Layman's explanation of efficiency.... Please

I have some feedback for the loss of temperature with your mash tun. I have a 60qt rectangle cooler with a removable lid. I was loosing temp big time. Then I read another post on here and thought I would try it. I drilled five 3/8" holes in the lid and then filled it with expanding foam, the kind you can get at your local home depot for about $7. I filled the lid, let it cure, then capped the holes with white silicone. I did a test one night with 4 gallons of water heated to 165 degrees. Put the lid on and left it on the counter over-night. When checking the temperature in the morning, I was surprised to see that it only dropped about 2 degrees. Mind you this was an 8 hour time frame. Blankets were not needed, house temperature was about 68 degrees. Not sure if this would work for your mash tun but for the price and assurance of stable temperatures, why not try? Definitely know your pH of your water and look at the crush. I have mine crushed at the local homebrew store so I know that it is consistent; at least that’s what they tell me. :cheers:

I have some feedback for the loss of temperature with your mash tun. I have a 60qt rectangle cooler with a removable lid. I was loosing temp big time. Then I read another post on here and thought I would try it. I drilled five 3/8" holes in the lid and then filled it with expanding foam, the kind you can get at your local home depot for about $7. I filled the lid, let it cure, then capped the holes with white silicone. I did a test one night with 4 gallons of water heated to 165 degrees. Put the lid on and left it on the counter over-night. When checking the temperature in the morning, I was surprised to see that it only dropped about 2 degrees. Mind you this was an 8 hour time frame. Blankets were not needed, house temperature was about 68 degrees. Not sure if this would work for your mash tun but for the price and assurance of stable temperatures, why not try? Definitely know your pH of your water and look at the crush. I have mine crushed at the local homebrew store so I know that it is consistent; at least that’s what they tell me. :cheers:

Correction to my previous post. Its a square cooler, similar to that of the round igloo ones. I guess if you lay it on it’s side it would be a rectangle. LOL :smiley:

I did the expandable foam in the lid and my temp. retention improved dramatically. Water amounts vary so much depending in the grain bill. I have had as low as 8lbs. and as high as 22lbs. so I don’t think one can just use a standard amount of water for each batch.
I guess this is one of the reasons I really respect BMC even though I won’t drink their product. To make such a light tasteless product on a consistent basis on such a large scale is amazing since I haven’t been able to replicate a recipe on a 5 gallon scale.

Dobe12 and Denny have nailed this, crush and water volume. Do the simplest/easiest things first. This way every brew day can be simple and enjoyable.

I am personally not a fan of Palmers book, reading it makes my head hurt. I am sure the info is scientifically accurate, I just have not needed that level of detail to make great beer. I have never done water tests, never done iodine tests. But I love my JSP Maltmill, made my brewday easier and consistant crush.

[quote=“flytyer”]… or one qt. per lb. of grain…[/quote]Grain absorbs one pint of water per lb, not a quart. It sounds like you left about a gallon of usable wort in the mashtun and this would definitely impact your efficiency.

I have always observed and heard the rule of 10ths. 1lb of grain absorbs 1/10 of a gallon. 13lb grain bill = 1.3 gallons of water. For the most part that has been very close to true in my system.

bstein, Don’t make me come out to SD where it’s probably 65, sunny, and you can brew in shorts outside year round. I start with 1.25 quarts per lb. and want to end up with 7.00 gallons pre boil.(New pot evaporates alot mu ore in an hour boil).
11 lbs. at 1.25=13.75 quarts=3.44 gallons
Grain absorbtion 1/8 gallon per pound .125 X11=1.38 gallons
3.44 -1.38= 2.06 gallons
3.50 -2.06 = 1.44 second water addition
First runnings 3.50 gallons
Final additon 3.50 gallons
Total pre boil volume7.00 gallons.
I’m learning to use beersmith and it seems the default or something I screwed up was to get only 90% of my preboil volume from the mash which could account for my low OG’s.
So I’m starting over and recalibrating everthing that I’m doing. Brain hurts now.

