Worst efficiency ever?

[Llamaman]

I did my first mash last night (as part of a partial mash).
I was rushing a bit and things went a bit wrong when I found out my brewing thermometer was broken so had to use a sugar thermometer instead. Then I had to deal with children waking up, cooking, and... well, everything went to pot.

Well, I just took a gravity reading tonight (prior to pitching the yeast) and, according to Brewer's Friend, my efficiency was about 40%. I assume this is comfortably the worst efficiency in the history of brewing?

My late additions of extracts and sugars would - alone - get me to 1.052, so my faffing around with nearly #2kg of malt has only added another 0.020. Shameful. I think I may have mashed too hot and denatured the enzymes.

So my intended huge stout is now a slightly strong stout, and no doubt packed full of carbs.

 

[Dutto]

Just to cheer you up, the first nineteen years are the worst for kids! If you are lucky, they then go and live somewhere else for a couple of years before returning with kids of their own that they expect YOU to look after so that they can have a social life!

My advice is that, after they leave home, you take the opportunity to run away and start living a nomadic existence, whilst staying in touch with the occasional email or text. Let them worry for a change!

With regard to "worst efficiency" it must be when the Mash Tun fell off the small trolley and spilled a lot of wort and grain all over the gravel in my back yard!

Gravel just doesn't give the same amount of fermentable sugars as grain!

I started my Brew Day Thread because I had managed to complete an AG brew with zero major mishaps ...

... but the Mash Tun spill happened AFTERWARDS, so I'm not overly confident that I have the system nailed!

 

[marshbrewer]

My first two mini mashes, first one BIAB, 2nd one in my mash tun, gave me efficiency's of around the 40 - 50% mark. I am now full all grain, and usually get around 75%, with the odd mishap. So don't be disheartened!

 

[Henders]

I did my first BIAB today! Then after recording everything I just searched for "low efficiency" to find out just this .

Brewersfriend if I followed it correctly says 56% efficiency. I was aiming for 60% boohoo.
Apparently conversion and pre-boil i was up in the 80's so i'm unsure exactly how I then got down to 56%! I need to read and maybe eventually understand the FAQ... one day...

Still, if my yeast gets its documented attenuation of 70-75% then I should still get just over 4% abv, which is nice. Oh yeah it's a German pilsner

 

[foxbat]

If you took your volume readings at pre-boil, post-boil, into the fermenter and your pre-boil and post-boil gravity then you can work out where you missed the estimates.

 

[GerritT]

25 beer brews or so under the belt (can't be bovved to check how many of the 33 total were mead or cider) and the last 5 gave 65-70%. Before that I didn't check. Most of the time I touched-ish OG so probably not much lower than 70%. And it always turned beer. And drank all of it, apart from the gushers (*looks up to the kitchen ceiling in a reflex*) and there's another batch on the nomination to be fed to the garden

 

[AdeDunn]

I did my first BIAB today! Then after recording everything I just searched for "low efficiency" to find out just this .

Brewersfriend if I followed it correctly says 56% efficiency. I was aiming for 60% boohoo.
Apparently conversion and pre-boil i was up in the 80's so i'm unsure exactly how I then got down to 56%! I need to read and maybe eventually understand the FAQ... one day...

Still, if my yeast gets its documented attenuation of 70-75% then I should still get just over 4% abv, which is nice. Oh yeah it's a German pilsner

If I were to take a guess, I'd hazard that you had a weak boil, giving you too little boil off. This would leave you short of your target OG, but with a higher volume of water into the FV than your target. Am I correct that you have one of those Klarstein Mash tun boiler doodads with the metal baskets? If it's anything like my ACE was, the single 1600 watt element on it's own gave too weak a boil, both elements together gave an insane boil, so I used to boil for 70 minutes with both on. This would give me a good decent boil off.

The other thing that used to give me lower efficiency (but it showed up in my mash efficiency) was too careful a stir when doughing in. Give it a really good stir, getting the grain mixed right into the water column, helps a ton (or should that be a tun? lol). Same thing when you stir whilst mashing. I even stir a bit now I recirculate, I'm just not quite as thorough as I used to be.

Last but not least, if you are mashing for 60 minutes, mash for 90 minutes instead. If you are doing no sparge, do a mash out at 76 degrees (raising over however long it takes, stirring the grain the whole time you increase the temp, keeping the bag of your element if you have one, then once at temp let it rest there for 10 minutes) to free up those sugars from the grain better. Every little helps as they say.

I fully expected to plummet back down to 60% brew day when I switched to my new boiler, but thanks to knowing these methods already I only dropped to 70%, and last brew was up to 75% (probably thanks to the use of rice hulls, and been able to run my pump at full whack...).

In the meantime, keep a bag or 3 of dme in stock, and just adjust as needed if your OG dips that bit too low. It'll be handy any way for when you want to make a foray into using liquid yeasts....

 

[Duxuk]

I did my first mash last night (as part of a partial mash).
I was rushing a bit and things went a bit wrong when I found out my brewing thermometer was broken so had to use a sugar thermometer instead. Then I had to deal with children waking up, cooking, and... well, everything went to pot.

Well, I just took a gravity reading tonight (prior to pitching the yeast) and, according to Brewer's Friend, my efficiency was about 40%. I assume this is comfortably the worst efficiency in the history of brewing?

My late additions of extracts and sugars would - alone - get me to 1.052, so my faffing around with nearly #2kg of malt has only added another 0.020. Shameful. I think I may have mashed too hot and denatured the enzymes.

So my intended huge stout is now a slightly strong stout, and no doubt packed full of carbs.

