King Ruddager Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 ... which is annoying. Reverse calculated my Vienna SMASH and came up with a figure of only 67% - significantly less than the 76% I once thought I was achieving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylon Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 70% sounds about on par for BIAB At least your being honest, the fact is BIAB lacks efficiency, but in a small scale brew I guess it dosnt realy matter apart from calculating accurate recipe's, I can honestly say my last brews have been around 85% but that's running HERMS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 What do you mean reverse calculated it? I regularly hit between 75% and 80% with my BIAB setup, which is the same as yours. Yesterday's pilsner I got 77.7% assuming the full 25L into the FV. It can be improved though. How is your grain crushed? I found this made a huge difference to mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylon Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 80% Kelsey BIAB? honestly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylon Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 I cant see how you can extract 80% in BIAB system without running a decent sparging process! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Yep. I got 80% on my red ale 3 weeks ago because the batch size was a litre more than I expected. Sometimes I don't quite hit the intended volume which drops it a bit, but the OG is always where it should be, or higher. Haven't been below 74% since I got my mill fixed and began using a coarser crush. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 3, 2016 Author Share Posted July 3, 2016 What do you mean reverse calculated it? I plugged all the numbers into IanH's BIAB spreadsheet and then adjusted the efficiency until the predicted OG matched what I got. The crush is done by the LHBS and I have no control over it. [edit] Perhaps I'll email them and ask if they ever adjust it actually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Hm, interesting. Normally you'd just enter the OG and batch size and it calculates the efficiency for you. The grain crush may be playing a part; it can be too fine even for BIAB, despite what some cats will say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 The grain crush may be playing a part; it can be too fine even for BIAB' date=' despite what some cats will say. [/quote']Don't trust cats K-Rudd, was the grain bill bigger for the Vienna Smash compared to your other beers? Generally, as you increase the grain bill your efficiency should decrease. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 Nope, normal-sized grain bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 For anyone else who wants to calculate it, I ended up with an OG of 1.042 from 5.5kg vienna in 27L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Beersmith calculates that at 65.3% efficiency. What was the temperature of the OG sample? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Beersmith calculates that at 65.3% efficiency. What was the temperature of the OG sample? Brewers Friend calculates it at 66.7%, but close enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I wonder why there's a difference? According to Beersmith, at 75% efficiency the OG in 27 litres from that amount of grain should be 1.048. If the temperature of the sample was too high it will be higher than 1.042 although I'd suspect Ruddy has been brewing long enough to be aware of this. If everything is accurate then it could be due to the crush of the grains. I found milling them coarser gave me better efficiency than finer. What was the brand of the malt? There had been some discussion recently about JW malts not giving good extraction and therefore lowering efficiencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 Sample would have been close enough to 20° Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy-o Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 For now I've given up on trying to get a predictable efficiency. I have a feeling it might have been to do with the malts used, as well - two row pale got me fantastic numbers, for example. Though it may just be correlation to some other change in my pretty unstable processes. My first two (very careful) BIAB brews were over 80 then it started dropping out, and now because I've been mucking around with LODO (on top of other things, no sparging, rinsing, or even squeezing; I'm pulling the grains out as quickly as possible) the numbers are somewhere down between 50 and 60. We'll see how that all pans out once I have a few to drink. It better be worth it... my FV is looking pretty sad with the tide line somewhere below the 8L mark... edit: the plus side is I got to use the 'second runnings' with some LME to make up a second batch this go around, so I'll be bottling around 17L in a couple of weeks. It'll be interesting to compare the dribbly off-cuts, which still have a good OG and fermentation control, to a pristinely handled, oxygen-protected wort-of-God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 I might try a sparge instead of a squeeze next batch and see whether that has an effect ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I think you'd be better off trying to get a predictable, or rather, consistent efficiency than pissing around with LODO or whatever other things. The basics are more important to get down pat than optional extras like that. Predictable/consistent efficiency makes