How do you crank out 85% efficiency batch sparging?

Been able to get mid 80's by using 1.5qts/lb, crushing grain at .35-.39 gap. Getting my losses down. getting a nice boil on.< what is my idea of a good boil? Not insane looking but a nice hefty boil over boil. Like one boil pool is trying to take over another boil pool. Hard to explain. Some brews. not all. I screw up sometimes. How? getting complacent. Tipping the mash tun a bit sometimes. I've always batch sparged. Inchrisin. I'm looking into doing a no sparge one day just for fun. I've heard it gets some compliments.

 

My efficiency ranges - I buy my grain crushed, and I seem to pick up variation from the suppliers. Typically, it's 70-75%, but I have had a few batches hit 80+% (and a few in the 60%s, too). In the past, I collected more wort and boiled longer, which probably squeezes out a bit more efficiency, but have come to accept that as a penny-wise pound foolish endeavor. Is an extra hour of boiling really all that efficient? I'd lose some residual sugar to the compost bin and put that time and energy elsewhere.

 

79% efficiency is really good. Are you happy with way the beer is coming out? I'd just accept that 79% and add more grain if you want more alcohol.

 

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure he means mash extraction efficiency which has nothing to do with boil quality.

79% mash extraction was my norm when batch sparging. I did hit the mid 80's a few times though. I'd say some of the following could help achieve that....

getting your crush to be as fine as possible while still offering an acceptable lauter
getting your mash ph correct / on the lower side (say 5.2)
extending your mash time from the 45-60 minute typical range to say 90-100 minutes
brewing beers without lots of dark malts
not maxing out your MLT's grain capacity
mashing on the lower temperature end of the normal range (148 - 152 rather than 153 - 156)
utilizing a thinner mash than a thicker one (1.5 - 2.0 should be better for extraction than 1 - 1.4)
performing a mash out (debatable I know but it can only help lautering)

 

I understand wanting to get an increased efficiency to confirm that your process is solid. However, I'm a fan of spending an extra $1.79 for an extra pound of grain and worrying less about efficiency and more about other things.

Also, I think I read that collecting every last bit of runnings may result in collecting more tannins.

 

With the efficiency rating (main page, top) of beersmith set to 66% I hit my numbers within a point or two every time. But I am not certain what exactly that number calculates; it was set that way in order to dial in beersmith to my system and get accurate numbers.

I can't say I have ever actually tried to calculate my efficiency otherwise, but now I'm interested in at least trying it out. Could someone refresh me on the calculation you're using?

 

I usually hit 78-83% doing a batch sparge with a mashout. My collection is usually pretty fast -- no more than 15 or 20 minutes, say. I used to do a fly sparge, a process which took forever and did not noticeably improve my beer (at least, not at my skill level).

AlCaponeJunior: I use standard values of PPG for the grains I use, total them up for my collection volume and then divide that by my pre-boil wort gravity. So, if I'm using 10 lb of 2-row pale malt at 38 PPG and collect 6.5 gallons of wort, I would expect:

(10 lb * 38 PPG) / 6.5 gal = 58.5 points of potential, or an expected OG of 1.0585 at max efficiency. I then take my gravity reading, let's say it's 1.050, and divide my actual gravity by my potential:

(1 - actual OG) / (1 - potential OG) = (1 - 1.050) / (1 - 1.0585) = .854 = 85% mash efficiency.

 

@inchrisin I get around 78-80% if I do a 60 minute mash. 86% every time I overnight mash. FWIW.

@AlCaponeJunior There is a difference between Extract Eff and Brewhouse Eff. For Extract take the GU of what your full yield should be for your pre boil volume (36 GU for Marris Otter X 10# / 6.5 gallons should have an OG of 1.055 if you got 100% extract efficiency). Then divide your actual pre-boil GU by this number. So you do a 5 gallon SmAsH with Willamette (2 X what you think you would need + 4 oz right?). Lets say your pre-boil OG is 1.042 @ 6.5 gallons. Your Extract Eff is 76% - 36*10/6.5=55, 42/55=76%. You boil for an hour and have 5.5 gallons of 1.050 OG. After racking off all that Willamette you have 5 gallons in the fermenter. Brewhouse Efficiency is 67%. 36*10/5=72. 50/72=69%. To do the equation you need to know that the 100% yield is for your grain. You will get close with the typical numbers given for grain types in Beer Smith and such.

