I usually don't brew FVM, I save some of the total water and do a dunk or two often I don't even heat the sparge water and it still moves my efficiency from 65 - 66% to closer to 80%.
I use a standard water calculator http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water.html to calculate the additions to the volume of water I actually mash with.
All I do with the sparge water is ensure the alkalinity is in the 20 - 50 range but do not other treatments..
Is there some way I can improve my procedure?
Many thanks. Aamcle
Post #2 made 7 years ago
A more advanced calculator is Bru N Water, it takes input from the grain bill also and tells you the pH of the mash.
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Post #3 made 7 years ago
All calculators have plusses and minuses it's the basic procedure I want to check, it seems to work but if there's a better way I'd like to use it.
Atb. Aamcle
Atb. Aamcle
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Post #5 made 7 years ago
The best way to improve your procedure is to FVM! 
There is something wrong if your FVM mashes are getting you 65%, but same grain bill and water with some of that withheld for a sparge gives you 15% more.
IME sparging gives a couple of percent more, not worth buggering about with.
Do you have any nearby brewers that can watch your brewday with you? Just a thought.
There is something wrong if your FVM mashes are getting you 65%, but same grain bill and water with some of that withheld for a sparge gives you 15% more.
IME sparging gives a couple of percent more, not worth buggering about with.
Do you have any nearby brewers that can watch your brewday with you? Just a thought.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #6 made 7 years ago
I don't control the grain milling as I buy grain ready milled, I think that is the cause of the of the low efficiency.
Conversion has obviously occurred or I wouldn't be able to boost recovery with a simple rinse. The last batch went to about 78% after a rinse using bottled water, I didn't even bother to warm it.
I'd rather put up with rinsing than buy a grain mill so I'll live with it.
Atb. aamcle
Conversion has obviously occurred or I wouldn't be able to boost recovery with a simple rinse. The last batch went to about 78% after a rinse using bottled water, I didn't even bother to warm it.
I'd rather put up with rinsing than buy a grain mill so I'll live with it.
Atb. aamcle
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Post #7 made 7 years ago
Sorry man but something doesn't make sense. For a 15% increase in efficiency you would have to sparging almost pure sugar. Next time you brew check the gravity of just the sparked water I'm curious as to what you get.
Your mash water really needs to be in the correct ph range. Maybe then your efficiencies will be better. Look into the Bru N Water that MS mentioned.
Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk
Your mash water really needs to be in the correct ph range. Maybe then your efficiencies will be better. Look into the Bru N Water that MS mentioned.
Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk
Some people are like slinkies. Not good for much, but bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
Weehoosebrewing.ga
Weehoosebrewing.ga
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Post #8 made 7 years ago
Where do you source milled grain from Aamcle, I normally get mine from the malt miller, though occasionally worcester hop shop too.
Pre-ground, I never ask for anything special (i.e. I don't mention its for BIAB). For average gravities (1.040/1.050) I have no problem getting 80% +.
I mash 90-120 minutes and potato masher (up & down stirring) every 20-30 minutes. For me it never fails.
I do have an 80L thermopot so never have to worry about temp drops.
As I say, there seems to be something fundamentally wrong (unless your 65% is a 1.080)!
Pre-ground, I never ask for anything special (i.e. I don't mention its for BIAB). For average gravities (1.040/1.050) I have no problem getting 80% +.
I mash 90-120 minutes and potato masher (up & down stirring) every 20-30 minutes. For me it never fails.
I do have an 80L thermopot so never have to worry about temp drops.
As I say, there seems to be something fundamentally wrong (unless your 65% is a 1.080)!
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #9 made 7 years ago
Now that's a bother, like you I get most of my grain from The Malt Miller!
I've scurried off to get my book I'll list up the details of the Spring Beer.
pale malt 4000g
munich 500g
water treatment -
Ashbeck from Tesco 20litres used for the mash.
acid 2.2ml
CaSo4 12.5g
CaCl2 2.5g
NaCl 1.07g
from the calculator at Jim's Beer Kit.
Sparge water was just taken from the kitchen tap.
after mashing and lifting bag from the kettle 15 litres remained in the kettle :- 15 litres sg 1.060 gives eff 63%
10 litre dunk sparge sample taken from the liquid draining from bag :-
10 litres at 1.020 giving 14%.
pre boil in the kettle 24 litres at 1.044 giving 78%
post boil 21 litres at 1.051 giving 77%.
