Mash Tun dead space

Mase

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So, I’m working on improving overall efficiency from the low 70’s. One step is to forego the “Mashout” process as I don’t “fly” sparge, rather I “Batch” sparge, but that’s for another discussion. That being said, after we have ran a few quarts to set the grain bed and to clear up the wort, we open the valve and drain the Mash Tun to the boil kettle for our first runnings. Then we close the valve and start into the sparge. I took a closer look at the Mash Tun dead space and realized, by testing it this morning, that if I don’t use the hose connected to the valve discharge and let the hose hang down well below the bottom of the Mash Tun, I end up with almost 1 gallon of “dead-space”. However, when I do use the hose, I am left with on 4 oz. in the Mash Tun. We are using a round 10 gallon cooler with a false bottom. Prior to this test, we used the hose sometimes to drain the Mash Tun, but not always. Unfortunately, whether we use a hose or not, that tid-bit never made it to my brew notes to see if efficiency improved when using the hose or not. The range of efficiencies have ranged rom the mid 60’s to the low 80’s. So my question is this; In the case where we don’t use the hose to let gravity/suction remove the entire first runnings (save for 4 oz.), do you think my efficiency is or will be worse as opposed to when we do use the hose?
 
If your hose is below your tun outlet for sure your going to get more efficiency in reducing dead space losses.

So your efficiency vairys quite a bit from brew to brew? As a few brewers onnhere have noted getting good mash ph can help in increased efficiency. Braukaiser did a mash PH experiment that is worth reading about i think he found 5.6 ph on the high end of the range as getting best extract efficiency. Ive personally found finer crush gets me another 5% efficiency also sparging gives me a good 10% better brew house. Comparing my brews ive no sparged and gone full volume my efficiency was sitting 68% and below even but a sparge gets me 80 or a bit higher give or take.

Good luck Mase on your quest for better efficiency;).
 

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