[quote=“flytyer”]bstein, Don’t make me come out to SD where it’s probably 65, sunny, and you can brew in shorts outside year round. I start with 1.25 quarts per lb. and want to end up with 7.00 gallons pre boil.(New pot evaporates alot mu ore in an hour boil).
11 lbs. at 1.25=13.75 quarts=3.44 gallons
Grain absorbtion 1/8 gallon per pound .125 X11=1.38 gallons
3.44 -1.38= 2.06 gallons
3.50 -2.06 = 1.44 second water addition
First runnings 3.50 gallons
Final additon 3.50 gallons
Total pre boil volume7.00 gallons.
I’m learning to use beersmith and it seems the default or something I screwed up was to get only 90% of my preboil volume from the mash which could account for my low OG’s.
So I’m starting over and recalibrating everthing that I’m doing. Brain hurts now.[/quote]

First of all:
[attachment=0]37863.jpg[/attachment]

Secondly, 1/8th vs 1/10th pretty close…and your probably right because I just eyeball all my water with a 2qt pitcher.

The two things that made the biggest impact for me were crush and increasing my water to grain ratio. Milling my own grain got me from the 60’s to ~80. Increasing my water/grain ratio to 1.5-2 qts/lb bumped me into the 80s. Now I’m consistently in the mid-to-upper 80’s. I’ve broken 90 a couple times.

I agree. I get higher efficiency with smaller beers. Less wort loss.

The W-6 test does not include iron testing, which may be important for you. I’m about to send in for test W-5, which does include iron, since we live in MN with lots of iron in our water. It’s $10 more, but I feel like I need that info.

Denny, I think this depends on your water. I’m not sure if it is due to having <30 ppm calcium in my tap water, or what exactly, but I experienced a good bump up in efficiency once I correctly treated my mash water, and ~8 more points consistently once I began treating my sparge water as well as my mash hot liquor, usually with gypsum, calcium chloride and phosphoric acid - to hit my target pH and desired water profile. That is, my efficiency went from ~72% for 1.065 beer to ~80% just by treating my sparge water. Of course this is easy to do with Bru’n Water - the newest version being the best.

Thanks so much for consistently promoting this product when you were beta testing it!! 8)

Prior to successful water treatment I averaged about 66% - 69% efficiency for 1.065 OG wort while very carefully maximizing crush, maintaining >1.40 qts water/lb malt mash thickness, mashing out at ~165 - 168F, stirring the sparge well, etc. and when all of those things went very well, it still would account only I’d say for about 5% increase in efficiency, i.e. raise from 66% to ~71%.

I understand that system design plays a role as well in efficiency, and mine is STILL based on your cheap n’ easy batch sparging system with a few modifications.

Interesting. My calcium level is about where yours is. I’ve notoced better quality beers by treating my water, but no change in efficiency.

My increased efficiency was positively directly correlated to changes in my water treatment, with good notes on numerous batches, and regular best management practices, to substantiate that. And now that I’ve dialed in my pH I get a lot more break material, which had been missing sometimes especially in the dark beers.

I tried for years to improve my efficiency, but was only moderately successful until using Bru’n Water really boosted it up where I saw other brewers were succeeding, at least via my current location’s water profile, and especially after I started treating sparge water too!

Yeah, I noticed better break, too. But no change in efficiency. Glad it worked for you.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…person screaming. So I took the advice of my friends here and double crushed, eliminated the buffer 5.2 and got a much improved efficiency.(Beersmith projected 1.047 calibrated refractometer 1.051). I then proceeded to try to fix a leak on my stationary tub with the only male hose adapter not frozen in. Well that extra 1/4 turn to snug it up broke it off. Sh*t. $0.69 rubber o-ring is turning into a $200.00 plus plumbing project plus 5.00 gallons of EPA that took me 3 hours to chill in a snow bank. It’s always something, but at least I provide comic relief. If We are all on this journey together do you guy’s know any cheap plumbers?

Hey, man, sorry to hear, but congrats on increasing your efficiency.