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re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:27 pm to BottomlandBrew
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:27 pm to BottomlandBrew
quote:
I only do 90 minute boils and I always go from about 9.25 gallons to 6.2 gallons.
Wow. That's a lot of boil off. I find i lose a good bit more just before going into fermenter. This recipe had a huge amount of hops, so i lost some to trub. but, in the brewpot, i believe i measured about 5.2 gallons of wort. After cooling and trub loss, i only ended up with 4.5 gallons.
I may need a better burner, and a better heat reducer. I've been using a wort chiller that worked great for my old 5 gallon extract pot a couple years ago. I may need to get a counterflow or use chill plates.
1
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:27 pm to BugAC
quote:
My Mash Efficiency was 87.38%, not 92%.
My brewhouse efficiency was 75.42%
and my adjusted brewhouse efficiency with the added 1 gallon of water is 77.64%
Okay, so I am still lost on this. How did adding extra water to your finished beer make your efficiency go up? You were watering down your beer, which means that your efficiency would go down. There are less sugars per gallon than before, which would take you away from 100% not closer to it, correct?
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:31 pm to BugAC
quote:
in the brewpot, i believe i measured about 5.2 gallons of wort. After cooling and trub loss, i only ended up with 4.5 gallons.
Hold up. So your final wort volume was 5.2 gallons and not 4.5 gallons?
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:33 pm to BottomlandBrew
quote:
Hold up. So your final wort volume was 5.2 gallons and not 4.5 gallons?
It was 4.5 gallons. After the boil.
After that, i added 1 gallon to fermenter and my gallons went to 5.5.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:36 pm to BottomlandBrew
quote:
Hold up. So your final wort volume was 5.2 gallons and not 4.5 gallons?
Yes.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:38 pm to BugAC
I guess I'm just lost completely then.
When I calculate recipes, I assume I will end up with 6.2 gallons of wort in the kettle at the end of the boil. 5 gallons goes into the fermenter, a liter goes towards a starter, and the rest is left below my valve invert. The gravity of my 6.2 gallons of wort and the gravity of my 5 gallons that I end up with in the fermenter are the same. There is no further concentration after cutting off the flame.
I know on my system, if I set the Beersmith efficiency number to 70 or 71 and put my batch size at 6.2, then I know what my OG will be.
When I calculate recipes, I assume I will end up with 6.2 gallons of wort in the kettle at the end of the boil. 5 gallons goes into the fermenter, a liter goes towards a starter, and the rest is left below my valve invert. The gravity of my 6.2 gallons of wort and the gravity of my 5 gallons that I end up with in the fermenter are the same. There is no further concentration after cutting off the flame.
I know on my system, if I set the Beersmith efficiency number to 70 or 71 and put my batch size at 6.2, then I know what my OG will be.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:39 pm to BottomlandBrew
quote:
I guess I'm just lost completely then.
Join the club.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:40 pm to BugAC
quote:
How did adding extra water to your finished beer make your efficiency go up? You were watering down your beer, which means that your efficiency would go down. There are less sugars per gallon than before, which would take you away from 100% not closer to it, correct?
Yeah that doesn't make sense. I'm not making up these numbers. These are the numbers beersmith calculated. Now to get those efficiency numbers in that last post, i used this website.
LINK
With the grain bill.
11.33 lbs maris otter
1.583 Caramel 60L
1.167 Caraamber
.75 Rye
I then adjusted the wort calculations to what my readings were.
at 4.5 gallons, and a gravity of 1.0926 which shows an efficiency of 75.42%
Now if i plug in 5.5 gallons (the gallon added) and a gravity of 1.078, it comes out to an efficiency of 77.64%.
Hmmm... I need to recheck what my OG was after i added that gallon. That doesn't add up.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:40 pm to Fratastic423
quote:
Okay, so I am still lost on this. How did adding extra water to your finished beer make your efficiency go up? You were watering down your beer, which means that your efficiency would go down. There are less sugars per gallon than before, which would take you away from 100% not closer to it, correct?
I have a feeling there is some erroneous math going on somewhere. Possibly the source of the high efficiency numbers.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:41 pm to BugAC
I never trust Beersmith with Mash efficiency. I always use ProMash to figure mine. I plugged your #s into ProMash and get you at 90% efficiency. You are doing something right....or reading something wrong. Whatever....have a beer.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:44 pm to BugAC
why wouldn't you use 5.2 for the measurements, rather than 4.5?
