Increasing efficiency with mash tun cooler.

[haerbob3]

. It seems like every little detail affects flavor profile. I'm not at a perfecting stage, more of a no off flavors stage right now. Beer tastes good.

You are right that every little thing effects the flavor profile!!! The most important thing is that the beer tastes good!!

I have not used QBrew in years. I do not remember if it allows you to set up an equipment profile. Setting up an accurate equipment profile I believe is essential for successful home brewing. There is a section at the Beersmith forum on this. The info there may be helpful to you in getting yours set up.

Does QBrew give you pre & post boil gravities & volumes?

[BlackDuck]

I have adjusted my sparge technique over the last couple of batches. The day after Thanksgiving, I made a Belgian Wit. I mixed the grains twice during the mash. When the mash was done, I recirculated about 1.5 gallons or so in half gallon increments slowly over top of the grain bed. My mash tun has a 1/2 inch ball valve on it. I opened it only about a 1/4 way open, then started siphoning (I used an auto-siphon) the sparge water from another pot over top of the grains. I tried my best to match the outgoing flow rate from the mash tun to match the incoming flow rate from the hot water pot. I made sure that I kept a few inches of water visible on top of the grains until I ran out of sparge water. This process (from the start of the siphon to the end of the sparge) took about 25 minutes. The OG on the recipe was 1.054 and I hit 1.056. It's the first time in a long time that I beat my OG numbers. The 1.056 is still only a 67% efficiency though. I really wish I could figure out how to get it in the mid 70's to save money on grain. But, if I can't it's no biggie, a couple extra pounds of grain is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. If I can consistently get 67% on every batch, then I'll be happy.

[haerbob3]

How are you guys calculating your extract efficiency?? Remember too that most AG recipes are based on 65% extract efficiency. 1 lb of 2-row == 1.037 GP

[BlackDuck]

Bob...I'm not sure that I understand your question. I'm getting my efficiency number from BeerSmith. I have it set to 65%. In the example of the Belgian Wit mentioned above, 65% gives me an estimated OG of 1.054. In order to find out what efficiency for my measured OG of 1.056 was, I just changed the setting of the efficiency until the program gave me the estimated OG matched my actual 1.056 number, which in this case, was 67%.

[haerbob3]

I was wondering how you were getting your numbers. How did you set up your equipment profile? Setup Brew-house / Mash Efficiencies in BS2

I was having problems till I edited both the Equipment Profile & Mash Profile. Now I am generally +/- a point or two. My main issue was the fact that I am able to drain both the mash tun & boil kettle. There maybe an ounce or two left in each after the sparge & boil. I think it was Beerlord who told me about this.

[BlackDuck]

I'll look over that link you provided. I have edited both my Equipment and Mash profiles to best match my system. It sure did take a lot of trial and error. It seems like I'm hitting my numbers relatively closely now just about every time. I'm just hitting a low estimated OG. Which is really not that big of a deal to me. I would rather be consistent on hitting the numbers, than saving $3 to $5 dollars on grain just to say I'm getting a 75-80% efficiency. When it's all said and done....I'm making some pretty tasty beer.