Upper limit on efficiency

Help me with a 'mental block'. When I brewed years ago I always tried to stay below ~80% efficiency. Why? I'll start with a coffee comparison. When you brew coffee with a drip coffee maker...the 'first runnings' taste the best (and it's not close). They have the most aroma and more of the 'good' flavors and less of the bad/bitter flavors. The 'last runnings' have more of the bad/bitter flavors and less of the good stuff. This is pretty much common knowledge to anyone that likes coffee.

I can't help but think that our mash is similar at least to some degree. That is, as we increase our efficiency we finally get to a point where the stuff we are getting out has an adverse effect on the flavor of our beer. We've gotten almost all the 'good stuff' out and we're now just collecting more and more 'bad stuff'.

However, we've cooked/mashed the **** out of our grains so we're just trying to extract it...right? Is there an upper limit on efficiency with regard to beer flavor?

Don't know about an upper limit on efficiency, but I do know that if you are extracting so much that your final runnings go below 1.010 you run the risk of getting the "bad stuff" you are talking about: tannins.

If I'm doing an extended boil like 90 or 120 minutes I'll start testing the final runnings every gallon or so just to make sure I'm still above 1.010. If I am, I don't worry about it.

SpanishCastleAle said:

That is, as we increase our efficiency we finally get to a point where the stuff we are getting out has an adverse effect on the flavor of our beer. We've gotten almost all the 'good stuff' out and we're now just collecting more and more 'bad stuff'.

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I see your analogy, but I've never heard anything like that for brewing. I've read quite a few of the more "technical" brewing books and don't recall reading anything stating it's bad to get too high extraction efficiency. I would think with coffee you would get too much acrid flavors, acidity, etc? Not so with barley malt. Oversparging can be bad because the pH gets higher and can release tannins, but I think getting maximum extraction is OK.

SpanishCastleAle said:

Help me with a 'mental block'. When I brewed years ago I always tried to stay below ~80% efficiency. Why? I'll start with a coffee comparison. When you brew coffee with a drip coffee maker...the 'first runnings' taste the best (and it's not close). They have the most aroma and more of the 'good' flavors and less of the bad/bitter flavors. The 'last runnings' have more of the bad/bitter flavors and less of the good stuff. This is pretty much common knowledge to anyone that likes coffee.

I can't help but think that our mash is similar at least to some degree.
to beer flavor?

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Maybe. As one of the posters above said, you can start extracting tannins. However, it is NOT similar to brewing coffee in one degree: if you continue to pour water over coffee beans, the coffee gets less and less strong, and that's not good. However, you don't care about this in brewing beer since the point is to extract as much sugar as possible, and then you can boil down if need be to get the gravity back.

Thanks for the responses.

Upon further thought...the sparge water should play a big role in this shouldn't it? If we used hard/pH-neutral water that was not too hot then it seems we'd be less likely to pull the 'bad' stuff out. But if we used soft/alkaline water it would tend to 'strip' the bad stuff out.

It also seems that since the first runnings are saturated with stuff (sugars, etc.) that the water is 'loaded up' and would not strip anything bad from the grains...but in the later runnings the water is not saturated and is free to strip whatever it can from the grains and since most of the good stuff has already been sparged off there is only 'bad' stuff left to strip. This is essentially saying the same as the 1.010 gravity cutoff point. But it seems that 1.010 isn't some magical point where we instantly start pulling tannins...it's a sliding scale and it seems that at say 1.012 gravity-runnings we're pulling a lot more 'bad stuff' than we are at 1.050 gravity-runnings. So this where I think the 'upper limit' might come into play. See what I mean? See where I'm getting this 'mental block' that there has to be an upper limit on efficiency with regards to beer flavor?

So maybe different people's experience with this is at least somewhat based on the water they use?

I've read somewhere very recently (but can't remember where!) that a slightly lower efficiency is actually better. It may have been John Palmer, or Jamil Zainasheff, my memory just sucks. I'll see if I can find that info again.

SpanishCastleAle said:

If we used hard/pH-neutral water that was not too hot then it seems we'd be less likely to pull the 'bad' stuff out. But if we used soft/alkaline water it would tend to 'strip' the bad stuff out.

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The only bad thing I know of to pull from the mash is tannins. The only way these tannins are leached out is through too high a rise in pH (from oversparging). Hard water is generally more alkaline. Soft water is generally more acidic. So the opposite is true... harder water (higher pH) is riskier in terms of leaching tannins.

So, if one is using soft water for sparging and the water has a pH of say 5.7 (like me), you could sparge a lot longer than someone with neutral pH water because the pH rises during the sparge.

The extraction of tannins is based on PH as well as heat. That's why you can do a decoction mash without getting tannin extraction. So if the water you are putting in for sparge has a low PH (5-6) you shouldn't extract tannins even below 1.010 runnings. The idea with testing the runnings is you can see how much the wort is still buffering the water's PH.

