I’m running around 70% , which I’m happy with. I batch sparge, but have the equipment to fly sparge.

[rdwhahbor2]

Here's an article from BYO....

http://www.byo.com/stories/article/indices/9-all-grain-brewing/1016-lautering-efficency-advanced-brewing


There is also an article about batch vs continuous sparge in the following that is not online.......


Sparging: A Comparison of Batch vs. Continuous (Mar/Apr 2008)


I'm sure I have this particular issue. I'll have to hunt it down. If you are interested in reading, let me know.


I also have the following from BYO...

Increasing Your Extract Efficiency

Author: Chris Colby
Issue: May/Jun 2008
_________________
R.D.W.H.A.HB.

[OG]

I've posted some information to the blog site regarding mash and sparge efficiency and methods for all grain brewing for our discussion at the December club meeting.

[OG]

I found the BYO article (link in RDWHAHHOR2's post) to be very interesting and informative. Sounds like batch vs fly sparging may be a factor affecting efficiency. I also found the manifold design and fly sparge runoff rate recommendations very closely match my system and methods.