EDIT: In all actuality, real Brewhouse Eff would also take into consideration losses in packaging too. Say after fermenting and dry hopping, transferring, losses to trub, yeast, hops, tubing, that last little bit of beer in the bottom of the bottling bucket, etc., you get 48 12oz bottles. Each has 11 oz of liquid in them. 48X11/128 (128 oz/1 gallon) gives 4.13 gallons of final beer. 36*10/4.13=87. OG is still 1.050. 50/87=57%. That is the real Brewhouse Efficiency.

 

I never thought about this ... makes sense, though.

 

It is good to sometimes check your conversion efficiency to see how well you are at getting the most from the mash.

 

At the very end of his posting, he noted his usual boiling technique so I gave him an idea of how I do it. I kinda popped it in there mid posting which probably isn't a good way to give info. I just crammed it in there in the middle haha

 

Could be your mash pH. I'd check your water report.
But before you do that I'd ask this: If you set up your mash tun with the braided tube just like a brew day, fill it with water and drain it, how much water is left in the tun? In batch sparging your efficiency can be effected by how effective the tun is at liberating all the free fluid.
Every mash tun has a certain amount of residual volume it can't pull. In fly sparging, that small volume gets slowly diluted with the sparge water. However in batch sparging you only dilute it once. Depending on the severity of the residual/dead volume you can be losing points there.

You can remedy this by tilting the tun towards the end (before you lose siphon!) if possible. Or you need to be sure that you devise a pickup tune that leaves as little water in the tun as possible.

At least these have been my observations with a couple very different batch sparge designs. I am still a devout batch sparger. And normally get 75% or so efficiency.

 

It's true that the mash-tun deadspace carries a higher mash efficiency penalty in batch sparging than with fly sparging. But with most tuns, it's pretty insignificant compared with the batch vs. fly penalty associated with the wort left behing in the grains themselves.

 

Got ya! Sorry I totally missed that part of the OP.

As for boil off rates, my brew school texts I'm reading state that 8% boil off during the course of the entire boil is ideal for removing unwanted compounds and that anything over 8% boil off is unnecessary. I usually boil 13.5 gallons down to 12.5 gallons myself, which is about 7.4% over the course of the 60 minute boil.

 

@AlCaponeJunior : yeah what jbakajust1 said!

The short version is that mash extraction efficiency is how much of the potential sugars make it into your boil kettle and brewhouse efficiency (the one on the main recipe page of beersmith) is how much of the potential sugars make it into your fermenter(s).

NOTE: If using beersmith 2.0 look at the mash tab and you'll also find the mash extraction efficiency prediction

 

I mash in a gott cooler tun and batch sparge. I crush using a credit card thickness gap... no idea how big that is. Doing all my calculations through Beersmith, I get 70% brewhouse efficiency and 83-84% mash efficiency. IMO, crush is probably one of your bigger determiners for mash efficiency. Also, good PH, temps and a nice slow sparge. All brewers have their own procedures for batch sparging. For me, I sparge with 168-170F water (acidified according to need), I pour it in the tun and stir for about 30 seconds then let it sit for 10 minutes. Vorlauf and let it drain SLOW. Seems to work for me and it's repeatable.
As a side note... it did take me several batches to dial in all of my settings for beersmith. Once I had it, it seemed to be quite predictable and reliable.

 

That's a pretty large gap for kettle deadspace and transfer loss IMHO. I hit 83% - 84% mash efficiency with fly sparging and 77-79% brewhouse (depending on hop absorption), using a BK with a 0.25 gallon dead space and plenty of transfer tubing / a plate chiller / an inline oxygenator that I rarely try to capture the wort out of. I used to hit 79% mash extraction and 73-75% brewhouse via batch sparging with the same setup (depending on hop absorption). Where do you think you are losing that much sugar in your BK to fermenter transfer?

 

Yes. The majority of my brewhouse efficiency loss is due to the amount I leave behind in the BK when I transfer to my better bottle. I do 2.5 gallon half batches and leave about a half gallon in the BK. I could transfer more, but I typically leave a fair amount of the trub and hop debris in the BK, usually around a half gallon. If I include more, I get closer to 75% Brewhouse Efficiency. I just leave behind the excess trub by choice. if I was smart, id filter the leavings and make a small batch for experimentation. it is a six pack I'm wasting at least!