Lowering Efficiency = "Better Beer" ?

[Chiltern Brewer]

Wez, are you actually disappointed with your beers mashed to 75% efficiency and if so what is the problem? If you want to increase maltiness/residual sugars then you could just try mashing at a higher temperature i.e. 68oC

[Stonechat]

Ok but to my stupid brain it makes no sense to dilute with water when you can do with wort? i must try myself sometime cause it's the only way i'll learn. Thanks Aleman

I'm with you on this AT. I don't put all my sparged wort into the boiler, but run the last 5 to 10 litres into a separate SS stockpot, which I boil separately and add when evaporation from the main boiler allows room for it.

Yes, I know I should get a bigger boiler, and I will.

[Wez]

Wez, are you actually disappointed with your beers mashed to 75% efficiency and if so what is the problem? If you want to increase maltiness/residual sugars then you could just try mashing at a higher temperature i.e. 68oC

I'm not disappointed as such with them, maybe a bit lacking in body at times, even when mashed at the high end as you suggest, I've just got this nagging feeling that they could be even better on a level I'm not even considering if I tried doing this, and I'm not going to know until I try I may find there is no change and therefore no point in doing it again on the other hand I may find an improvement, just a bit of experimentation.

[Gurgeh]

There's an article in one of last years Brewers Contact's about this.

Author is Ray Ashworth and he calls it 'Reduced Sparge'

He definitely knows what he's doing

[Aleman]

Ok but to my stupid brain it makes no sense to dilute with water when you can do with wort? i must try myself sometime cause it's the only way i'll learn. Thanks Aleman

I'm with you on this AT. I don't put all my sparged wort into the boiler, but run the last 5 to 10 litres into a separate SS stockpot, which I boil separately and add when evaporation from the main boiler allows room for it.

The point is that you are still increasing the levels of tannoids, tannins and polyphenols in the wort . . . as long as the final runnings still taste sweet (however you want to measure it )then you shouldn't have a problem, however you are increasing the haze potential of the beer plus the potential of drying the beer.

Mashing high will increase the body and unfermentability of the wort . . . . but if the tannins level are still too high then there will still be that 'impression' of dryness/harshness on the back of the palate.

[Wez]

Aleman, I've been thinking about this today. I've upped the grain bill but using the same brewing method that I always do i'm still going to hit 75% and end up with a stronger beer than I want (Target OG is 1.041 at 65% but my method gets me 75% eff) - this is confusing

Maybe I need to change the way i'm brewing, and stop sparging early - you mentioned measureing the pre-boil gravity, thats not something i've done, would you mind explaining what you'd do in the situation?

Thanks, Wez

[Seveneer]

I always stop sparging at about 1.015-1.020 for this very reason. My beers are much better than two years ago when I was chasing ever higher efficiencies.

As has been said already, the body and the maltiness are much better than before.

Before I changed to this strategy I did try raising the mash temperature to 68 for a few batches but they didn't give the improvement in body I was looking for.

So I wholeheartedly recommend lower efficiencies but only when you stop sparging early or don't sparge at all; not because there's a process issue

/Phil.

[Aleman]

Aleman, would you mind explaining what you'd do in the situation?

If I was brewing say a 23L batch of 1.040 beer (Using 4Kg of pale malt), I would want to collect 26-27L of wort, and I would expect this to have a gravity of around 1.034. After boiling and loss to hops etc I would end up on my system with 23L at my target gravity . . . Rockin' Now lets throw some inefficiencies into the mix, and increase the grain bill by 50% . . . If I stuck to my original efficiency (73%) I would expect a beer 0f 1.060, reducing it to 50% produces a 1.040 beer, by using 3L/Kg instead of 2.5, I would expect to drain off 12ish Litres of wort at probably around 1.075 ish, adding 16L of liquor to the wort would dilute this to 28L of 1.032 wort after boiling I'd be pretty close to the desired pre fermentation gravity and volume.

It is pretty hit and miss though. before doing something like this it is worth checking what the gravity is at the end of the mash (refractometer comes in handy), as this will give you an idea of what you can expect to drain off from a given liquor to grist ratio so that you can make an educated guess at how to do this.

I've not explained this very well . . . but I when I get the femto brewery in operation I can work through a few actual examples.

[prolix]

I have been working on efficencies of about 64% for 1040's and fill the mash tun when the mashing's finished with the extra liquor then open the taps so 12 l and 4 kg of grain would mean adding about 20l to the mash tun stir and open the taps to get 28l wort for boiling. I am my much happier with the beer than I was with my 85% efficency beers fuller and less hassle and quicker.