The volumes are +-500ml maybe even +-1 litre and the SG's were at room temperature so it's not a rigorous set of measurements but they do more or less fit together.
I'd dearly love to get FVM working properly ☺ I'm trying to dispense with pumps, re-circulation and PID control.
Atb aamcle
I've scurried off to get my book I'll list up the details of the Spring Beer.
pale malt 4000g
munich 500g
water treatment -
Ashbeck from Tesco 20litres used for the mash.
acid 2.2ml
CaSo4 12.5g
CaCl2 2.5g
NaCl 1.07g
from the calculator at Jim's Beer Kit.
Sparge water was just taken from the kitchen tap.
after mashing and lifting bag from the kettle 15 litres remained in the kettle :- 15 litres sg 1.060 gives eff 63%
10 litre dunk sparge sample taken from the liquid draining from bag :-
10 litres at 1.020 giving 14%.
pre boil in the kettle 24 litres at 1.044 giving 78%
post boil 21 litres at 1.051 giving 77%.
The volumes are +-500ml maybe even +-1 litre and the SG's were at room temperature so it's not a rigorous set of measurements but they do more or less fit together.
I'd dearly love to get FVM working properly ☺ I'm trying to dispense with pumps, re-circulation and PID control.
Atb aamcle
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Post #10 made 7 years ago
I am guessing you have your alkalinity under control due to using acid (Salifert kit maybe)?
I use CRS in mine to get alkalinity sub 30. BTW I tend to buy "Crisp" Malt as well (as it is usually the cheapest)!
I don't think you can underestimate the mash time & agitation.
Often when I go back to agitate the mash I will see really clear wort at the top. When I mash up and down, the grain bed is quite compacted. The up & down motion brings the grain back up to the surface along with all the cloudy "bits" of the mash, resulting in a homogeneous solution. I am guessing some of this "cloudy stuff" is unconverted starches.
If I left it alone, or stirred I don't think I would get the same level of homogeneity, and therefore, the grain is not seeing the whole amount of water.
Or to put it another way, there may be stratification & or high levels of sugars around the grain, and this may have an effect on conversion.
Here is a link to Mad Scientists masher.
or another one
I would recommend trying that same recipe again, with the same water adjustments but as FVM, but mixing up & down every 20-30 minutes, then measure your gravity at 90 minutes to see where you are.
I use CRS in mine to get alkalinity sub 30. BTW I tend to buy "Crisp" Malt as well (as it is usually the cheapest)!
I don't think you can underestimate the mash time & agitation.
Often when I go back to agitate the mash I will see really clear wort at the top. When I mash up and down, the grain bed is quite compacted. The up & down motion brings the grain back up to the surface along with all the cloudy "bits" of the mash, resulting in a homogeneous solution. I am guessing some of this "cloudy stuff" is unconverted starches.
If I left it alone, or stirred I don't think I would get the same level of homogeneity, and therefore, the grain is not seeing the whole amount of water.
Or to put it another way, there may be stratification & or high levels of sugars around the grain, and this may have an effect on conversion.
Here is a link to Mad Scientists masher.
or another one
I would recommend trying that same recipe again, with the same water adjustments but as FVM, but mixing up & down every 20-30 minutes, then measure your gravity at 90 minutes to see where you are.
Last edited by mally on 19 Sep 2016, 15:19, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #11 made 7 years ago
I stir regularly with a mash paddle, err I've just had a thought by saving some water have I pushed the SG to the point were the apparent efficiency falls away?
aamcle
aamcle
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Post #12 made 7 years ago
aamcle, it would make sense for you to use the BIABacus. You have been struggling with efficiency for a long time. The clues you left us for this brew just doesn't add up / make sense. It's clear why you got a low efficiency on this one!
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Post #13 made 7 years ago
I dug out a machine with a monitor big enough to run Biabacus, I'll use Biabacus for my next batch and post its output it should at least make fault finding easier.
On the most basic level for a recipe from Greg Hughes book my pen and paper volume calculations matched those from Biabacus within about 1 litre and that I think it was accounted for by differences in boil off rate.
One interesting item was a difference in the amount of grain required to meet the expected OG, Biabacus wanted more grain than the book recipe called for, the book assumes 75% efficiency.
I want to double check that the recipe is for 23 litres into the FV at 75% but it's late now so I'll do that tomorrow.