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:50 pm to Zappas Stache
quote:
I never trust Beersmith with Mash efficiency. I always use ProMash to figure mine.
Same here... I like all the bells and whistles in BeerSmith, but I prefer to do my Mash Efficiency and IBU calculations in ProMash.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:52 pm to Zappas Stache
quote:
I always use ProMash to figure mine. I plugged your #s into ProMash and get you at 90%
I think my thread was getting off point. I also think i'm telling you guys a different number than what i logged for my OG in the fermenter at 5.5 gallons.
My initial question is what could explain my high mash efficiency.
As zappa said, he calculates at 90%. I recalculated with another website and i'm at 87.6%, and beersmith is telling me something different. I think i'm confusing myself with too many numbers. I'll revisit when i get home and can examine more accurately and throughly. But it still stands that my mash efficiency is very high, and i need to know if this is a new normal for my setup, so i can adjust, or if i am doing something out of the ordinary that is causing the change in high efficiency. Again, my last 3 brews have been 89, "96", and whatever this one was.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 1:55 pm to LoneStarTiger
quote:
5.2 for the measurements, rather than 4.5?
Well 5.2 isn't a measurment in my brew, it's 5.5. And i was just stating what my measurements were at each step.
And again, my brewhouse efficiency isn't at question here. I can make adjustments easy to fix that. It was my mash efficiency. It just seems it is coming in really high. I'm talking mash ONLY.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 2:27 pm to BugAC
quote:
I'm talking mash ONLY.
But that doesn't paint the entire picture of your brew session. Your goal when brewing is to get the necessary sugars from grain to produce a beer that meets your expectations. Most homebrewers can get 70ish% of the sugars from their grain which allows you to calculate how much grain you need for each beer.You determine how much grain you need combined with your brewing equipment to reach your final wort volume and gravity reading.
Your recipe says that you are going to get 1078ish for your finished wort. You got that, which means that you extracted roughly 75% of the sugar from grains leading to your efficiency number, because that is what your recipe was calculated for.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 2:31 pm to Fratastic423
quote:
Your goal when brewing is to get the necessary sugars from grain to produce a beer that meets your expectations
I know that. And regardless of how my boil goes, currently that's not my issue. I can easily adjust and fix. The high boil off rate i had this time was the first time this has happened. I attribute that to the longer boil, weather, wind, and a longer cooling time, along with the amount of hops. It is not the normal, and i know how to account for it.
What i don't know how to account for is my mash efficiency. The last 2 brews have been abnormally high mash efficiency. I'm just trying to find out how to correct that. Either by accounting for that efficiency in my next batch, or by not using 5.2 ph stabilizer in my mash. I want to know if this is the new norm, or if this is an outlier.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 2:32 pm to Fratastic423
quote:
, because that is what your recipe was calculated for.
Recipe was calculated for 1.068. I'm convinced that my error is in the mash, due to my last beer having the same high mash, and the same result. Every beer i've made with a reasonable mash efficiency has hit all of it's targets.
This post was edited on 11/18/13 at 2:34 pm
Posted on 11/18/13 at 2:36 pm to BugAC
quote:
What i don't know how to account for is my mash efficiency. The last 2 brews have been abnormally high mash efficiency. I'm just trying to find out how to correct that. Either by accounting for that efficiency in my next batch, or by not using 5.2 ph stabilizer in my mash. I want to know if this is the new norm, or if this is an outlier.
But in this specific case, had you dropped the amount of grain you would have missed your target gravity and been too weak. If you would not look at that mash efficiency number you would have been very pleased with hitting the OG you were looking for.
And I know that Beersmith told you 1068, but we LSUGrad and I calculated it out it was at 1078 for 5.5 gallons at 75%.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 2:43 pm to Fratastic423
quote:
And I know that Beersmith told you 1068, but we LSUGrad and I calculated it out it was at 1078 for 5.5 gallons at 75%.
I'm also starting to realize, that i do not believe i set my mash efficiency to 80%, which i have in the past. Which could account for the low estimated OG.
I get what you're saying. It kind of worked out, for this brew, in the end. I'm just trying to nail down the culprit so i don't repeat and i'm not committing the same mistakes my next brew. I like being precise on my brews.
Posted on 11/18/13 at 3:27 pm to BugAC
I've only read the first and last page of this thread…but Walter White would be so proud of you guys.
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