Trouble shooting efficiency and Deadline Coffee Porter

One of the most popular topics of discussion in all grain brewing is maximizing efficiency. It's a broad and confused topic because there are a lot of variables to consider, and the terminology/metrics are not always consistent. For my purposes, I define the brew house efficiency (BHE) as the percentage of the total potential sugars in the grains transferred to the wort, as measured by the gravity of said wort at a well known volume. I think this is the most common definition of BHE, though some brewer's use other definitions. 

One point that irks me about BHE is people claiming that they can increase it via boiling. Sugar is a conserved quantity during the evaporation process, so regardless of whether you are measuring the pre-boil wort, or the post-boil wort, the BHE should be the same. You can use extra boiling to offset poor efficiency and hit target OG, but only the volume and SG have changed in this case -- not the efficiency. 

Personally, I'd really like a consistent BHE of 75% or so with typical (<1.060) OG beers (many brewers report a decrease in efficiency for high gravity brews). With my last two brews, I've hit 63% efficiency each time. The styles of the recipes haven't been particularly OG sensitive so I wasn't worried about missing the mark, but I'd like to raise the BHE and hold it consistent in the next few brews. A lot of the forums online describe various tips people use to increase BHE, but most of the people responding to efficiency queries are shooting in the dark. Recipe, equipment, etc. are not really enough to diagnose shortcomings in the BHE. Instead, I think that the most important step in diagnosing the problem is separating the BHE into its constituents: conversion efficiency and lautering efficiency. With this brew, I'm going to follow Kaiser's steps to figure out my conversion and lautering efficiency so I can zero in on the problem(s). 

The first thing I did was to take steps to insulate my mash tun. I've noticed that the lid feels warm during the mash compared to the sides. This suggests I'm losing temperature through the thin lid (it's a 48 quart Coleman cooler for reference). I struck a few degrees high and stirred until the grain bed hit the ideal temperature as measured with a meat thermometer. Then I wedged some 2" thick foam wrapped in tin foil a few inches above the mash (see the pictures). I used another layer of foam on top of the foiled layer and closed the tun with the lid. With this insulation, the mash held temperature for an hour with no measurable heat loss.

2" thick packing foam used for insulation

Wrapped in tin foil to avoid absorption

Foam wedged into the mash tun

Extra layer of foam for increased insulation

As I brewed, I collected samples along the way. I took a half-cup of first runnings and a half-cup of the pre-boil wort and put them in the freezer during the boil. I also added 2.25 gallons of tap water back into my tun after my sparge, stirred, and drained a half cup of runnings. I later measured the gravity of the first runnings (at room temp), and found them to have a gravity of 1.080. Knowing the volume of the strike water, I calculated the conversion efficiency at 89%. I measured the gravity of the post-sparge runnings at 1.016. Using Kaiser's lautering efficiency table, 1.016 corresponds to 81% lautering efficiency for a 2.0 qt/lb grist ratio (based on the volume of the cold water readdition). The gravity of the pre-boil wort, 1.056, allowed me to calculate BHE at 71% which is within a percent of the product of the lautering and conversion efficiency (1% error is well within the margins of measurement error in reading volumes, SG, etc.). After taking these measurements, I added the pre-boil wort and the first-runnings wort back to the kettle. 

The lautering efficiency is pretty decent for batch sparging as far as I'm concerned. The conversion efficiency should ideally hit 95%, however. Two majors players in limitation of conversion are mash pH and the crush of the grain. Using EZ Water and data from my water authority, I found that the mash pH should have been well within the acceptable range. Seeing as I did not verify this with strips or a pH meter, this not necessarily the case. That being said, I think it's likely my crush was not ideal. I crush my grains at my LHBS rather than with a personal mill. Many homebrewers suspect that stores will set their mills wide so that brewers don't complain about stuck sparges -- which conveniently helps them sell more grain. Given the steps I've taken to avoid a stuck sparge, I think I can afford a finer crush. Next time around, I'll run the grains through the mill twice and see if my conversion increases. Assuming a 95% conversion, I could easily hit 75% BHE in future brews.

I really don't know where the extra 8% efficiency I got with this brew came from. The crush in each case was likely similar as I used the same mill for both. The gravity was fairly consistent as well. It is possible that holding the temp. constant during the mash led to better conversion. Otherwise, my stirring technique at the dough in may have improved from previous batches. 