Was this for a 23l brew? If so then you may have confused your figures in some way. an extra "20" points of gravity from 2kg of grain isn't bad at all. I tend to get 1.050 from 4kg of Maris Otter in 23l. Of course if you only brewed 10l then, yes, your efficiency is a little dismal! Take good care of your temperatures and stir well next time, perhaps.

 

[Henders]

Wow, thanks Shrimpy! That's a lot of useful info :). The Klarstein has a 1500w and a 3000w setting, I had it on the 3k for probably 55 of the 60 mins. Extending to 70 sounds like a good start as I think I was slightly up on target volume. Only by 0.5l maybe but I only did a 10l batch so it's enough!

Mash yeah, I stirred twice, 75 mins but didn't mash out.

Dme I knew I forgot something! I have a liquid yeast for this one actually, wyeast 2007. Have I dead-ended myself?

 

[foxbat]

Extending to 70 sounds like a good start as I think I was slightly up on target volume. Only by 0.5l maybe but I only did a 10l batch so it's enough!

Careful when you take your volume measurements as the temperatures need to be roughly equal for comparison. I take the post-boil measurement after cooling (about 25C) but my pre-boil is taken after I've added back my batch-sparge water to the boiler. This makes it about 70C at the time so I multiply that hot measurement in litres by 0.97 to account for thermal expansion as a "close enough" estimate so I can work out what my boil-off actually was. Once you've done these measurements a few times then you'll have your profile dialled in and all your recipes should turn out exactly as you planned them.

 

[AdeDunn]

Hmmmm, you didn't by any chance leave the lid on whilst boiling did you? That'd leave you over volume too (I'm not even touching the DMS argument here... lol).

I settled on 75 minute boils for most of my brews with my current kit, as the boil isn't quite as intense as my old ACE (where 70 minutes was about right). My last brew though was a wit though, so only did a 60 minute. Once you get your eye in though, and your software dialled in too (it's all so much easier with software!), it all just starts coming together! You'll figure out little ways you can tweak things here and there to get slight differences you might want and the like.

How I brew at the moment, I actually aim for an SG (extra grain in the mash) higher than the OG I want, top up for the boil (adjusting hops appropriately too) then add water into the FV to the OG I actually want, giving me the volume I want too. I get around the size limits of my equipment this way (adding extra hops and grain as needed) . All of these adjustments would be a pain without software. lol

As to mashing out, try it once, see if it makes a difference for you. If it doesn't then you haven't lost much. If it does, every little helps. You don't need to do it if you sparge with heated water as it does the same thing effectively.

In the mean time, weaker beer isn't always bad beer. I often deliberately make beer at about 4.2%. lol

 

[Llamaman]

Was this for a 23l brew? If so then you may have confused your figures in some way. an extra "20" points of gravity from 2kg of grain isn't bad at all. I tend to get 1.050 from 4kg of Maris Otter in 23l. Of course if you only brewed 10l then, yes, your efficiency is a little dismal! Take good care of your temperatures and stir well next time, perhaps.

Nope, a measly 11L. As it happens, I think the brew is infected anyway so may be going down the sink when I get home.

 

[Henders]

Thanks chaps. I've been using brewersfriend and asking it to do the temperature volume adjustments, hopefully that gets the same. But for sure I think I can do better on accuracy too as I've just been using notches on my spoon :/.

Aha the lid was most definitely off! At one point I thought it was condensing and dripping from the garage ceiling, but in actuality it was so boily it had spat up, over my head and landed on the back of my neck!

And yeah, low isn't necessarily bad, as I can enjoy more! In any case, I'm off to the MotoGP today so just waiting for my wyeast to puff up a bit in its smack pouch thing. After some internetting I think on its own it'll be ok given i'm only working with ~10L. I'm a bit sad/worried I can't keep an eye on it as, being the lager 2007 variety I'll be starting it lower than anything I've done before! To kid myself I'm giving it a chance I've got the wort at 15c ready to pitch, then once i pitch i'll set the thermostat to 11c and run away. Can't lose... right? :P

 

[Henders]

Nope, a measly 11L. As it happens, I think the brew is infected anyway so may be going down the sink when I get home.

Ack, good luck Llamaman. Apologies for the slight hi-jack with my own efficiency fun! I'd suggest wait-and-see, in my amateur "please let there be beer" approach!

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Bloody Lov the first two posts..... for me its cooling in the sink and element.....going POP:angry:

but when I started I read and read very many books .....A Guide to Craft Brewing by John Alexander ...ISBN 1-86126-899-8 2006 ..............this is a great one as you move on with all grain.

 

[Zephyr259]

Nope, a measly 11L. As it happens, I think the brew is infected anyway so may be going down the sink when I get home.

What makes you think it's infected?

 

[Henders]

Hey, this sparge malarky, do you use the pumps like these?

Oh! More likely these yeah?

 

[Dutto]

Hey, this sparge malarky, do you use the pumps like these?

Oh! More likely these yeah?

Pumps cost money to buy and run whereas gravity is free ...

... so I put the Water Heater on the worktop, the Mash Tun on a stool and the Boiler on the floor.

It looks a lot like the Three Tier System that I used when I did everything on the same day ...

No need for a pump!

 

[Henders]

Ah thanks Dutto, but also i'm sorry as i'm probably confusing us all!

What I think I'm trying to do is a full volume mash BIAB and recirculate from the tap in the Klarstein back into the top of the thing... is that what normal people do?!

 

[Dutto]

Sorry, but don't know. Never done a BIAB; and I'm probably not normal anyway!