Thanks.

I was basing much of that above with experience dealing with DM (DeMineralized)water...but not DI (DeIonized) water at work. With DM (and even moreso with DI); you need to use stainless pipes, water heater, fittings, valves, etc. Since DM (and even moreso DI) is so 'empty' it tends to strip whatever it can from whatever it contacts.

EDIT: For example; I have to replace the TP valves on my DM water heaters once every 1.5-2 years because they are made of brass and the DM water eats away at the brass seat retainer. I don't think I've ever replaced the TP valve on my home water heater nor the potable water heater at work.

YooperBrew said:

I've read somewhere very recently (but can't remember where!) that a slightly lower efficiency is actually better. It may have been John Palmer, or Jamil Zainasheff, my memory just sucks. I'll see if I can find that info again.

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I'm pretty certain it was Jamil. I think it was from one of the podcasts but I don't remember which one it was from

This is one reason I really like batch sparging. If you stick to a reasonable preboil volume (say 7gallons for 5 in the fermenter), it's near impossible to oversparge unless your intended OG is lower than 1.040. Even hitting 92% mash/lauter efficiency leaves my last running gravity at about 1.015 which conceivably has enough buffering capacity. I finally got some colorphast strips to really see what's going on but have yet to use them.

I'm always amazed by the sort of competition that goes on amongst home brewers with respect to efficiency because I certainly don't consider high efficiency to be a good thing. Within reason, the lower the efficiency the better as long as the low efficiency is due to low lautering efficiency. If you are mashing properly you would be hard pressed to get much below 60% efficiency without sparging at all. In the no sparge experiment George Fix described on HBD I think he got right at 60% with 1.25 qts per lb in the mash. So if we have had a good mash and extracted some very high quality runnings, what reason to we have to sparge at all other than economic reasons?

Bobby_M said:

This is one reason I really like batch sparging. If you stick to a reasonable preboil volume (say 7gallons for 5 in the fermenter), it's near impossible to oversparge unless your intended OG is lower than 1.040. Even hitting 92% mash/lauter efficiency leaves my last running gravity at about 1.015 which conceivably has enough buffering capacity. I finally got some colorphast strips to really see what's going on but have yet to use them.

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But the second runnings are different than the first and most would describe them as lower quality. Batch sparging doesn't change this. I suspect that if you took first and second runnings and diluted the former such that the SG were the same and boiled and brewed them separately you would have a marked preference for the beer from first runnings.

In the quest to maximize my efficiency, I was getting in the high 80's, in part because I would crush the bejeezus out of my malt and increase my boil-off so that I could squeeze some extra sparge water in my tun.

I have since backed off my crush and sparge water, and lowered my efficiency to around the 75% mark. I think my beer tastes better for it -- perhaps not hugely so, but enough that I think I will do better in competition. I also find brewday a bit less stressful because I NEVER have to worry about a stuck sparge with my coarser crush, and I have a shorter boil. My brewing is also much more consistent now.

I am a firm believer that you can achieve too high an efficiency. Lots of well-respected brewers have made this comment -- George Fix, Jamil Z. and John Palmer all come to mind. However, the reasons and exact limit depends on the brewer and the system!

FlyGuy said:

In the quest to maximize my efficiency, I was getting in the high 80's, in part because I would crush the bejeezus out of my malt and increase my boil-off so that I could squeeze some extra sparge water in my tun.

I have since backed off my crush and sparge water, and lowered my efficiency to around the 75% mark. I think my beer tastes better for it -- perhaps not hugely so, but enough that I think I will do better in competition. I also find brewday a bit less stressful because I NEVER have to worry about a stuck sparge with my coarser crush, and I have a shorter boil. My brewing is also much more consistent now.

I am a firm believer that you can achieve too high an efficiency. Lots of well-respected brewers have made this comment -- George Fix, Jamil Z. and John Palmer all come to mind. However, the reasons and exact limit depends on the brewer and the system!

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Even brewers who don't advocate explicitly for a restrained efficiency I find if they are successful competitive brewers and they mention in some interview what efficiency they get, it is usually 75% or lower.

I think Fix might have gotten better than that (when he wasn't no sparging as he was an advocate of that technique for "special" beers) but he was step mashing and seemed to feel he was getting a lot out of that 40 celcius rest (particularly mash liquification which improved his lautering efficiency without sparging more).

remilard said:

I'm always amazed by the sort of competition that goes on amongst home brewers with respect to efficiency because I certainly don't consider high efficiency to be a good thing.

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I didn't think this thread was about competition. By all means, every brewer should be consistent with efficiency first, then get it to the level they want it, whether that level be high or low.