For this brew, I was aiming for something along the lines of the Berkshire Brewing Company's Dean's Bean's Coffeehouse Porter. I elected to make a nice and roasty base beer and use some coffee in the process too. There's a lot of discussion about how to introduce coffee to the beer. Some people brew espresso and add it to the boil in various stages, or cool it and add to the secondary or bottling bucket. Others use grounds in the mash, boil, or secondary. Beans can be used in the same way as grounds -- some report good results with 'dry beaning.' Personally, I decided to use cold-brewed coffee for this beer. I've heard good things from brewers and coffee aficionados alike on the smooth, non-astringent character of cold-brewed coffee. I will add a half cup to the bottling bucket to get a subtle coffee flavor in the batch to compliment the dark grain bill. 

Deadline Coffee Porter

Grain Bill

US 2-Row: 7 lbs (80.0%)

Crystal 60L: 0.5 lbs (5.6%)

Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (5.4%)

Coffee malt: 0.5 lbs (5.1%)

Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (4.0%)

Single infusion mash @154 for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Willamette (5% AA): 0.375 oz, 60 min

East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.375 oz, 60 min

Willamette (5% AA): 0.375 oz, 15 min

East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.375 oz, 15 min

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet)

Stats

SRM: 40+

IBU: 29

OG: 1.062

Brew house efficiency: 71%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 1/18/2014 

Ran off 2.25 gallons of first runnings (SG 1.080, 89% conversion). Sparged with 2 gallons of water at ~ 200F. Collected total of 4 gallons of pre-boil wort (SG 1.056). Boiled down to a 3.6 gallon batch (SG 1.062). Pitched rehydrated US-05, and left in ambient temperatures. Active fermentation within 12 hours.

2/8/2014

Ground fresh JP Licks espresso roast coffee very fine. Put 1 cup (liquid measure) of grounds, and 4 cups water in a Nalgene bottle. Stirred, shook and left in the fridge overnight.

2/9/2014

Strained the coffee (~ 3 cups yield), and boiled 2 cups along and dissolved the priming sugar for the batch directly in the coffee. Bottled as normal with the coffee/sugar solution.

MLT manifold mod and Resolution Oatmeal Stout

My ideal brew day is relaxed, moving at a slow and methodical pace, with plenty of beer. My last brew day was nothing like that. It was a hellish struggle that made me question why I choose to subject myself to this 'hobby'. So with that in mind, I spent quite a bit of time researching manifold-based mash tuns and making modifications to my own to avoid any chance of another stuck sparge. For those new to all grain brewing, I'll direct you to Palmer for a crash course in lautering techniques. 

 For reference, I am currently mashing in a 48 quart Coleman rectangular cooler. I used many of the countless DIY threads and videos to retrofit a metal outlet valve through the drainage port at the bottom of the cooler. This process seems fairly standard amongst all improvised mash/lauter tuns (MLTs); the innovation and variation comes in how you separate the wort from the spent grains. As I've chosen to do batch sparging, I would argue that a manifold system (which is cheap and easy to build) has all the merits of a false bottom. The argument here is that channeling is not relevant in batch sparging the way it is in fly sparging. Really with batch sparging, the most important thing is to get every drop of wort out that you can.

I built a manifold using CPVC and a dremel. Make sure you use CPVC rather than PVC. CPVC is designed for use with potable water at temps approaching 200F, so it is compatible with brewing. You can see the design in the pictures below. I think the only change I'd like to make is to swap the 3-way 't' piece at the outlet valve for a 4-way, allowing for better drainage. Would have grabbed one initially but all my local hardware stores don't carry the 4-way piece. There's roughly a 1/2" of dead space at the bottom of the cooler that I should try to remove at some point. I initially made the cuts for each segment of CPVC using a serrated Ikea bread knife, but it's a really exhausting process. My initial slots were about 1 mm wide, and cut roughly a quarter to a third through the diameter of the pipe (not much uniformity when using the bread knife). I put a slit roughly once per 1/2" along the pipe. 