It's a fine piece of work the developers have done with Biabacus, but might I suggest that the most recent version goes into it's own thread titled "Biabacus Download Here" or something like that.
Atb. aamcle
I checked the recipe it's for 23 litres and according to Brewers friend 75% eff will get the correct OG.
So does Biabacus allow for kettle dead volume? or as it requested more grain is there some sort of anomaly?
On the most basic level for a recipe from Greg Hughes book my pen and paper volume calculations matched those from Biabacus within about 1 litre and that I think it was accounted for by differences in boil off rate.
One interesting item was a difference in the amount of grain required to meet the expected OG, Biabacus wanted more grain than the book recipe called for, the book assumes 75% efficiency.
I want to double check that the recipe is for 23 litres into the FV at 75% but it's late now so I'll do that tomorrow.
It's a fine piece of work the developers have done with Biabacus, but might I suggest that the most recent version goes into it's own thread titled "Biabacus Download Here" or something like that.
Atb. aamcle
I checked the recipe it's for 23 litres and according to Brewers friend 75% eff will get the correct OG.
So does Biabacus allow for kettle dead volume? or as it requested more grain is there some sort of anomaly?
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Post #14 made 7 years ago
Maybe mally has this Greg Hughes book. We can't talk about efficiency until this recipe is in a posted BIABacus. Did you set the BIABacus to 75% efficiency? What's the OG? What's the recipe name / page #?aamcle wrote:I dug out a machine with a monitor big enough to run Biabacus, I'll use Biabacus for my next batch and post its output it should at least make fault finding easier.
On the most basic level for a recipe from Greg Hughes book my pen and paper volume calculations matched those from Biabacus within about 1 litre and that I think it was accounted for by differences in boil off rate.
One interesting item was a difference in the amount of grain required to meet the expected OG, Biabacus wanted more grain than the book recipe called for, the book assumes 75% efficiency.
I want to double check that the recipe is for 23 litres into the FV at 75% but it's late now so I'll do that tomorrow.
It's a fine piece of work the developers have done with Biabacus, but might I suggest that the most recent version goes into it's own thread titled "Biabacus Download Here" or something like that.
Atb. aamcle
I checked the recipe it's for 23 litres and according to Brewers friend 75% eff will get the correct OG.
Kettle dead volume? Is that like mash tun dead space? One thing dead in BIAB is after the boil and if it's left in the kettle this volume is called trub and that is a trackable volume. Another dead thing is volume left behind in the fermenter.aamcle wrote:So does Biabacus allow for kettle dead volume? or as it requested more grain is there some sort of anomaly?
Last edited by Mad_Scientist on 21 Sep 2016, 03:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #15 made 7 years ago
Sorry, I only have the Graham Wheeler book.Mad_Scientist wrote:Maybe mally has this Greg Hughes book
There was a thread here but I dont think an answer was reached.
Maybe you could email Greg Aamcle and ask him what his volume refers to?
Last edited by mally on 21 Sep 2016, 04:02, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #17 made 7 years ago
We know more about the Greg Hughes book thanks the member tingtong. 26L might be VAW and 23L (the finished beer) VIP.
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Post #18 made 7 years ago
It's not that good :-
the recipes are OK but lack detail,
the AG stuff is set up for three vessel,
it's hard to find things like expected efficiency,
on the positive side it has :-
a yeast equivalent chart,
a hop substitution chart,
the recipes are simple.
It was a good buy for £3 in a discount book shop.
aamcle
the recipes are OK but lack detail,
the AG stuff is set up for three vessel,
it's hard to find things like expected efficiency,
on the positive side it has :-
a yeast equivalent chart,
a hop substitution chart,
the recipes are simple.
It was a good buy for £3 in a discount book shop.
aamcle
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Post #19 made 7 years ago
I want to encourage you to use that book. The BIABacus WILL scale the grain and hops automatically 
I was tinkering with what little I know about this recipe, my best guess is that it's for a 1.057 OG, is that right? That would put the grain bill at 6231 g, 26.6 L at VAW and 23 L into packaging and you could expect a 82% efficiency in kettle.
That's FVM (full volume mashing)! You CAN do it !!!
I was tinkering with what little I know about this recipe, my best guess is that it's for a 1.057 OG, is that right? That would put the grain bill at 6231 g, 26.6 L at VAW and 23 L into packaging and you could expect a 82% efficiency in kettle.
That's FVM (full volume mashing)! You CAN do it !!!
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