recipe design much easier. Just about every malt is made from 2-row barley originally, this includes your base malts like pale/ale malt, pilsner malt, Munich, Vienna etc., all the crystal malts and darker grains like choc/black malt are made from pale malt. Roasted barley is the odd one out, while still made from 2-row, it is unmalted. There are malts available in America that are made from 6-row barley but these aren't available in Australia as far as I know. As I said, there was a discussion lately about Joe White malts being below standard and not giving as good extraction as other brands, so perhaps if JW was used it may be part of the reason too. I use Weyermann for those styles, it's always good quality stuff. Costs a bit more but it's worth it. Coarse grain crush, 90 minute mash, no sparging and I'm still constantly hitting between 75% and 80% efficiency. Cheers Kelsey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Ruddager Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 LODO? As far as I know my beers have been fairly consistent, it's just that they're probably been consistently low(ish) efficiency. I don't often even bother to measure the OG you see, I just go by whether I like the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Well there's your confusion.. it's a good habit to get into even if you don't care what the OG and ABV actually are, because if you end up brewing something where you are targetting a specific number, you'll be able to use the proper amount of grain to get to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy-o Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I think you'd be better off trying to get a predictable' date=' or rather, consistent efficiency than pissing around with LODO or whatever other things. The basics are more important to get down pat than optional extras like that. Predictable/consistent efficiency makes recipe design much easier.[/quote'] For me it's a tough decision. I came into this thing with the underlying idea that if I keep the stakes low enough, I can try whatever and push boundaries. I haven't stood still much, I haven't brewed the same beer twice - in fact I haven't brewed the same style twice - and it keeps me engaged. So trying to get an identical process, efficiency and outcome when brewing an amber lager, a brown ale, a steam beer, a smoked bock, etc etc, all the while slowly updating my equipment and incorporating new techniques - SMB and low hot-wort aeration being just one - it's not really going to happen anyway. I mean, I'd like it to be a bit more predictable but it hasn't led to problems so far. I'm not dogged about this, I just feel that the first batch showed so much promise that it's worth further investment. I see it as having the potential to increase the quality of my beer to the same extent that moving from no-temp control to temp-control did, or from extract to all-grain. I'll know more when this first batch is ready to drink and as the second one ferments out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylon Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I think BIAB brewers are kidding them selves if they think there getting 80%+ efficiency expecialy with no sparge! Ive been wrong many a times but 80%+ sounds out there... High 70% sounds good results from BIAB, Large breweries are getting around 90% with there large mega vessel systems... Running smaller scale 3V HERMS is going to get you around similar results but the mid to 80s to high 80s% is great going! depending on when you stop sparging... You can keep sucking the grain mash dry of sugars in mash but at risk of getting crap flavours... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICzed Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 K-Rudd, when you say 1.042 at 27 litres, was the before or after the boil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headmaster Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I almost always hit over 80% with my 1V BIAB, have run up to 88% with some smaller grain bills, but I use a recirc pump and control temp with STC1000 with probe in a thermowell. I sparge with only one to two 1.8 litre amounts of water at 78c (from a 240v kettle) and do some squeezing with a potato masher, as the BIAB bag hangs over the kettle in the crab cooker cage of my cool country crab cooker based system... Then I sit the cage over a bucket and collect the runnings and pour them into the boil a while later. Only time it ever dropped lower than 78% was a 8.6kg grain bill for an RIS, came in at 75% from memory. I was of the understanding that BIAB is known to have very good efficiency circa 80% if you get the crush right and don’t waste too much the trapped wort in the grain. 3V is just too much gear for me, too much cleaning and too much time that I don’t have with small children in the family. I know a couple of blokes in my position with young children who have 3V setups but tend to just do extract batches because they don’t have the time to use the 3V anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylon Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I also brew extract beers for small batches BIAB is not ideal for efficiency yet is a quick simple method for brewing basics small batches of beer... And agreed takes less time and effort! I brew 60 litre 3V batches around 85% with ease, and already want to upgrade to 100 litres batches as I have mates buying kegs off me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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