grainfather - efficiency

[mishking]

I recently purchased a grainfather and yesterday put my first brew on using it.

I used a mashkit that i had purchased from elsewhere to try and keep things simple for the first few brews.

This kit had a 5kg grain bill and i used the grainfather calculator for mash/sparge water which come out perfect as i transferred 23lts to FV.

Everything went really well and i loved the grainfather but my efficiency was way higher than expected. I was aiming for on OG of 1.042 but i hit 1.060. Not the end of the world but it's going to be a strong brew if it hits 1.010 :lol:.

I have a few more kits to go through, is there anything easy i can do to bring the OG down nearer to where it should be?

Regards,
Greg

 

[Slid]

I recently purchased a grainfather and yesterday put my first brew on using it.

I used a mashkit that i had purchased from elsewhere to try and keep things simple for the first few brews.

This kit had a 5kg grain bill and i used the grainfather calculator for mash/sparge water which come out perfect as i transferred 23lts to FV.

Everything went really well and i loved the grainfather but my efficiency was way higher than expected. I was aiming for on OG of 1.042 but i hit 1.060. Not the end of the world but it's going to be a strong brew if it hits 1.010 :lol:.

I have a few more kits to go through, is there anything easy i can do to bring the OG down nearer to where it should be?

Regards,
Greg

I would have a couple more goes with the GF to establish a reliable baseline on efficiency, which relies heavily on the OG reading.

I think 1.060 would imply 85-90% efficiency and that is mot what I get!

Reducing the size of the grain bill is the obvious answer if there is a reliable efficiency pattern. Using the brewing software available is useful to get a feel for what changes in efficiency etc do to your "numbers".

 

[fuzzy]

Did you get the right amount of wort as less would meant a higher OG.

You could always add some water to liquor back.

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[BarleyLegal]

I've done a few brews with my Grainfather now and each time I have experienced efficiency of 85 - 90%. At first I was massively overshooting my targets.

I now scale down recipes that are generally based on a 75% efficiency in order to hit the target OG without diluting the wort. To get the scale factor divide the recipe efficiency by your efficiency.

(75 / 90) x grain weight

This gives a scale factor of 0.83, so 5kg of pale malt would be reduced to 4.17kg.

 

[mishking]

i'm glad someone else else has experienced this as well as i have now done 3 brews using kits and they have all come out way over where they should be.

I have been putting off an american ipa kit that i have had because it was meant to come out at 6.4% and i would of been way to strong for a session beer!!

im going to apply the above math and see if i hit the correct numbers.

il report back my findings

 

[rank_frank]

I've done two brews with my Grainfather. The first one came out at 75% and the second at 83%. I'm making 10 litre batches though so maybe that will influence the figures.

I have a couple of 23 litres AG kits so I'll make those and report back my findings.

 

[chewie]

Premium pils grain kit i done at xmas was well over what was expected with the instructions but it finished higher to, i wouldn't be to worried, with a 5kg grain kit after your boil i would be expecting closer to 1.050 for your SG (would depend on the actual grains though).

 

[mishking]

Stuck another kit on this morning using the above math. I reduced my grain bill from 6kg to 5kg.

Expected OG was 1.060 and i hit exactly that with the reduced gran bill :)

Smells absolutely wonderful as well, was a hoppy american pale ale kit from geterbrewed. Cant wait to get drinking it!

 

[DoctorMick]

If I use 5kg of grain with my gf I get an og of about 1050...I wonder what's making such a difference?

 

[Zephyr259]

I'm seeing similar efficiencies, the first GF brew was a DIYDOG jet black heart clone that I put together as a custom kit, came in a couple of points under target. The 2 I've done since which I've put the grain together myself have been ~85%, one was with the micro pipework the other with the regular. I was quite surprised when I worked these out.

 

[pintofmild]

Stuck another kit on this morning using the above math. I reduced my grain bill from 6kg to 5kg.

Expected OG was 1.060 and i hit exactly that with the reduced gran bill :)

Smells absolutely wonderful as well, was a hoppy american pale ale kit from geterbrewed. Cant wait to get drinking it!

It's ready to drink now,, :mrgreen:

 

[rank_frank]

It's ready to drink now,, :mrgreen:

And how was it?

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