This initial design may may have been suitable for successful brewing -- I will never know. But if you're going to use a manifold, I can't emphasize enough, face the slits downward in your tun. This may have been my only problem with the setup that caused the disastrous stuck sparge on my last brew day. I wanted to make absolutely sure it wouldn't happen again, so I made some modifications. I increased the slit density to one slit per 1/4", and used a dremel to widen the slits to about 3 mm. The slits also go more than half way through the pipe now. If I were to do it again, I'd probably leave the slits shallower so that the pieces were a bit stronger. I have to be careful not to bend them now.  I also went out and bought a fine, voile dry-hopping/boiling bag from my LHBS to cover the manifold. I actually brought the manifold to the store and played with a few bags until I found the one I wanted. It fits as if it were designed specifically for the manifold. I simply tie it off at the outlet, and now I have two lines of defense against a stuck sparge. 

Manifold with modifications

Putting the bag on the manifold

Manifold added to the tun

With the modifications complete, I wanted to brew something fairly simple to test it out.  I decided to make an oatmeal stout as I've been on a dark beer kick recently. At this point, I hadn't tried my Frustration Black IPA yet, so when I bought the ingredients for this beer (and for a coffee porter I'll be brewing soon) I was once again pretty heavy-handed with the roasted grains. Should have used a lot more oatmeal, probably. I also wanted to mash pretty high to leave some dextrines in there for body. 

I used dry yeast for this one following the  K.I.S.S mantra. I've been reading a decent bit on the differences between dry and liquid yeasts and trying to formulate an modus operandi for choosing yeasts. Dry yeast is definitely easier to work with and more viable out of package (no starter or forethought necessary). However, the drying process is only compatible with a few types of yeast. Currently my opinion is that dry yeast is a good option for beers that do not require or highlight particular flavors from the yeast. Liquid is definitely the way to go for some of the more in your face yeast flavors (e.g. Belgian beers, ester-y English beers, German hefeweizens, etc). 

Resolution Oatmeal Stout

Grain bill

US 2-row: 6 lbs (%)

Oatmeal: 0.75 lbs (%)

Black patent malt: 0.25 lbs (%)

Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (%)

Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (%)

Single infusion mash @ 149F for 90 minutes

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet, rehydrated)

Hop Schedule
Willamette (5.0% AA): 0.75 oz, 60 min
East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min
Willamette (5.0% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Stats

SRM color: 40+
IBU: 32
OG: 1.052
Brew house efficiency: 63%
Batch size: 3.5 gal

Timeline

Brewed on 1/1/2014
Bottled on 1/26/2014
Tasting on 3/28/3014

Brewing notes

For this brew, I actually had a friend over to hang out and drink, despite the fact that it was New Year's day. The day was so relaxed, and so different from the last time around that I actually got a bit sloppy with some of the timing. I heated the strike water 10F above my strike temp and added it to the tun to preheat it as it dropped to my desired strike temp. I wasn't being diligent in checking it, however, and I dropped a few degrees too low. Rather than doing the intelligent thing and adding some boiling water to get back up to the ideal temperature, I doughed in anyway. The actual mash temperature was at about 149F at the start (I was aiming for 156F). I didn't measure the temperature at the end of the mash (I intend to investigate heat loss in my next brew). As a result of the lower mash temp, I extended the mash to 90 minutes to compensate -- making sure beta amylase had plenty of time to do it's thing. I'm anticipating that this brew will end up being a very dry stout as opposed to the sweeter stout I wanted. Oh well, live and learn. 

Frustration Black IPA tasting

Time for my first tasting post! I was kind of half dreading, half excited for the first taste of this beer given the ordeal I went through in making it. The plan with this one was to go big on the hops and big on the roasted malt -- trying to create something with all the heavy flavors of a stout and a nice full hop bill as well. I used a bunch of Chinook, as I had read it's known for piney and earthy characteristics. Centennial was the backing hop, thinking it might add a bit of citrus, but not as much as Cascade, or something in that vein. I used Columbus to bitter for a nice clean bite, and I dry hopped with it also, mostly just because I was curious what flavors it would bring to the mix.

Appearance: Black. Entirely opaque. As a result, no notes on clarity. Pours a very nice inch think toffee colored head which quickly recedes to a thin covering. Leaves nice lacing on the rim of the glass, likely the roasted barley helped in this department.

