Hate to bring this up yet again

Methods, ingredients, advice and equipment specific to all-grain (mash), partial mash (mini mash) and "brew in a bag" (BIAB) brewing.

Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Tipsy » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 10:44 am

I've never worried about efficiency but since moving breweries mine has taken a dive.

I used to get anywhere between 68 to 75% brewhouse. Now I'm only getting 65% tops and my last brew was 59%

I've changed a few things with the move.

I now no chill. While I know this has nothing to do with efficiency but it has increased my batch size.

I am also using rain water. Could the lack of minerals affect efficiency?

I can live with a low efficiency but would like to work out why it's dropped.

Cheers.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby BribieG » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 11:58 am

Depending on what styles you are brewing then the pure water could be the key, as mash pH etc is important. I have started to use RO water, stocked up on:

Calcium Chloride
Calcium Sulphate (Gypsum)
Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts)

And downloaded this free calculator: http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/
The minerals are cheap from Craftbrewer and last for ever. If you ever listen to Brewing Network radio, there's a great series on Water in the Brew Strong section if you can put up with listening to Jamil and John Palmer for a couple of hours :|
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Bum » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 1:16 pm

You could also give Five Star's 5.2ph Stabilizer(sic) a crack if you couldn't be arsed learning all the water chem stuff right now. People seem to either love it or say it does nothing so it might be a gamble for you.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby hirns » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 4:06 pm

+ 1 for Bum's comment. I use a Brita filter, and unless I use ph 5.2 I get a lot lower efficiency.

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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby BribieG » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 4:40 pm

Yes forgot the 5.2, I'd definitely try that first.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Tipsy » Sunday Dec 12, 2010 4:51 pm

Thanks for the replies guys.

I have been following the thread on the ph5.2 stuff on AHB and I'd be a good test case to give it a go.

Bribie, thanks for the link. It would be great to assume my water is pretty neutral and then be able to build toward the style I'm brewing.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby billybushcook » Monday Dec 13, 2010 6:18 am

Tipsy,

Ivé recently started using the 5.2 Stabeliser, (about 6 brews now)
In the first Mash it produced a pre boil grav, 10 points up on my usual...Wahoo, or so I thought.
Subsiquent brews have only been a couple of points up, so it's helping, but not an instant cure.
Haven't looked at actual effiency since using it, mainly because my hydrometer is crap.

So I'm still at a loss as to what is causing my low effiency (about 60%)
Even though Ivé tried a few different things & methods like switching from fly sparging to batch sparging, putting a false floor in my mash tun as apposed to the S/S braid I started out with, worked on getting my mash out temps up into the seventies, even tried a stepped mash, All for approximately the same result.

Maybe it's just the way I'm entering the figures into BeerSmith?
My usual Grav is 1.042 - 1.044 in 23L with a 5Kg grain bill, primarily Pale malt, 10% Wheat Malt & 10% Flaked Maize.
Would some one else like to check the eff, based on those figures please??

Cheers, Mick.
Home brew my Arse, get that Shit to forensics!
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby warra48 » Monday Dec 13, 2010 7:21 am

Billy,

Just to get it right, is this about what you use?
4 kg Pale
.5 kg Wheat
.5 kg Flaked Maize

We need to know how much volume you collect into your kettle, and the SG (we'll assume you temperature adjust your reading).
What sort of volume do you leave behind in your mash tun?

Are you actually getting 23 litres at 1.042 to 1.044 into the fermenter? If so, that's about 70% brewhouse efficiency.

What's your mill gap and procedure?
Have you checked your hydrometer? I have 3, which all read within about 1 point of each other. If you only have the one, are you sure it is accurate?
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby billybushcook » Monday Dec 13, 2010 8:19 am

warra48 wrote:Billy,

Just to get it right, is this about what you use?
4 kg Pale
.5 kg Wheat
.5 kg Flaked Maize

We need to know how much volume you collect into your kettle, and the SG (we'll assume you temperature adjust your reading).
What sort of volume do you leave behind in your mash tun?

