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dannythemanny

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Frustrated at not being able to get above about 55% efficiency when mashing above 5kg of grain in my Klarstein all in one, and at the variability of extraction efficiency making recipe formulation very difficult, I decided to try a kind of batch sparge method today, and extraction was miles better at about 70%.

I mashed in with 3.5 L/kg. This is much thicker than I have been doing. When the mash was finished, what I did was, instead of lifting the grain basket out and sparging over it, I drained almost all of the sweet wort into a third vessel before draining in all the sparge water from my HLT, effectively batch sparging, then after a good stir and leaving it for ten minutes or so, I lifted the grains, gave them a squeeze and dumped the first runnings back in. I think not having a way to control the lauter makes effective fly sparging impossible on these machines. It's a little bit more of a faff, but now I can brew beers with a higher OG than 1.046.
 
Great to hear, I've only brewed with 5kg once before but had planned to try a strong ipa soon. I'll give this a go!
 
@dannythemanny

the variability of extraction efficiency making recipe formulation very difficult

I think you've sussed out there what I consider to be one of the key points of homebrewing - having a consistent and predictable process so you can plan your brews accurately.

By the way, which Klarstein system do you have? Maischfest? I assume it's a 25L one whatever it is?

I have a 25L Klarstein Maischfest - I do 11L-ish batches of modest strength beers so my grain bill is rarely much more than 3kg and often only 2kg. I do full-volume no-sparge mashes which is a lot less faff.

But when I stopped dunk sparging I did see a drop in efficiency - not a problem for me as I only needed to up the grain bill a little too direct for this, but if you're all about maximising efficiency then sparging will help.

It's worth having a look at @pilgrimhudd 's brewday thread to see what he does - he has the same Klarstein system as me but tends to make bigger batches of stronger beer and he seems to frequently have his Klarstein creaking at the seems and full to the brim with grain and water!

A few other ideas I can throw in there:
I've found overnight mashing increased efficiency a lot (from 70 to >80%). Main reason I don't do it now is I found the results varied quite a bit and so were harder to predict (might be better now I use a pump, but frankly I personally just don't need to do it as I can get the results I want with a 1-2hr mash).

You could try installing a pump. I found this increased efficiency from 70 to usually 75-77%. This thread is worth a read (I didn't start the thread but I detailed in it what I did and how I got on).
 

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