So I'm trying to get my efficiency up and I've been reading and thinking about mash recirculation to make sure I get all the sugar out of the grains. I don't have the money to jump to a herms or rims system. I currently utilize a ten gallon igloo cooler with a false bottom as a mash tun. I have a pump to use but I'm concerned about losing temp if I recirculate the mash without a heat source. So I'm considering doing a recirculation but in the sparge portion. My thought process would be to mash like normal vorloft and then drain to the kettle and then reflooding the mash with sparge water set the grain bed and recirculate it with a pump for 20 minutes. Does anyone see any problem with this approach? It is my hope that recirculation of the large water will ensure I'm not using any grain behind.
I do not know, but if you drain the first runnings, then dump in your sparge ,agitate. vourloft you might be in good shape. What is your current method, please include water temp for mash and sparge, time spent mashing and sparging, how fine are your grains crushed, water chemistry and a detailed recipe where you were not pleased with the efficency. Brewers here are particular, and demand tons of info before giving answers. The up side is alot of the posters here know there stuff. hang on.
Hard to give specific advice. I think you need to try different things and see what helps and what doesn't: You can focus on optimizing the solubility of starches by using a finder crush, more stirring of the mash, longer mash times. Stuff that exposes more endosperm to the mash liquor. Optimizing pH and temps will optimize conversion of starches to sugars and also impact fermentability (longer mashes will contribute similarly, too). The point is that some of these dials have multiple impacts. You can focus on optimizing the rinsing of sugars from your mash. Batch sparging with agitation between sparge additions could help if the geometry of your mash tun and false bottom/manifold/hosebraid lead to preferential flow paths when fly sparging. Recirculation could help sampling because you are rinsing longer. Adding more sparge water would help too Back before I started brew in a bag, I batched sparged. I found breaking up the sparge into2 or 3 batches instead of one improved my efficiency. I found using more water improved my efficiency, you need to then take the time to boil longer. When I moved to BIAB, I got a recirculation pump. I stopped using it because it is noisy, and an extra thing to clean after every batch. I think I may have gotten better efficiency with it, but I probably should do some side by sides to test that. Anyhow, the point is I would prefer to have 5-10% lower efficiency than boil for 3 hours to concentrate the wort (when I batch sparged) or to have a noisy pump running for an hour (plus extra cleaning). For me, efficiency is not something I want to chase, just something I want to count on for the sake of consistency and predictability.
I've got nothing to offer but unsolicited advice, nothing on increasing efficiency, so you know, feel free to ignore me. First, I agree with pweis909's point that it's probably more useful to get a consistent efficiency than to maximize your efficiency every time. Grain is cheap, so although improving efficiency is certainly a reasonable thing to do, it's not something to expend a bunch of resources on or sacrifice other priorities to accomplish. Second, I am just in the process of redesigning my system to incorporate a pump. But my reason is not to increase efficiency, but rather to get clearer wort into the kettle. If you already have a pump, I would suggest using it to conduct your vorlauf (why not, you're going to have to set the pump up for your sparge anyway). That way you're getting clearer wort into your kettle on top of any efficiency gains you might achieve. If you're worried about temperature loss (which I don't think you should be once the mash is over), you could add some hot water, effectively performing a mashout step.
Thanks for the answers so far! Apologies for the ambiguity. In my current system I bring my water in the 150-155 range to account for droppage when I transfer the liquor to the ton. Once I've transfered and added grain I usually get a 5 degree drop so my mash temp ends up in the 145-150 degre range (depending on the recipe). I pour that water into my MLT which is a ten gallon igloo cooler with a false bottom. I then dough in my grains while stirring. I usually do a single infusion mash for 60 minutes and vorloft when finished. Following that I use a non traditional sparge method called pulse sparging. I essentially drain off some of the first runnings slowly into the kettle until the grain bed is exposed. I then run sparge water over the top covering the grain bed with an inch of 170 degree water. I repeat this process until I hit my target volume. The whole sparge process takes about two hours. I am looking to make a drastic change in my methods because I have been outputting consistently poor efficiencies. (Low 60s to sometimes Hugh 40s for bugger beers). I brew alot of high gravity beers and I understand that there is a natural loss in efficiency when there's more grain utilized but even on my lower gravity batches I can't expect a higher gravity than 60%. Any most recent batch that I was dissatisfied with was a stout I brewed last weekend. The recipe was as follows: 18 lbs two row 2 lbs flaked oats 1 lb victory .5 lbs of roasted barely .5 American chocolate 1 lb of lactose (late addition) 3.3 lb light LME (late addition) I used the process above. Mashed at 152 degree with a thickness of 1.5 qts/lb for an hour. Pulse sparged for about 30 minutes collected 8 Gallons of wort. Two hour boil. Final volume was 5 gallons. Final gravity 1.090. I hope that gives some insight into my process. Ultimately my question is can I drain my forsf runnings entirely after the mash and then reflood recirculate and sparge or is there a major problem with this I'm not seeing? Cheers!
Lots to think about here, but for starters I think you should measure your mash temp 10 minutes in. I suspect it's a bit lower than you're aiming for, based on these numbers. Of course I could be wrong, I don't know your system, but bumping up the strike water by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit seems as though it might help.
Yeah, with that grain bill I'd think you'd be higher. FWIW, when I do big beers, I am sparging for at least 40 minutes slowly and adding hot sparge water, 170F, as needed. Also am checking the runnings with a refractometer often. Before , I'd run the wort thru quickly and got similar results as you are or even less. A big beer takes more time for me, but ends up better and with higher efficency.
Also, if your brewing outside in the cold, mash tuns can lose heat, I often make sure the mash is 155 at the start and after an hour my Mash is 149-151. Keep your thermometer handy and use it often if brewing outside in the cold.
Do you measure the PH of your mash and grind your own grain? Since I've started doing those two things I get efficiencies in the 75-85 range on normal beers and 65-70 on big beers. I also dual batch sparge like @pweis909 mentioned above. Recirculating may raise it a few points but I don't think it will give the results you are hoping for.
This is much too short for fly sparging, which is more or less what you are doing. I usually spend between 1 - 1 hr45 mins on sparge / lauter . When I figured that out my extraction efficiency jumped up about 20% I’d try a slow trickle lauter to your boil kettle before you invest in more gear !
He already has a pump, so I don't think we're talking about any big investment. That said, I think maybe batch sparging makes more sense than pulse sparging until the efficiency is where you want it. Pulse sparging isn't a technique I'm familiar with, but it sounds kind of like a hybrid between batch sparging and fly sparging, and it probably has some of the potential downsides of both. My recommendation is to batch sparge for now and then maybe think about pulsifying your sparge down the road. Edited to add: To be clear, a batch sparge is perfectly compatible with recirculation.
