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Hey Everyone. I am having issues with efficiency and I’m seeking advice. I brewed a light lager yesterday, and I did a 5gal BIAB with recirculation. For extra measure, I did a mash out step and squeezed the bag. According to Brewfather, mash efficiency was 95%. Sweet! I was all psyched to have a really high efficiency batch, but somewhere downstream, things started missing the mark. I ended up with about 0.5gal less than expected, and my OG was basically on the money despite being 8 points higher than expected at the start of the boil. When all was said and done, BH efficiency was 68%. A bit of a disappointment considering how efficient my mash was. I got almost all the sort out of the kettle, and I used an immersion chiller so no loss in the chiller either. What could I be missing? Is 2 gal/hr boil-off accurate for our region? Why is it that pre-boil gravity can be so high, boil-off can be so high, and yet the OG of finished wort still comes out as expected? Regardless, it appears my efforts to dial in mash efficiency have paid off, but I guess I haven’t dialed in the rest of the system.
It seems like your math is off somewhere. Like your boil off rate or your calculations are not factoring in your bag squeezing or you are not squeezing it enough.
Cheers
Serving: Brooks Irish Red 4.8% ABV
Serving: Robert's IPA
Fermenting: We Are The Dreamer of Dreams (NEIPA)Hey Aaron – I have never given a lot of thought to my brew house efficiencies, but I have noticed that I tend to regularly get higher original gravities than others using the same recipe. So mashing/sparging hasn’t been an issue for me, but of course that’s only one part of the puzzle….and the efficiency ends there and starts to tumble throughout the remainder of my brewing process. I leave product behind in the kettle more than most since I primarily use whole hops, so a bit of wort is locked-up in all those cones post boil. And if I’m making an especially hoppy ale, and therefore using my hop back, this adds to the lost product. Not to mention transferring from kettle to cellar. There is always going to be a bit of wort in the pump, cellar line and counter-flow chiller. Others who focus more on this will have far more info for you, but I can confirm your 2G boil off is about right. I typically top up my kettle with 4G of leftover sparge water to begin a boil, so for my 10G batches, I’m starting at 14G and over the course of 90min, I’m boiling quite vigorously, which every single time drives the finished volume down to 10G, almost like clockwork.
I dunno Colter…my natural instinct would be to NOT squeeze my bag TOO much, just sayin’ (sorry)
I tell my wife to be gentle when she squeezes the bag. 😉
Cheers
Serving: Brooks Irish Red 4.8% ABV
Serving: Robert's IPA
Fermenting: We Are The Dreamer of Dreams (NEIPA)Hi Aaron,
I agree the numbers seem off. It is almost as if your required water volume calculations are off. Do you sparge? Could your sparge volume be low?
Your boil off rate seems high. If your actual boil off is less that will bring down your OG. But since you are .5 gal less overall, there is either loss somewhere or your actual water input is lower than expected.
How do you measure the water volume? I know my kettle markings read high by ~.5gal. So I know I have to add more water than the kettle markings show.
Sam
Serving:
Genmaicha Brown Ale
Munich Dunkel
IPAConditioning:
Fermenting:
House AmberPlanning:
?Im an idiot. The recipe had some corn sugar adjunct which I forgot to add. I’m in primary now. Too late to add a dextrose simple syrup? How much water for 0.25 lbs of dextrose?
I think you could still add it to the primary. See if you can dissolve the sugar in 1/2 cup of water. It will be thick, but you might be able to lightly boil it to sanitize. It might take up to 1 cup of water to dissolve.
Serving:
Genmaicha Brown Ale
Munich Dunkel
IPAConditioning:
Fermenting:
House AmberPlanning:
?
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