I've been troubleshooting wildly inconsistent efficiencies in my brews over the last couple of years. I've been brewing exclusively belgian and french beers this year and as a result have been using nothing but pilsner malt of various varieties as my base. I've also been very happy to have settled into a nice consistent range for my efficiencies. I broke with my schedule and brewed an American IPA based on Briess 2-row yesterday and my old efficiency (lower) came back. It got my thinking, so I looked at my brew log for the past two years and of all the factors in the beers, it looked like the base malt was the deciding factor. There have been a variety of mash schedules with each, but generally the pilsner brews have more often recieved a protein rest than the us 2-row brews. I generally decoct to mash out with all brews as well, with a variable amount of time in the decoction boil depending on if I'm trying to get a decocted flavor or just raised the mash temp.
Over the past 2 years every beer I've brewed with a base of german pils or belgian pils has been in the efficiency range of 88%-92% (92% was a table beer at 2.5% abv, also not listed here is one batch that was mostly munich malt that got 86%)
Over the past 2 years every beer I've brewed with Briess or other US 2-row has been in the efficiency range of 70-76%
I know a lot of people will likely chime in and say not to worry about efficiency but if you look at the numbers you'll see why its an issue. I'm also into making delicately balanced beers instead of malt or hop bombs.
Has anyone else noticed something like this?
Over the past 2 years every beer I've brewed with a base of german pils or belgian pils has been in the efficiency range of 88%-92% (92% was a table beer at 2.5% abv, also not listed here is one batch that was mostly munich malt that got 86%)
Over the past 2 years every beer I've brewed with Briess or other US 2-row has been in the efficiency range of 70-76%
I know a lot of people will likely chime in and say not to worry about efficiency but if you look at the numbers you'll see why its an issue. I'm also into making delicately balanced beers instead of malt or hop bombs.
Has anyone else noticed something like this?