3 Ways to Improve your All Grain Beer Efficiency

The overall percentage of the potential grain sugars absorbed into the finished wort is called the
brewhouse efficiency. Achieving higher efficiency on a consistent basis lets you use fewer grains to achieve a target original gravity.

1. Improve the Milling of your Grains
The crush of your grains makes a significant difference in the efficiency of your mash and sparge. Grains should be finely crushed, but the milling should leave the hulls largely intact to act as a filter bed. A dual roller mill such as ours is ideal for achieving this.

2) Increase mash rest duration.
Some homebrewers have found longer mash durations allow for more conversion and ultimately higher efficiency. An iodine test or hydrometer can be utilized to monitor when conversion is complete.

3. Sparge Slowly
Most beginners attempt to sparge their mash much too fast. Sparing too quickly leaves insufficient time for the hot water to extract the sugars in the grain bed. Limit the flow out of your mash tun to just above a trickle. It should take 30-50 minutes to fully sparge a 5-gallon all-grain batch (about 6 gallons of wort).

[graymalkin]

Proper milling of grains is sooo important regarding efficiency.

[jackhandy]

I definitely agree with the milling. My LHBS had their mill gap set to 0.043” but I found my wort was 8 points off so I set the of my grain mill to 0.032” and I was within 2 points of my target gravity.

[avalanchecannon]

What temp is the best for boiling the 60 minutes?

[franciscoquintero]

I'm kind of a noob, I recently bought a corona grain mill, and my malt is very fine almost like flour but not that fine. Since I'm using BIAB it doesn't bother me but I was wondering if that increases the effectiveness of the mash. Is there a disadvantage to making it so fine?

[Murlockingqc]

What is a mash rest?
I'm brewing in a bag, does that matter to BIAB ?

[greybeard]

It is interesting that so many beer recipes for the home brewer state mash for 1 hour, but you should mash until it's done. You can do iodine tests and keep sampling SG, although if I'm doing a lazy brew and just knocking something easy out, I'll default mash for an hour and a half. Measuring during the mash, some of my mashes (if that's a word?) have been complete in 40 minutes. The wort going clear is also a good indicator it's near being finished.