Are you actually getting 23 litres at 1.042 to 1.044 into the fermenter? If so, that's about 70% brewhouse efficiency.

What's your mill gap and procedure?
Have you checked your hydrometer? I have 3, which all read within about 1 point of each other. If you only have the one, are you sure it is accurate?


Yeh, figures all look OK, 23 liters in fermenter, maybe a touch more in some.
Not sure how much I'm getting into the kettle but sg is normally 1.020 @ 70C (1.042 adjusted)

When I put that grain bill & volume into BeerSmith, I have to adjust effiency to 60% to get the "calculated" OG to 1.042.
So maybe my eff, is not as bad as I thought?

Leaving bugger all in the mash tun, I tilt it up & continue to drain while the kettle heats up, add this & continue draining during boil, Often get another 500 - 600ml during the boil so this goes in too as long as I have 20 Mins or more to go.
When tilted, the dead space is only about 100ml
That mash tun can then sit over night, tilted & draining & still only give up another 500ml before it goes to the Chooks the next day.

My Hydro sucks, it's scale only goes up to 1.040, I really need another or a Refractometer for OG's & PBG's.
The Mill is another issue, a modified Marga. I normally do two passes on two settings, the second is 1.5mm then bust it up a bit more by hand.
Been a bit slack with the build of a better one, need to get back on it!

Thx Mick.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby warra48 » Monday Dec 13, 2010 10:02 am

Something is not in equilibrium with your measurements.

If your SG into the kettle is 1.042, and you have the same SG into the fermenter, you must have absolutely no boil off? That can't be correct.

In my case, for example, I might drain 31 litres into the kettle at SG 1.040. Post boil, I might lose about 5 litres to evaporation, which means the SG of the remaining wort must by now be at about 1.048 after chilling.

Perhaps you need to work on better measurement, and get yourself a decent hydrometer. Until you can do that, it's a bit difficult to be sure just what's happening.
Those hydrometees from BigW, Brigalow, etc are a pain when they only go to 1.040. I think they're designed purely for K&K brewers to measure their Final Gravity post fermentation, and nothing else. They're not much use to AG brewers when we need to measure along the way in our brewing process.

I've never used a refractometer, so can't comment on those.

The mill is probably not the issue. Plenty of brewers use modified Marga mills with great success. I think DrSmurto uses one.
I use a MillMaster, with the gap set at 1.1 mm. I hand crank it, and only ever run everything through once. Works fine for me for my system.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby billybushcook » Monday Dec 13, 2010 10:33 am

warra48 wrote:Something is not in equilibrium with your measurements.

If your SG into the kettle is 1.042, and you have the same SG into the fermenter, you must have absolutely no boil off? That can't be correct.


Yeh,
thats were I think my Hydrometer is screw'n with me.
Talking round figures, my OG is always a few points higher than my PBG as it should be but ........That Hydrometer is no good @ 20 C above 1.040 so I'm having to guestimate a bit. I was only estimating 2 - 4 points higher than my PBG, (with a 60 Min boil) maybe it is a bit more, especially now that Ivé added an extra 2L to my sparge & do a 90 Min boil since reading the Chill Haize Thread.

The problem with my hydrometer is that the bulge below the scale is right near the 1.040 mark & as soon as this tries to break the surface, it is no longer to scale.
Time for a new Hydrometer!!

Mick.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Tipsy » Saturday Jan 01, 2011 1:02 pm

Well I've been playing with the water profile tool with Beersmith

Image

Does anyone know why it has "base water" and then lower down "dilute with"?

Couldn't I just make up the whole lot as base water?

