National Homebrew Club Ireland

Hi all,

I have been struggling with brewing efficiency recently.  I do 5litre stove top batches.  Generally mashing for 60 mins and 60-90min boils.  Does anyone have any tips?

I am wondering if my mashing is off normally mash with 2.2litres of water per kg of grain.

Thanks

What aspect of it is off. Are you getting full conversion of the starch. Iodine will check that. Are you boiling off more liquid than you want to.

Boiling off about 0.5litres more than I want to.  So will alter that next time.  I am finding I am having to use quite a lot of sparge water.  Potentially looking at more mash water and maybe 90 min mash?

Are you doing single vessel/biab style mashing, or are you pouring a lot of sparge water into the mash from another pot?

Mashing in a 11 litre pot on the stop.  Yea then pouring the sparge water over the grains that are in a large sieve.  Not an ideal set up obviously but I didn't want a big set up.

It will be difficult to brew a 5L batch with consistent results unless you are dealing with very precise measurements. Realistically it would be better to go bigger, even a 10L batch would be easier to manage. The additional grain required would barely add any cost.

Modern modified grains (unless Pilsners) rarely need a 60 min boil. The majority (>80%) of conversion is complete within 20 mins. Remember as a homebrewer, you are not looking for industrial levels of efficiency, just up your grain bill rather than chase that last %.

Big question, how are you measuring your mash temp & how are you keeping the temp constant throughout the mash? For most mashes you are probably looking at 66°C. How accurate is your thermometer? A degree or two out can dramatically effect the body off the beer. This will give you your different efficiencies too. If you were in fact mashing at 68°C instead of 66°C, your efficiency will be lower as there will have been less conversion of the simple sugars, leaving more body (e.g. how you'd mash a stout).

Also what temp is your strike temp? If it's too high, you can potentially have the same result, where the grain is prevented from conversion if too high. This can happen in a relatively short time, in the time you realise your mashed in temp is too high & as you react to reduce the temp (by diluting, etc).

Preparation is the key on all brewdays (speaking from experience)

Correction to above: higher temp mashes won't impact your efficiency - your starches are being converted and extracted, just to longer chain sugars.

But the temperature stabilisation advice that pob gave is sound.

First of all ensure you are calculating your efficiency correctly.

Secondly I think your sparge approach may be suspect - this is hard to do well with kitchen utensils. You may end up with your sparge liquor taking short cuts through the grain bed and leaving all the sugar behind.

Consider using a biab bag instead, and/or doing full volume mashing and see if it makes a difference. Suitable bags are easy to source and cheap

Do you think a batch sparge or maybe just sparging very very slow would be a better idea?  Might give biab ago for the next one

With a small batch size like you are doing you realistically could remove the sparge step all together.
Do a full volume mash. As long as you make sure the mash is properly stirred throughout you shouldn't notice a major drop in efficiency.
I do something similar when I brew 20 odd L batches. I do a full volume mash with no sparge and get 80% efficiency easily.
The thing about working out what efficiency you can repeat constantly is getting to know the setup you are working with. Boil off, dead spaces, chiller loss, and absorption loss are all something you need to get to know.
Working with your batch size on a stove top the best thing you can invest in is a decent thermometer. If you only have a few pieces of hardware spend some money on the one thing that can make or break your beer.

Quote from: nigel_c on June 02, 2019, 12:45:34 AM
With a small batch size like you are doing you realistically could remove the sparge step all together.
Do a full volume mash. As long as you make sure the mash is properly stirred throughout you shouldn't notice a major drop in efficiency.
I do something similar when I brew 20 odd L batches. I do a full volume mash with no sparge and get 80% efficiency easily.
The thing about working out what efficiency you can repeat constantly is getting to know the setup you are working with. Boil off, dead spaces, chiller loss, and absorption loss are all something you need to get to know.
Working with your batch size on a stove top the best thing you can invest in is a decent thermometer. If you only have a few pieces of hardware spend some money on the one thing that can make or break your beer.

Can recommend this thermometer

https://www.nisbets.ie/hygiplas-multipurpose-stem-thermometer/f338 (https://www.nisbets.ie/hygiplas-multipurpose-stem-thermometer/f338)