Briess Under-modified pilsner = poor efficiency?

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cweston

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My last two batches (a saison and a tripel) have had terrible efficiency (around 60% or less). The only thing they have in common that's different from my usual procedure is that both used Briess under-modified pilsner as the base malt.

I get my grains pre-crushed from Austin Homebrew--the third batch whose ingrediants I purchased in that same order, I got my usual 73-75%.

Anyone else experience this with that malt?
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
The Breiss undermodified is still fairly well modified, but not as much as other malts. What was your brewing procedure? Multistep mash? Did you check pH?

20 min protein rest at 125, 60 minute saccrification at about 151 for both.

No water modification: I didn't check pH, but my local water should be just about perfect for very light beers without modification (never had pH problems before). I suppose that could be it.
 
Sounds like you need to up temperature for your protein rest to 131, then do saccharification at 152-154. Or do a separate beta-amylase rest at 145. How much liquid do you use in your mash? Decoction would also be a good idea.
 
Brewsmith said:
Sounds like you need to decoct it. Where's Kai? :p

I'll doubt that this will give him the 10% that he is missing. Yes, pH might be an issue. BTW, how did you sparge? Another thing that comes to mind is crush. Maybe the crush wasn't as good for the pilsner.

Kai
 
It may have been a pH issue. I don't test pH, but my calculated mash pH (from my water report) is in the neighborhood of 5.7 in a mash with no crystal or dark malts. Since almost all of my beers have crystal and/or dark malts, this generally puts me right where I want to be, around 5.2 or so. (So I don't think much about pH.)

But these two (saison and tripel) had no crystal malts, so I probably should have brought my pH down a bit. Does .5 or less pH discrepency make that big an efficiency difference?

Adin: my protein rest probably was closer to 131 in both cases--it came out a little above the 125 I was shooting for.

I don't think it was the crush--presumably the three batches of grain they shipped out together were all crushed at the same time on the same setting, and the other one was my usual efficiency.
 
ph 5.7 might be a little high. Try adjusting it next time and see if you get the expected change in efficiency.
 
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