My 12+ months of efficiency issues and what I did wrong

[Shane Phelan]

Anyone that has met me for a pint/exchanged group buy stuff etc.. at any stage will inevitably have had to listen to me whining about my efficiency. Since I have started all grain my efficiency has always hovered in the low 50's despite doing a shit load of things to rectify the problem. Here is a list of the things I tried over the last year to solve my issues:

[list bull-blackball]

• Calibrated thermometers to make sure temperature isn't an issue
  
• Tilted Mash-tun to get more liquid out
  
• Mashed high and low
  
• Not much difference in efficiency between stouts or pale ales
  
• Purchased Ph strips
  
• Used Ph5.2 buffer solution
  
• Purchased a Ph meter
  
• Tested Ph of mash and found it to be 5.7
  
• Used acid malt to bring down Ph
  
• Used gypsum to bring down Ph
  
• Used Tesco water several times
  
• Used campden tablet night before on multiple occasions
  
• Used HBC crushed grain, re-crushed their grain and crushed my own, no difference
  
• Made an All grain starter with BIAB and got same efficiency
  
• Preheated mash tun and also tried not preheating it (higher strike temp)
  
• Mashed with very thick and very thin mash, thick mash slightly better but still < 60%
  
• Used several different types of base malt
  

And here was a list of things I had yet to try:

[list bull-blackball]

• Fly sparging
  
• Mashout - I drain first runnings followed by single batch sparge
  
• Decoction Mashing
  
• Crushing grain into flour
  

Whenever I checked my efficiency whether in BeerSmith or in an on-line utility (See below), I always put in a batch size of 19L as that was the batch size I was aiming for etc. But sometimes for various reasons such as adding an extra litre to warm/cool the mash, tilting the mash tun,tilting the kettle etc would result in me getting more volume than intended. This was fine, happy days in fact, more beer.

What I haven't been doing is putting this into that utility, I think it defaults to 19L and I always just left it on that. When I change the default from 19 to 24 (which is the final volume that I had in the last batch) watch how the efficiency changes!!! It looks like I have been making the same insanely stupid mistake consistently since I started all grain!!!



Jesus tap-dancing christ! 

[Dr Jacoby]

The dreaded pre-boil / post-boil distinction. Many's the calculation has gone awry choosing between the two

[Shane Phelan]

I should be happy but I'm raging with myself!

[Hop Bomb]

So do you have it sussed now then? If you do then be happy!

I dont know what the technical term is for my mash. I fill my tun with 22 litres approx then dough in. Mix it all up & let it rest for an hour. Then do vorlof, then run that lot off. Then top up with a load more water (whatever beersmith has calculated based on my equip profile) mix that all up again & let that rest for 20 mins or so then vorlof again & then run that lot off. That usually gets me my 35 litres pre boil volume.

[Hop Bomb]

You still made good beer though. Im guessing that like me, you knew your efficiency was low so you over compensated with more grain so you still hit decent OGs?

[Shane Phelan]

Yeah beer was fine, I just had more of it at a lower gravity.

[Will_D]

[size=14]Efficiency - who or what is it?[/size]

The efficieny figures that I see people reporting are almost a complete waste of time!

Why do I say this?

What is the "Efficincy" a measure of?

In its simplest form it is:

Lets say I start with 1 kg of grain that contains exactly 500 grams of extractable/fermentable sugars and starches.

I mash this grain and if I have extracted all 500 grams then my efficiency is 100%, if I only get 250 gms then my efficiency is 50%.

Our problem as home brewers without a lab is "How do we know whats in our grain"?

Some books and tools list the "fermentables" present in certain grains but how do we know how true these tables are? Even if the malt was analysed in a lab after 6 months storage is the figure the same? I doubt it!

We then mix up base malts, speciality malts, non fermentables, sugar/honey and other adjuncts so how do we know whats there to start with.

Short answer is we don't

[Shane Phelan]

That's completely true if you are trying to get the maximum efficiency (90%+) out of the grain. I just wanted to get into the same range as everyone else (70% to 80% average) as it was wreaking my head as to why I couldn't get there!

[mr hoppy]

[size=14]Efficiency - who or what is it?[/size]
Some books and tools list the "fermentables" present in certain grains but how do we know how true these tables are? Even if the malt was analysed in a lab after 6 months storage is the figure the same? I doubt it!

We then mix up base malts, speciality malts, non fermentables, sugar/honey and other adjuncts so how do we know whats there to start with.

Short answer is we don't

We don't, but you need to be able to make reasonable assumptions about what you'll get out the other end when you put so much grain etc. in.

[Will_D]

I quite agree that we need an idea I was just trying to cheer up Shiny.

He seems to be doing everyting he can so I don't see how his efficiency is so low?

Most of us follow a recipe, make the wort and check its gravity as opposed to what the  recipe states. This gives us an idea of our efficiency.

Again a sweeping generalisation: Surely most of us hit the 65 to 75% mark?

@shiny: You could always try a minimash experiment. Take 1 lb of MarisOtter/Pale Ale/Lager malt and mash in 1 gallon of water. Sparge to 1 gallon and measure the gravity.

These base malts all have a gravity unit reading of about 1.038 (when a pound is mashed in a gallon).

Stick the wort in the fridge till next day and add it to a brew, or boil it down to make your own LME

[beerfly]

last batch i decided to check my efficiency (via pen and paper old school style)
it was 50% but i think that was down to the way i sparged it  : 
i dont think it is a constant thing as it was only with the  last batch or two
i noticed there was a bit less in the fermenter then i expected.

[Ciderhead]

I think I was at 15 or 20 AG brews before I started looking at efficiency

[Shane Phelan]

He seems to be doing everyting he can so I don't see how his efficiency is so low?

Thats the thing, I figured it out! I was making/aiming for a "19L" batch and I never took into account that I was always ending up with 21+ litres. So when I took into account the extra volume, my efficiency wasn't actually as bad as i first thought.

I just included the list of stuff I tried before I realised so that it may ending up helping someone in the future.

From what I can see, I was getting 70% or higher the whole time, I was just entering the numbers incorrectly...for a year....

[Will_D]

Excellent news - I knew you could not be doing 50%

Thats at least a pint for Will_D

[imark]

Glad you got to the bottom of it. Was having a similar moan when I got the group buy off you. Unfortunately not the same cause though