[Wez]

Cheers Chaps!

The boiler is on, I'll be taking readings and will post up a brewday thread.

[Wez]

I took quite a few readings during last nights brew, I won't know if it'll make a difference until I get to drink the beer but I'm hopeful.

Grains Used

5200g Pale Malt (98%)
85g Crystal Malt (2%)
Target Strike Temp 73.8 target mash temp 67
3L per Kilo so 16L mash liquor

Transferred 16L to Tun
Doughed in - mash too high (68.4) added 1/2L cold water to drop to 67.1
Treated water (crs) to drop it to ~5.2
Mash Start Temp 66.9 Mash End Temp 66.8 (1 hour mash)

I measured what was running from the tun during sparging

first runnings 18 brix 1.072
with 5L collected the runnings were 18.8 brix 1.075
with 10L collected the runnings were 17 brix 1.068
with 15L collected the runnings were 11 brix 1.044
with 18L collected the runnings were 9 brix 1.036
with 20L collected the runnings were 6.2 brix 1.025
with 21L collected the runnings were 5 brix 1.020

At this point I stopped sparging

Measurements from what I had collected:

16L collected measuring 16.2 brix 1.065
18L collected measuring 16 brix 1.064
21.5L collected measuring 12.5 brix 1.050

So with 21.5L of 1.050 collected I added 5.5L water (unused sparge water) to take the preboil volume to 27L at 1.040

After boiling, cooling and transfering to FV I had 21L at 1.052 added 4L water to take it up to my target brewlength of 25L measured 1.044 which is a 69.5% efficiency

As I say time will tell if this has made a difference or not, these figures will certainly help me have confidence next time in what I am doing I do fancy trying a no sparge brew as suggested by Aleman

What I need to do now is work out how to accurately predict the final SG using this or a similar method.

[Aleman]

5200g Pale Malt (98%)
85g Crystal Malt (2%)
Target Strike Temp 73.8 target mash temp 67
3L per Kilo so 16L mash liquor

Transferred 16L to Tun
Doughed in - mash too high (68.4) added 1/2L cold water to drop to 67.1

first runnings 18 brix 1.072

What I need to do now is work out how to accurately predict the final SG using this or a similar method.

Ok so 5Kg of grain gave you 1.072, in what would probably be 11L of first wort, so to get a 1.040 beer from that you needed to add 8.8L of water . . . . plus more to account for loss to the hops and trub . . . As you can see you need to bump up the grain bill significantly when you no sparge, as this would only yield about 15L of wort in the FV

[des]

I fancy having a go at this...

One of my recent brews which I am now drinking was sparged in 3 x 15 liter batches (couldn't do it in 2 because of size).

have calculated that I got 75% brewhouse efficiency

First batch 1.072

(this first batch was diluted by topping mash tun up prior to run off so undiluted wort would have had a higher gravity)

Second batch 1.032
Final Batch 1.016

However, if I increase the grain bill by 50% from 6Kg to 9 Kg at a cost of a couple of quid and fill the mash tun to the top for the mash, then I should be able to produce a wort with an OG of 1.046 from a single batch sparge.

(Like this: first batch undiluted so wort runs out at a gravity of 1.108, it is then diluted at a ratio of 3:1 to give a gravity of 1.036, it is then boiled down from 45 liters to 35 liters concentrating the wort to give an OG of 1.046)

This would save a lot of time because I could have the additional liquor on the boil and run off from the mash tun into it as well as the time saved on sparging.

For the sake of a couple of quids worth of grain I am going to give this a go. I'm not really bothered about time saving but I can't wait to see what sort of quality beer it makes.

Cheers

Des

[Wez]

Can I base my calculations then on 14.4 GP per kilo of grain if 5kg with 3L per KG gave me 1.072? (72/5 = 14.4) ? And also loosing around 1L per KG grain to the mash?

For example, had I used 7KG grain ..

7kg x 3L = 21L mash liquor
minus 7L losses (1L per KG) = collecting 14L
7kg x 14.4 = 100.8
so would I get 14L of 1.100 wort?

(or isn't it as easy as that)?

[BarnsleyBrewer]

I know what you're saying but malt is cheap so I don't mind throwing a few extra 100g's in if it means a better quality - just not sure it will?

Also, I normally end up with ~20L in the FV and have to top up with 5L cooled boiled water - do most folk do that?

I do too, is this the norm?? I've never had a problem doing this!!

BB