Aroma: There's a piney, earthy hop smell that lures you in. Definite chocolate notes in there as well. When it was young, I smelled a bit of alcohol in it. That's faded in the past few weeks, as has the hop aroma.

Taste: Lot's of hop bitterness and roasty, chocolate grains. No floral notes at all -- which I would expect from the Centennial. I mostly taste the clean bitterness from the Columbus addition at the beginning of the boil. The bitterness was incredibly harsh when it was first bottled, but it has mellowed quite a bit and it blends into some of the bitter aspects of the dark grains.

Next time around on this recipe, I might decrease the roasted grain a bit. I'll probably leave the Columbus in there -- it did it's job well. The Centennial was pretty lackluster. I think I'll swap it out for a more floral hop, likely Cascade. I'll keep Chinook in there, but pull down the weight of it with respect to the Cascade or other floral hop. Columbus dry hopping worked out pretty well for the initial aroma, but it faded very quickly. Probably lost a few bottles worth of beer from absorption loss in the dry hops. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this beer. It's not a easy drinking, slugging beer, but it definitely has some complexity to it.

Return to brewing and Frustration Black IPA

I'm writing this in retrospect, as this batch was actually brewed in early December. Hooray for detailed notes. 

After a brief hiatus due to moving to a new apartment, I've started back up with brewing again. I brewed extract for about a year prior to moving, something like a dozen batches. This will be my first all grain batch effectively, discounting a partial mash batch way back in the beginning of last summer. Full disclosure: it wasn't supposed to be partial mash -- the extraction efficiency was so terrible (< 50%) that we had to supplement with dried malt extract later on as the wort was fermenting.

I really wish I had some pictures of the brewing process as this will likely be a bland post without them, but seeing as regret and lack of preparation were two of the major themes for this brew, it seems appropriate. With this beer, I wanted to make a full-bodied, roasty dark beer with a complementary piney, earthy bitterness from the hop schedule. Style-wise, I was going for what I consider a 'Black IPA,' though this style is somewhat ambiguous. Black IPA's go by many names: hoppy porters, American black ale, Cascadian dark ale, etc. Recipes seem varied also -- anything from stouts with a few extra IBUs, to IPAs with a pinch of Carafa for color. As a commercial reference, I was aiming for something like a roastier version of Otter Creek's Alpine Black IPA which was been a favorite of mine for a while now. I was positively giddy with the prospect of designing a grain bill for this one, and as a result the low-fermentables crept up to a large proportion of the bill. 

Note that composition percentages are in terms of potential sugars, not weight.

Black IPA

Grain Bill
US 2-row: 8 lbs (82.4%)
Crystal 80L: 0.5 lbs (5.2%)
Carafa special III: 0.5 lbs (3.6%)
Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (4.0%)
Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (4.9%)

Single infusion mash @ 156F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 20 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Columbus (14% AA): 1.0 oz, dry hop added after primary fermentation

Yeast
1 L starter of Wyeast 1056
(Supplemented by rehydrated Munton's ale yeast, more on that below)

Stats
SRM color: 40+
IBU: 82
OG: 1.063
Brew house efficiency: 63%
Batch size: 3.5 gal

Time-line

Brewed on 12/8/2013
Re-pitched on 12/12/2013
Dry-hopped with 1 oz of Columbus on 12/20/2013
Bottled on 1/3/2014
Tasting on 1/26/2014

Brewing notes:

I began the brew day by heating up 3.125 gal of strike water in my kettle, aiming for a 1.25 qts/lbs grist ratio. I'd recently read up a bit about the activation and denaturing temps for alpha and beta amylase, the enzymes responsible for converting starches to sugar. I wanted a full-bodied beer, so I shot high at 156F to preferentially accommodate the alpha -- in retrospect, I think the high mash temp along with the high proportion of low-fermentables led to a high finishing gravity. I used a pot (~ 1 gallon) of boiling water to preheat the tun for ten minutes, then dumped it.  I added the strike water (168F) and doughed in. 

