Didn't hit the numbers this time.

Subliminalfringe · Joined: 31 Aug 2016 Posts: 13

Hello,

I've been using my brewery for about 6 months now and have had pretty consistent results in terms of efficiency. My software (Brewers Friend) says I'm in the neighborhood of 85%. I know that's a bit low - I sparge a bit quicker than I should and that's OK. This last time I made a weizenbock and the numbers came in really low. I ended up with a post boil gravity of 1.067 and should have had 1.081. The entire brew went smoothly. The grain bill was 30.5 lbs with 17 of the pounds being wheat malt. I added 2 pounds of rice hulls that I mixed in with the grain before mashing in. The same method of grain milling was used. Was careful during mash in to stir to avoid dough balls, and after mashing in I gave a final stir. The vorlauf went great with the wort pump - no fluctuation of the wort level indicator. I sparged 14.9 gallons over 80 minutes. Had 2 inches of sparge water above the grain bed. Everything went great.

So I assume there must have been channeling, perhaps at the outset of vorlaufing. I can't think of anything else. I did not perform a starch test, however the wort at the beginning of sparging was clear.

Did I need to use more rice hulls? Is there anything that would tip me off in the future so I can avoid this? Should I partially close the ball valve on the wort pump to slow the vorlauf in wheat beers?

My set up is a Kal clone with 20 gal Blichmann kettles. Blichmann false bottom, chugger pumps.

Thanks,

Sub

**kal**

If I understand correctly, you brewed with no issues for 6 months with a mash efficiency of 85% and now you had issues for the first time?

**kal** · Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:03 pm Post subject:

Another thing to confirm is that your mill didn't come loose resulting in a poor crush (or no crush at all).

Kal

blazinlow86 · Joined: 15 Jan 2017 Posts: 104 Location: vancouver bc

My guess is a number was off somewhere. Maybe your software was off abit and was calculating a smaller batch size or something like that