Pour Mash Efficiency

[Mike Neilson]

Heres my thought, I used to average around 80-85 efficiency every brew, But latley I have been only able to achieve 70-75%. One thing I have noticed is the the local Tap water here has a distinct Chlorine smell to it, my question is what effect does the chlorine have on the mash enzymes? I am also noticing that my mash is taking longer to convert, like last week my 65 Deg Mash took 2 1/4 Hours!! and this weeks 67 Degree mash to 85 mins!! Same mash used to take 40!!
I have a filter on my house supply but im thinking it may needed to be changed!!

[jt]

Chlorine ?
I've noticed a big whiff of chlorine from drinking water lately too. Fill a pint glass and let it sit 10 mins and it reeks.
haven't noticed any problems with beer though.
Mind you, the Welly supply is very variable with water being pumped from anywhere to anywhere through it's circular system. If your concerned about the water, call Capacity

[Soren]

I don't think the chlorine would have a major effect on the mash efficiency, but if the levels of chlorine changes during the year maybe the calcium, bicarbonate and other more imporant factors change too...? if all of a sudden your water is way harder or way softer than usual that could have something to do with it. did you check the pH?

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah mash is normaly between 5.1 - 5.3 if not it is adjusted to 5.2. I just want the mash to be consistent so that I can start hitting numbers I planned!! Cheers for the info guys also!!

[warra48]

I still have a suspicion it might be your malt.
If your malt arrived late August, is this a new batch, even though it is nominally the same malt as previously?

As an aside, I normally achieve around 90% mash efficiency, until I got into a new sack of Maris Otter. Dropped 7 to 8% with that compared to normal. I recovered about 5 to 6 % of that by mashing longer, from 90 to 120 minutes, rather than my usual 60 minutes.

[Reviled]

"As an aside, I normally achieve around 90% mash efficiency, until I got into a new sack of Maris Otter. Dropped 7 to 8% with that compared to normal. I recovered about 5 to 6 % of that by mashing longer, from 90 to 120 minutes, rather than my usual 60 minutes."

Are you sure your batteries in your scales are sweet? Scales can lose up to 25% accuracy, sometimes even more, when the batteries start to get flat which can account for all sorts of out of whack numbers... Or are you sure you weighed out enough grain? Can be easy to miss half a kilo or so...

I also fail to see how mashing for longer is going to increase efficiency, as theres either going to be starch or sugar in the mash, and seeing as most, if not all, of the starch is converted into sugar in the first 20 mins, how is another 70-100 mins going to give you more sugar??

[MrC]

Hey Mike, maybe you should switch to BIAB to improve your efficiency LOL ;-)

I consistently get around 75% and I'm happy with it. I filter all my water.

[Reviled]

Bahahaha, nice, why didnt I think of that ;o)

[James P]

With BIAB I was getting in the mid to late 80's with a sparge step, however I would have thought a controlled sparge with correct temp water after FULL CONVERSION of your malts which were crushed correctly would have increased your efficiency. The good thing about BIAB is that all your water is already in there, so conversion occurs in your full volume (excluding the sparge step).

I have mechanical and digital scales so steps that I normally go through are:
1. Check my crush consistency
2. Check my thermometer
3. Sparge slower

(Stirring the mash also helps rinse the grains of the sugary goodness!)

I would give the mill a clean and reset the gap as we all know how a mill's gap like to move.

[Stu McKinlay]

I'm guessing you're talking mash efficiency? I'm always really close to 70% unless it's a particularly big beer - it was much higher when i did 25L batches through the same system, so I put that down to the deeper grain bed not being as conducive to high efficiency.