Low Efficiency using Grainfather

[LordChuggington]

Hello all,

I'm on to brew number 10 using my Grainfather kit, and all in all I'm very happy.

Except...

I'm getting poor extraction efficiency, pretty much every time. I stir the grain well when adding to the mash, try to control the rate so it's nice and even, but when I sparge it runs through in about 10 minutes flat.

I think the problem might be insufficiently mixed mash so I'm getting dry spots (not seen any though) or over-rapid sparging.

Any hints/tips or suggestions would be very gratefully received!

 

[MyQul]

I don't own a graindaddy but to ensure I don't get dough balls (dry spots) I after I've chucked my grain in my mash water I give it a good thrashing with a balloon whisk. This breaks up any dough balls that have formed

 

[TartanSpecial]

I spend about 5 minutes making sure the grain and water are all in slurry state with not dough balls.
Other things: 1. are you mash temperatures OK?
2. Is east sussex a hard water area??...in which case you might need to treat your water to strip out the excess carbonates to get your mash ph down to the right level.

 

[LordChuggington]

I'll try the whisking thing, worth a shot.

The temp is bang on as far as I can tell (using GF, seems to be steady throughout the mash). In East Sussex the water is quite hard, right enough, so I'll look into that as well

Lord C

 

[glynb]

With my grainy when the mash temperature has been achieved I tend to add 1/4 kilo, stir, 1/4 kilo stir etc.. never had any problems and my efficiency is in the 90's and I find my OG at least 8-10 over so I need to add more sparge water! Sparging takes between 45 mins to an hour on average for me. I hope this is not a daft question but you are using crushed or whole grains?

I'm not sure if the hard water or temperature will have anything to do with it but it may well do. I'm more thinking along the lines of pouring water through pebbles and then pouring it through sand if that makes sense?

 

[walders123]

Haven't got a graindaddy either but similar ish top circulating buffalo boiler and internal grain tube. It took me a while to get the grain crush right, balance between poor efficiency at course end and stuck sparge at the other.

I found a credit card gap between the two rollers worked best for me. If you don't mill yourself have a look at your crushed barley. The mill should keep the white inside pretty intact but separated from the husk. If there's lots of powder, the mill is probably too fine. I'd imagine the grainfather should give you good efficiency. If temperature, mill & PH are OK. The last I believe is less important unless your brewing a pale ale or pale IPA. I brew in Essex and add between 5 to 10ml of AMS in my pale beers. Good luck with the whistling also :)

 

[TartanSpecial]

good tip re the credit card...am taking delivery of my first mill n a few days.

 

[Soton]

With my Grainfarther I seem now to get better efficiency since I started mashing in at 40c. I know with modern grain 40c mash in shouldn't make any difference but since I have be doing it that way my efficiency has gone up by 5-7%. Also as I now grind my grain myself that seems to of made a difference with sparging, the worst experience with a sparge I have had was with a kit that came pre-ground, with that kit the sparge water almost just ran straight through