oach

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Hey All,

I have been doing all grain for a while and I am ready to embark on my first high gravity beer, a barley wine. I have read posts here in which home brewers mention that getting the same efficiency as normal doesn't always happen. I haven't seen a great explanation on why this can happen and what the fix might be.

So of course I have a few questions along this line:

1. What is the cause of getting lower efficiency? What cause it?

2. What can I do before and on the brew day to hit my normal efficiency with the bigger grain bill?

If there is anything else, please add.

Forgot a few things as I will be doing a single batch sparge. I should collect 4 gallons and then do a single batch sparge of 3.5 gallons to end up with a total of 7.5 gallons of wort. I usually do my mash at 1.25 quarts per pound and was thinking of doing a 90 minute mash at 149. Of course I am open to any changes, just trying to give background on what I do.

Thank you for your time and help,
Scot

jeepinjeepin

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I haven't seen a good explanation on it either. You can bump it up with some DME, LME, dextrose, or sucrose in the boil to hit your mark.

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oach

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That's what I have read too and that isn't what I want to do, lol. I would really like to understand how to get better efficiency out of the grains, hit my gravity, and understand why a larger grain bill would cause this issue.

Pommy

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I would consider that the obvious causes could be using less water when batch sparging as more is used in the mash or the fact that there is more grain for the wort to filter through during lautering and sugars get caught up as they pass over the grains. Collecting more wort then boiling it down over a longer period should produce better efficiency but I'm just guessing here. If the grist ratio is the same then the gravity of the first runnings and pH would be the same as a normal batch so I cant see how it could be anything chemical causing the loss of efficiency in bigger batches just the fact that the grains are not washed as well during the sparge, especially when you consider the grain to sparge water ratio. Just my 2c.