Efficiency Problem

[James C.]

I haven't been able to duplicate my first all grain efficiency. I had about 78% and haven't been able to hit it on my other 2 after that. It's been around 65%. I used Spring water from the store and fly sparged my first one. I have used half Spring water and half tap water for my other 2 and batched sparged those instead of fly sparging. Could it be a water issue, sparge issue or both? My first batch came out fantastic! 2 nd not so good and 3rd one still in the fermenter. Hope that about covers it

 

[UgliestLemming]

What prompted the switch from fly to batch sparge? I would guess the sparge over the water first.

 

[James C.]

I was thinking the same but I found it to be easier to batch sparge than fly sparge. Also mixing my city water was to to hit around the 5.5 Ph range since Spring water is 4 and city water about a 7.3 Ph. I will go back to fly sparging on my next one to see if that's the problem. I hit pre-boil target water volume so I don't think that's an issue either. I may have to add more grain to my bill if I intend to keep batch sparging I guess to compensate for that loss.

 

[Hogarthe]

a lot of people get better efficiency with fly sparging. Either way, if you get a consistent %, you can tweak your recipes for that, by adding or subtracting malt. It would probably be easier to pick fly or batch sparge and stick with it, so you can get an idea of your expected efficiency %.

 

[James C.]

Y'all are right. I should have never changed to batch sparging right away. I would have been able to zero in on what would have caused my % to change. I'm going to go back to fly sparging again on my next one. I appreciate the help, thanks!