I think I may be out of my depth and should try the ph5.2 first.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby warra48 » Saturday Jan 01, 2011 2:58 pm

Tipsy,

Beersmith enables you to input your local water as another option, and you can use that as your base water.
If you click on "Water Profiles, then "New Water" you can enter whatever new profile you wish.
In my case, I wrote to my local Council and asked for an analysis of all the elements listed by BeerSmith in the water tool.
This is what I got from them, and set up in BeerSmith as another base water option under "Water Profiles":

Name: Port Macquarie
PH: 7.0

Calcium: 11.3
Magnesium: 3.9
Sodium: 12.0
Sulfate: 3.6
Chloride: 18.0
Bicarbonate: 44.7

Now, if I choose to brew with my local tap water, then I choose Port Macquarie from the pop up box in Tools - Water Tool.
However, I rarely use my tap water now, and prefer to use rainwater. Therefore I have set up another profile of "Port Macquarie Tank Water", with all the mineral values set to "0", and work my additions from there to try and get close to my target water. I'm fairly confident my rainwater is reasonably pure, as there is really no industry here to pollute it in any way. It's close enough for me.

The "Dilute With" finction is there because some brewers will use say partially local water, and then dilute it with spring or rain water. This is done to get some of the base minerals down if the local water is too high in some components.
For example, many brewers will have local water which is perfectly suited to brewing darker beers, but may not be right to brew say a light Pils. In that case, the base water can be diluted with rain, spring, distilled,or RO water.

In my case, to brew a Pils, I might use about 80 to 90% tank water, the balance Port Macquarie water, and use that without further additions.
Alternatively, I could use 100% tank water, and work out some additions to that.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, most of us seem to brew perfectly good beers with what we have available. It's nice to be able to get close to a theoretical profile, but these days I'm sure the local brewers at the particular profile all manipulate their water in some shape or fashion.

I know there's often talk of the Rheinheitsgebot for German beers. Remember that is now really only a voluntary code, as the EC regulations have overtaken those, and there is no such restriction in EC rules. Of course, if they state a beer is brewed to the Rheinheitsgebot, then it will need to comply because it needs to fit the trade prescription, but that's a different issue than the German purity laws.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Tipsy » Sunday Jan 02, 2011 6:56 am

Thanks for that Warra, very informative as usual.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby drsmurto » Tuesday Jan 04, 2011 11:29 am

Be aware that any exact data you have for mains water is a snapshot in time. It wont be the same and most state water suppliers will give an average.

This is due to differences in flows into the reservoirs, rainfall, catchments etc

Rainwater should be more reliable as long as you have a very good source of it. This will depend on what native animals leave on your roof and what trees overhang it as well as flight paths (dropout) etc.
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby Tipsy » Tuesday Jan 04, 2011 12:57 pm

Luckily my rainwater should be good as it's off a new roof into new tanks and no trees just yet.

I'll have to put up with the bird shit though :x
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby rotten » Tuesday Jan 04, 2011 7:57 pm

Hey billy, does your marga have a drilled modified setting (hole). I have drsmurtos old mill now and it works a treat, still get 75-80% like before when the supplier crushed it. If yours doesn't let me know and I will measure where to drill for ya.
I reckon your crush could be most of your problem, you still need a descent hydometer-refractometer though.
Cheers
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Re: Hate to bring this up yet again

Postby billybushcook » Wednesday Jan 05, 2011 5:02 am

rotten wrote:Hey billy, does your marga have a drilled modified setting (hole). I have drsmurtos old mill now and it works a treat, still get 75-80% like before when the supplier crushed it. If yours doesn't let me know and I will measure where to drill for ya.
I reckon your crush could be most of your problem, you still need a descent hydometer-refractometer though.
Cheers


Yeh, I have added two extra holes to my mill to get larger settings, I do a first pass on the widest setting which cracks every hust but does not bust them all open, the second pass on a 1.5mm setting busts them all open & most are left as an intact but empty husk so I'm not so sure this is my problem anymore.

Scored (bought) myself a refractometer for Chrissy, I think now that me efficiency loss is down to volume discrepencies in the volumes I have been plugging into beer smith.
These days I'm leaving more in the kettle & getting much clearer beer for it, also think I'm putting more than 23L in the fermenter.
I really need to get exact volumes on these two factors & re-adjust my settings in Beersmith.

For example, if I set it up as 2L left in the kettle & 24L batch, it brings my efficiency up over 70% which is probably more realistic.

One other thing I want to look at is a thicker mash to give me more sparge water!
Going to drop from 3:1 down to 2.75:1.

Cheers, Mick.
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