Brewn4life

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So when I get my Brutus type set up and my efficiency goes up and I use less grains to keep OG same would that have a reverse effect on flavor. I suppose I could just use the same grain bill and just use more sparge to keep the OG down but either way it seems like I would be loosing flavor. Does a better efficiency also include flavor or just starch conversion??

boist

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I'm going to throw a while guess here...No.
Think about it: If you were making the same beer with extract, the majority of your flavor would come from steeping the specially grains (at least a majority of the flavor from grain, as oppose to hops/yeast/etc)
Most specialty grains are steeped, not mashed. Meaning that they would be unaffected by the efficiency of the mash, and contribute nothing to the OG. So you would end up with the same amount of flavor compounds, plus more sugar (maltos, etc) from the increased efficiency.

So by that logic, if you want to decrease the grain, while retaining the same flavor, you should decrease the base grain and leave the specialty grains the same.

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TopherM

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If you are hitting the same OG, then by definition you have the same concentration of sugars in the solution, so assuming the rest of your process is the same, then you would make the exact same beer, body, taste, and all.

That's really the major purpose of gravity readings and efficiency numbers: hit the same OG and FG and you can reproduce the exact same product batch after batch. Efficiency is just a product of gravity, so it works the same way.

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ClarnoBrewer

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+1 to Topher. As efficiency goes up, your grain bill goes down. For 5g batches, it's not a huge amount, but it's noticeable. You're being more efficient in your extraction, so you'll get more sugar from less ingredients, and your beer will be just as tasty.

Brewn4life

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Cool, Thanks!
The base grain is the cheapest of them all. dang!! Ive never done any Extract brewing. Every thing I do is all grain or sugar wash. Ill be putting this logic to the test hear in the next month or so!!