Commercial brewers (not just BMC) typically get in the mid-90s (primarily, if not solely, for cost savings), so that leads me to believe that high efficiency isn't such a bad thing.

menschmaschine said:

I didn't think this thread was about competition. By all means, every brewer should be consistent with efficiency first, then get it to the level they want it, whether that level be high or low.

Commercial brewers (not just BMC) typically get in the mid-90s (primarily, if not solely, for cost savings), so that leads me to believe that high efficiency isn't such a bad thing.

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Sure it isn't about competition, but everyone on the internet benches 250 and makes beer better than Rogue.

There is some value in knowing what process people who are still great brewers after subjecting themselves to blind judging use.

By the way, mid 90s seems to be pretty high for a brewery that is using essentially the same technology available to home brewers. Based on what I've heard I would guess mid 90s is typical for very large breweries and low 90s for 100 bbl or smaller breweries, although I have not seen these stated on a broad survey type basis. I don't suppose you can refer to a source that lists the typical efficiency for breweries of various sizes?

Either way, I would probably brew differently if a chemist worked for me, yes.

I agree that wort quality could suffer or maybe a better way to say it is that there might be perceivable difference between worts derived from 70 vs 90% efficiency. I just personally haven't arrived at that conclusion yet, at least not to the point where I strive for lower efficiency. Of course, it may take me another 20 batches before I decide. There is no competition for high efficiency going on that I'm aware of. I only take issue with "higher efficiency" as a reason to fly sparge over batch. That tends to come up here and there.

I've been trying to study my brewlog and decide if I can make any correlation between efficiency and my tasting notes and there really is none to be made. As far as second runnings being of lesser quality, it's hard to agree when one of my favorite beers to date was an ESB made from the second runnings of a barleywine partigyle. In fact, the one beer I've had competition success with scoring 39s and 40s from two different events, was a 88% M/L efficiency batch. I'm aware it's an isolated case and only mentioned for anecdotal purposes.

I'm not solid on this by any means, I'm still learning.

I'm leaning towards thinking that the OP has a point. When grain is mashed there is the obvious starch conversion which provides the sugars to make alcohol. At the same time however all kinds of flavor components are also extracted from the grain. Generally, the higher the alcohol content of a beer, the stronger the other flavors need to be come through. So for a given amount of grain, presumably the flavor level is constant, therefore the flavors will be stronger in a less efficient brew as there will be less alcohol to balance with. Along the same lines as the BU:GU ratio, but flavor units instead of bittering units

I'm planning an upcoming lager where the goal is to boost the flavor components while minimizing extra fermentables. I'm going to add extra grain (1-2 lbs Pilsner malt) during the mashout (as if doing extract plus specialty grains). My only concern is ending up with too much protein and starch into the finished wort, leading to haze - bad in a lager. I may instead take the extra grain and do a 20 min protein rest at 122F and then boil it, as if a decoction, but skipping the saccharification step. Then use that to bring the mash up to mash out temps. Sparge as normal.

I just happened to be listening to an old JZ podcast today. It's the dry stout episode (#3 I believe), and he says that he always shoots for 70%. He thinks most people over-sparge. He's also very against 5.2 (chalky taste), but he is blessed with good city water, and doesn't have much to offer in terms of advice for people with terrible water (me).

menschmaschine said:

Commercial brewers (not just BMC) typically get in the mid-90s (primarily, if not solely, for cost savings), so that leads me to believe that high efficiency isn't such a bad thing.

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You have obviously never tasted their beers then have you

Has anyone ever actually had an issue with tannins? Not something I ever worried about or ever had an issue with, With small batches (under 10 Gallons) I can't see it being much of a problem unless your water is really acidic.

I've heard a lot of conjecture both ways but no hard data one way or the other. Perhaps Kaiser is looking for another experiment...

As long as the pH and grainbed temp are properly controlled during runoff to avoid getting husky flavors from tannin extraction, I just don't see how it could make any difference. Assuming you actually have complete conversion, a lower lauter efficiency simply means you are leaving sugars behind in the spent grains; I don't see how this is a good thing, when commercial breweries do two hour sparges specifically to extract 97% of the sugars. Whenever I am going to fly sparge, I make sure I acidify my sparge water or if I'm lazy, I throw in a teaspoon of 5.2 stabilizer into the sparge pot, and I keep my grainbed temp 163*-168*F.

I have had problems with tannin extraction. When I first started off on all grain brewing I did not know anything about water chemistry. I have very hard water and until I started acidifing my sparge water I had a nasty astingecy bite to my beers. I now use an addition of lactic acid to my sparge water and the astringency bite is gone.

RedIrocZ-28 said:

You have obviously never tasted their beers then have you

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Well, I have been drinking mostly homebrew for the past year and a half.

