My Efficiency:

[Hop Bomb]

I found out where it was all hiding. In the bottom of my coleman cooler mash tun! 

I was aiming for a nice light on ABV IPA today & ended up with an OG of 1.065! or 15.5 brix (@ 24[ch730]c - my dx.com refractometer came this morning) For this brew I reduced the deadspace in my mash tun by 2 litres in beersmith & decided Id tilt it & extract that 2 litres. 

I guess Im gona have to make one of those bottom draining manifolds. Or is tilting okay? (ive a bazooka tube for drainage) 

Mystery solved anyway. 

[Ciderhead]

Good stuff, I found my dead space in mash tun and boiler by pouring in a volume of water into a totally empty vessel, sometimes the simplest answers are right under our noses.
The more and more I play with beer smith the more I get out of it. However it's just a tool that you steer, don't let it dominate or steer your brewing day.

[Hop Bomb]

I had my profile dialed in perfectly (thanks to your help). All my dead spaces, evaporation etc. But I was still at 55% efficiency. I figured that all the sugars must have been hiding out in the dead space of the mash tun so I tilted it to extract all that liquid.

Your mash tun cooler is perfect as the drain is below the floor level. Genius idea.

So going forward is it okay for me to tilt to extract most of my dead space in the mash tun? 

[DEMPSEY]

With poor efficiency like 55%, are you checking what the ph of your mash is. When you ferment out the beer after,how is the final gravity finishing out to.

[Hop Bomb]

Im not at 55% anymore. My last brew was 72% tilting out my mash tun dead space. Never bothered checking PH. I was told here Galway city was hard water. I did add gypsum to my last mash though (Galway bay brewery did on their NZ IPA & they are using same water as me)

For the brews with poor efficiency I was concentrating more on hitting my volumes & temps. My grain bill was big so I still ended up with decent OGs.

All my FGs have been fine. 1.010 for notty & 1.015 for White Labs cal ale.

[Hop Bomb]

Ive done some reading up & it seems lots of brewers tilt their mash tun. It seems the best time to do it is before vorlauf. (A phone book or two on the end should do the trick)

Re: deadspace - My measured deadspace in my empty mash tun is 4.6 litres. Does it still remain the same when its full of grain?

[Ciderhead]

4.5 litres
Pictures please?

[Hop Bomb]

Its a 46 litre coleman cooler with a bazooka tube & ball valve tap. Its not bottom draining like yours. My tap is a bit above the floor of the mash tun. 4.6 litres stays behind if I dont tilt.

[Ciderhead]

Its not bottom draining

[DEMPSEY]

If the water is high in Calcium Carbonates and the Galway Bay Brewer is brewing a pale ale,I would guess he is treating his water to lower the carbonates in order to get the PH down to around 5.2/5.4. High PH will bring with it other crap into the finished beer and also while mashing,the B amylase's dont make too many babies,so the finishing gravity will be higher without them babies becoming hungry sugar eaters and wetting their nappies with alcohol.

[Hop Bomb]

The exact term he used was "burtonized". Is that what you are describing? Any decent ph meters for cheap?

[DEMPSEY]

Back in the day(Tube hates this saying ),Brewing developed in different places around the world in which the water determined what best to brew. Soft water in Pilsen led to Pilsner beer,hard water in Dublin led to dark porters and Burton upon Trent had rich concentrations of calcium and magnesium. As brewing knowledge improved so we can adjust water to brew any type of beer . Calcium sulfate(gypsum) treatment is sometimes referred to as "Burtonization of the water and the Calcium will help lower the PH to get the mash into the 5.2/5.4 range.

[Hop Bomb]

Cheers for the info Dempsey.

Ive just bought everything to make a proper copper manifold for my 48 qt cooler mash tun. Might make a sparge arm/jig out of the leftover copper.