Mash efficiency

[homebrewplumber]

I have a 3 tier 1/2 barrel system made up of converted kegs and use a RIMS system. My problem has been low efficiency. I dough in and begin recirculating immediately. Should I wait 15-20 minutes before doing so?

[KrOtChRoTT]

I have a 3 tier 1/2 barrel system made up of converted kegs and use a RIMS system. My problem has been low efficiency. I dough in and begin recirculating immediately. Should I wait 15-20 minutes before doing so?

I'm not familiar with rims systems but dont you still have to mash for 60-90 min?


1) dough in
2) Mash for 60 - 90 min at your desired temp : ie - 152 degrees
3) recirculate
4) sparge at 170

[Ken Powers]

I have a 3 tier 1/2 barrel system made up of converted kegs and use a RIMS system. My problem has been low efficiency. I dough in and begin recirculating immediately. Should I wait 15-20 minutes before doing so?

I would think you would want to wait to recirculate until your mash temp has stabilized. I used to try to recirculate immediately with my HERMS system and found that I always overshot my mash temp. Now I wait about 5-10 minutes before beginning recirculation and find that I can nail my mash temperatures exactly.

As far as your efficiency goes, it depends how and when you are measuring it. Your efficiency can be affected by several factors including the size of the grain's crush, mashing temperatures, sparging styles and times, grain bed compaction, and most importantly, liquid volume at the time you are measuring your gravity and comparing it to your expected OG. Liquid volumes are very important and if you have too much wort after your sparge, you will have too low a specific gravity and will need to boil longer in the kettle to concentrate it and bring the gravity up. If you have too little liquid, you need to compensate for this as well. In either case, the liquid volumes required for the mashing, sparging, or system losses will need to be adjusted and this is an important factor when calculating efficiencies.

Let us know more details regarding your procedure and we might be able to help you further.

[homebrewplumber1]

I have a three tiered system with kegs. I use a RIMS system which consists of a 1-1/2 pipe with a heating element in it attached to a ranco temp controller that turns on the heating element to keep mash temps. I used to use a braided hose in the mash tun but switched to a false bottom with siphon tube and it seems to pick up better. I dough in using about 173 degree water which makes my initial temp for mash at about 154 degrees. I use about 1-1.25 qts per gallon. My problem this weekend was a stuck mash which I remedied but had low efficiency again. I took SG reading at 200 right after boil and adjusted for temp and came up with 1.058 which was perfect. I then chilled, and measured at about 80 degrees and came up with about 1.035. I can't figure out what the hell is wrong.

[Lufah]

I took SG reading at 200 right after boil and adjusted for temp and came up with 1.058 which was perfect. I then chilled, and measured at about 80 degrees and came up with about 1.035. I can't figure out what the hell is wrong.

Just a though, but was there a lot of break matter floating in the test sample you took at 200? That could account for the high reading.

Travis

[Guest]

Those numbers were way different, maybe the break material in the 200 degree sample threw that off, and at the 80 degree one maybe the wort was stratified? ( not mixed well) I would also be leary of plunging a hydrometer in 200 degree water, they look fragile as all hell and already break at the drop of a hat. If you are sure the hydrometers not to blame, did you recently switch to whole hops, that changed my effiency a few points due to what the absorb.

Kevin