94% efficiency!
  • daxdefrancodaxdefranco
    3.00 KarmaSend daxdefranco a Message
    i'm usually resigned to poor efficiency...If i get 70% I'm very happy. today, I got somewhere around 94% :shock: i've not even boiled yet, i'm just going on a estimate based on the pre-boil gravity.



    i know that i have a lot of dead space in my mashtun and always lose a lot of liquid to that, so i made a much, much more strenuous effort to get as much out as I could. I have a copper manifold so my thinking was that maybe wort just gets stuck where it can't access the holes in the manifold. I did a 70 minute mash and when the first wort drainage was starting to slow, i tipped the mash tun to each side, backwards and forwards before holding it at around a 60 degree angle. I did this a few times and managed to get out ~2 liters more than i usually do from first wort. did the same thing with second runnings (though didn't take as much time) and while my overall volume was similar (maybe a liter or so over, but my pre-boil volume isn't usually constant), the gravity was something absurd. my estimated OG was 1.048. my pre-boil gravity was 1.055. even estimating an OG of 1.060, which is pretty conservative (we're talking bill conservative, here :P ), that's still 92% efficiency according to beer calculus - probably a full 20 points higher than my previous best. know your equipment!



    So now i have a question...I don't really WANT that high of a gravity! i was shooting for a 27 liter batch at ~1.048/1.050...is there a way to figure out how much water to add to dilute the wort to get to that gravity?



    edit: first time to fix a spelling error, second time to say why i edited. doht!
  • gordsellargordsellar
    338.00 KarmaSend gordsellar a Message
    Wow, that's amazing. I'll need to try rocking my mash tun a bit, though the braided hose goes pretty far along. Still, you never know how it may help!



    Anyway, if you're not mathematically inclined, and you're using hopville or some other app to do the calculations, you can just adjust gravity, and then diddle with wort volume until you get the gravity you want.



    The manual way to do it is actually pretty simple, though. You just need to think about it in terms of absolute gravity points per liter of the wort you have and how much you need to dilute.



    Say you have a 27L wort of 1.060, and you want to dilute it to 1.048. When you're calculating, just lop off the "1.0" from the reading to get the numbers easy to work with.



    You count up the total gravity points you have:



    27x1.060 = 27x60 = 1620



    You divide by the gravity you want in order to get the unknown -- the volume:



    1620/48



    And you get the total volume you need:



    1620/48 = 33.75



    And subtract the current volume:



    33.75 - 27 = 6.75



    So you need to add 6.75 liters of water (as the FINAL VOLUME, plus whatever you need to get it through boiloff, or which you can add prior to the beginning of fermentation) to get it down to 1.048.



    Might as well do a split batch! ;)
  • OatsOats
    113.00 KarmaSend Oats a Message
    I have no clue what my efficiency is, I can't accurately measure the grain weight in, and I can't accurately measure the volume out, and I suspect my hydrometer is a few points off too. But I think I am usually between 60 to 70%. But 94%! That's pretty astounding. Thats a rate breweries would kill to get.
  • KunkemonsterKunkemonster
    307.00 KarmaSend Kunkemonster a Message
    Can't over extraction lead to loads of not so good tannins?
  • daxdefrancodaxdefranco
    3.00 KarmaSend daxdefranco a Message
    "Kunkemonster" wrote: Can't over extraction lead to loads of not so good tannins?



    yeah i think so, but i've read the rule of thumb is don't pull out anything below 1.010. i don't think i was overextracting, more like getting the stuff that i usually miss
  • davet383davet383
    3.00 KarmaSend davet383 a Message
    Dax, as I have sometimes been told, and damn, even led to believe; there's a formula. :lol:



    Gord, excellent info!
  • daxdefrancodaxdefranco
    3.00 KarmaSend daxdefranco a Message
    "davet383" wrote: Dax, as I have sometimes been told, and damn, even led to believe; there's a formula. :lol:



    Gord, excellent info!



    there always is! and thanks gord!
  • gordsellargordsellar
    338.00 KarmaSend gordsellar a Message
    No problem. Funnily enough, I just came up with the calculation myself, and then, after thinking, "What if this doesn't work?" I checked a couple of parti-gyle calculators spreadsheets people have uploaded and, bingo, that's how they do it.



    I also verified it the first time I tried blending worts; and that's where this kind of calculation is really handy -- when you're blending two worts, pre-boil, of differing gravity, and want to figure out how to get one of them to a specific target gravity, and what the gravity of the other will end up being.



    And as I mentioned somewhere else about Parti-gyle, that is apparently how the process is properly done -- never using just last runnings, but rather making the strongest beer with more of the first runnings and the weaker ones with much less of it, blended with more late runnings. For this procedure, this calculation is essential.
  • ghohnghohn
    276.00 KarmaSend ghohn a Message
    I'm currently in the same boat, Dax. I got on it heavy with the boil for 90 minutes. 1.060 on a hefeweizen and am teetering with the idea of diluting a bit. I know Bill wakes up in the morning and pisses 1.060 but I'm a delicate little snowflake :)
    Daejeon Brewers Guild
  • gordsellargordsellar
    338.00 KarmaSend gordsellar a Message
    "ghohn" wrote: I know Bill wakes up in the morning and pisses 1.060 but I'm a delicate little snowflake :)



    Aw, damn, I knew there was one more powerful image I could have added to my story! Pissing 1.060... maybe they were using only select, special people like that to leint their ales back in the day? :)
  • Gwangj-brewGwangj-brew
    170.00 KarmaSend Gwangj-brew a Message
    "gordsellar" wrote:
    I know Bill wakes up in the morning and pisses 1.060 but I'm a delicate little snowflake :)



    Aw, damn, I knew there was one more powerful image I could have added to my story! Pissing 1.060... maybe they were using only select, special people like that to leint their ales back in the day? :)



    Damnit where's the like button? :D
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