After an hour of mashing everything went to hell. The first runnings, well, they didn't run. I had a nasty stuck sparge and couldn't get around it for the life of me. After some quick googling, I tried raking the grain bed and blowing through my drainage tube to get it to flow, but it barely trickled. In the midst of this disaster, my girlfriend suggested that I might dissemble the manifold, let it rip through the outlet and use a metal pasta strainer to separate wort from grain. At first I was indignant, because well... That's not how they do it online... Finally I agreed. I used a couple of spoons to reach into the hot wort and pull the elbows off the 't' piece at the outlet. We managed to get a couple gallons of first runnings. 

I tried to sparge and drain the same way, but in the process of getting the first runnings, the outlet valve got gummed up with grain, and once again -- no flow. At this point, we threw the rulebook out the window and got creative. I lifted the tun and tipped it while she held the strainer, and we slowly collected the second runnings. I have to say, as an aside, it's a true sign of trust when you allow your significant other to attempt to pour 150F sticky wort in the immediate vicinity of your body. 

We transferred the wort back and forth between the kettle and a bottling bucket, each time straining with a funnel and very fine mesh strainer that came with my glass carboy. I feel it would be irresponsible not to mention that doing this, for the purposes of normal brewing, is a colossally bad idea. Splashing hot wort around leads to oxidization. Oxidized wort is a time-bomb: at some point within a few months of the beer's life, it will start to taste like plastic or cardboard because of time-released flavor compounds from oxygen binding with chemicals in the wort. At this point, however, I was at war against my beer and I was not going to lose on a technicality. Somehow, despite all of this, I managed 63% brewhouse efficiency. Not great, but given the struggle I'll take it.

Seeing as I'm telling this story in hindsight, I can slip in the relevant lessons as they come. So, brewing lesson number 1: If you brew with a manifold in your mash lauter tun, face the slots downward.  This is one of those things that for 95% of people would be obvious. For 4% of people, they'd be curious and find the answer online. I guess I'm the 1%. 

Boiling and hop additions succeeded without incident thankfully, because at this point I was fuming (RDWHAHB be damned). The real hero of the story was the new copper immersion chiller my father and I made. In its maiden voyage, it took the wort down to pitching temp in less than ten minutes. We used about 45 feet of 3/8 inch copper, which a lot of people will tell you is overkill for 5 gallon batches, certainly for 3.5 gallon batches, but the result was phenomenal. Being used to a 25 ft commercial chiller and having to wait 30-45 minutes for chilling, I was pretty amazed. 

And then things took another turn, although I wouldn't realize it for a while. About 24 hours prior, I had made a yeast starter with a pouch of Wyeast 1056. It was about a liter, with some dried malt extract in there to bring the gravity to about 1.040. I hadn't seen much activity, but I didn't really worry about it. There was definitely some slurry on the bottom prior to pitching, so the yeast had become active. Which brings me to the next lesson: When pitching yeast starters: decant the liquid and pitch or pitch the whole thing, but whatever you do, don't pitch the liquid without the slurry. In my brain, it seemed that the slurry was simply a byproduct, and that the yeast were in suspension in the fluid. While this is true to certain extent, the slurry is where the overwhelming majority of the yeast remains in the starter. If you don't pitch the slurry, you really haven't pitched any yeast.

One out of every 5 threads on every homebrew forum in existence is something along the lines of "No airlock activity!!!!!!!!! Is my beer dead??????" The kind contributors and admins (bless their hearts) will patiently explain that airlock activity is not a guarantee of fermentation activity especially in the case of plastic bucket fermenters which don't have perfect seals. Always check gravity, or at least look for kreusen to determine whether or not fermentation is in progress. In my case, my beer truly was dead in the water. No kreusen, no drop in gravity. So I scrambled, called some other home brewing friends and got my hands on some Munton's dry yeast. And so, the last lesson: Keep a supply of 'oh shit!' ingredients on hand. A couple packs of dry yeast will keep in the fridge for a long time and are super helpful in a pinch. Also, some dried malt extract can save the day if you miss your OG by a long shot. 

I rehydrated and pitched the yeast, and the beer fermented down to 1.022. This final gravity is a bit high (as stated above, likely due to the high mash temp and proportion of roasted grains) but at this point, I was happy to call it beer. I added the dry hops and gave it another two weeks before bottling. As a final FU from this nightmare of a beer, my bottling spigot got stuck open during bottling and dumped quite of beer on my floor. 

In honor of a truly horrific battle with this brew, I dub this recipe Frustration Black IPA.