Measured Mash Efficiency

[warra48]

Just have a Düsseldorf Altbier come to the boil.
These are the figures the program is displaying:

Total grains 4850 gr
Measured pre-boil volume 35 litres
Measured pre-boil gravity 1.040
Measured Mash Efficiency 118.2%

Now, I never get less than 90% mash efficiency, but even a software upgrade couldn't make me a miracle brewer with that kind of efficiency.

Help! Please explain!

Thank you.

[KellerBrauer]

Greetings warra48 - I think it would be remarkable to achieve a 118% Measured Mash Efficiency.  However, I don't think that's possible.

Try this: go to your Sessions tab and make sure your Post Mash Gravity and Pre-Boil Gravity are the same.  I'm guessing your Post Mash Gravity is higher than your Pre-Boil, which logically is an impossibility.  Frankly, I'm a bit confused about the two readings.  Perhaps someone else can better explain.

Good luck!

[Oginme]

Your 118% mash efficiency should lead to questions on (1) is your grain weighed out properly, (2) is your measurement of volume correct, or (3) is your measurement of specific gravity accurate?  Anytime I've gotten a figure greater than 100%  it has been an error in my volume measurement verified by back calculating from gravity points post-boil to pre-boil.  The other possibility, as KellerBrauer suggests, is that you are adding sugars or extract and entering this number into your post mash gravity reading.

[warra48]

Thanks KellerBrauer and Oginme.

I've never used the session tab before, just put my figures into the recipe design page, and got my results.

Now that I've corrected the figures in the session tab, it gives me 93.5% mash efficiency, which is within the usual range for my system.

[Toy4Rick]

93% is within in range for your system??? WOW

Most are 70-75 maybe 80

Do tell how you achieve 93%

Rick

[warra48]

I hand mill my grains, gap set at about 1.1 mm , or .045 inch? Hand milling crushes the grains, rather than shattering them, leading to good runoff. I found my efficiency dropped when I tried to use a drill on my mill.
I use a taller, rather than broad cooler for my mash tun.
It's fitted with a manifold I made according to the specs in How to Brew by John Palmer. I have virtually no dead space in the mashtun cooler.
I batch sparge, but do a mash out addition before my first run off.
I run off slowly, and sparge slowly. Runoff and sparge takes about 1 hour all up.