Didn't you see the part about "(not just BMC)"? I don't have references to back it up, but based on "things I've read", I'm pretty sure commercial breweries all over the world get high efficiency... including ones that we beer geeks consider some of the best.

menschmaschine said:

I see your analogy, but I've never heard anything like that for brewing. I've read quite a few of the more "technical" brewing books and don't recall reading anything stating it's bad to get too high extraction efficiency.

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I think I remember JZ saying in a podcast that he doesn't try for efficiency, he just uses more grain. Something like 65% IIRC. Anybody remember the actual number and reasoning?

fratermus said:

I think I remember JZ saying in a podcast that he doesn't try for efficiency, he just uses more grain. Something like 65% IIRC. Anybody remember the actual number and reasoning?

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Jamil seems to agree with George Fix on most things (with one marked exception that comes to mind) so I would guess he believes, as Fix did, that runnings decrease in quality as they become more dilute. Since he seems to seek quality with no consideration for cost, this would lead him to stop sparging earlier than other people who are trying to balance the two concerns.

Now, sparging less is thought by many to result in more malt flavor (after adjusting for gravity) and this might not always be welcome (perhaps in some sour beers).

Really, if you really really wanted to you could get darn close to 100% efficiency, just keep sparging. Nobody, not even commercial brewers, do this though so at the end of the day we all choose to stop sparging at some point. It just becomes a matter of degree and believe me I don't think that whether you sparge to 70% or 85% is of primary importance to the quality of beer. However, since we have to choose when to stop I think it is worthwhile to consider arguments for stopping sooner rather than later.

remilard said:

Really, if you really really wanted to you could get darn close to 100% efficiency, just keep sparging. Nobody, not even commercial brewers, do this though so at the end of the day we all choose to stop sparging at some point. It just becomes a matter of degree and believe me I don't think that whether you sparge to 70% or 85% is of primary importance to the quality of beer. However, since we have to choose when to stop I think it is worthwhile to consider arguments for stopping sooner rather than later.

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Ignoring any argument about the quality of the runnings, it doesn't make sense to me to sparge until you get close to 100% of the sugars out (unless you have some sort of super-efficient sparging system), because after a certain point you are essentially just diluting your wort.

For example, if you've collected X number of gallons of 1.050 in your boil kettle, and sparged so thoroughly that you are running off 1.005 into the kettle, you are diluting your wort so completely that while you may eventually get 100% efficiency into the kettle, your brewhouse efficiency would be super low unless you did a 5 hour boil or something to concentrate it all back down. And if you reach that point, any cost savings on grain you might get would be wiped out by your energy costs.

maltMonkey said:

Ignoring any argument about the quality of the runnings, it doesn't make sense to me to sparge until you get close to 100% of the sugars out (unless you have some sort of super-efficient sparging system), because after a certain point you are essentially just diluting your wort.

For example, if you've collected X number of gallons of 1.050 in your boil kettle, and sparged so thoroughly that you are running off 1.005 into the kettle, you are diluting your wort so completely that while you may eventually get 100% efficiency into the kettle, your brewhouse efficiency would be super low unless you did a 5 hour boil or something to concentrate it all back down. And if you reach that point, any cost savings on grain you might get would be wiped out by your energy costs.

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So like I said, you are making a decision about when to stop. But why make it based on cost at the exclusion of other factors? Isn't it a little silly when blowing half a saturday making 10 gallons of beer on a welded stainless steel system with pumps and temperature controllers to really give any consideration at all to a dollar here or there?

I would guess most people stop sparging at some point (based on gravity, pH or having batch sparged a certain percentage of the mash water) because John Palmer or Denny Conn or Ken Schwartz told them to. That's fine by me but then Palmer and Schwartz both advocate no sparge for similar circumstances and reasons as Fix did.

Either way people should consider experimenting (and the only valid experiment is making the same beer twice sparging less or none for one) with this if they care. Some people make nice arguments that fly sparging is more efficient than batch sparging but everyone who has experimented knows that any difference on a homebrew system is negligible.

remilard said:

So like I said, you are making a decision about when to stop. But why make it based on cost at the exclusion of other factors? Isn't it a little silly when blowing half a saturday making 10 gallons of beer on a welded stainless steel system with pumps and temperature controllers to really give any consideration at all to a dollar here or there?

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I was talking more about the reason commercial brewers don't get every last ounce of sugar out (although I suppose they do get close). Personally I don't care about the cost so much. I get 70% efficiency, and while I wouldn't mind it being 80% so I could save $2 per brew, it's just not really that important. So for me it wouldn't be about the $$, I just don't want my brew day extended by 5 hours to wait on the boil

remilard said:

Either way people should consider experimenting (and the only valid experiment is making the same beer twice sparging less or none for one) with this if they care.

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I agree it would be an interesting experiment.