frolickingmonkey
Well-Known Member
I have made the same pale ale (Edwort's) a few times and consistently get about 65% efficiency. In between two of the pales, I made an Irish stout (Biermuncher's) which came in at 72% efficiency. My process hasn't changed; I'm hitting my temps, volumes, etc, and the crush is the same.
I wondered what would cause this change in efficiency, and started reading Palmer. It seems that water chemistry may be the answer... I plotted my water profile on Palmer's nomograph, and discovered that my water is best suited to darker brews. Palmer says the darker malts increase the residual alkalinity in the mash and help put the mash pH closer to 5.2.
So, my hypothesis is that my specific water chemistry allows greater efficiency when I use darker malts, and lesser efficiency when I'm only using pale malts. Is this a valid hypothesis? Has anyone reached this type of conclusion in their own brewhouse? I plan on buying some Five Star 5.2 to help test this, and also to hopefully just straight up increase my mash efficiency all around. It seems lots of people on HBT use Five Star 5.2 with excellent results...
I wondered what would cause this change in efficiency, and started reading Palmer. It seems that water chemistry may be the answer... I plotted my water profile on Palmer's nomograph, and discovered that my water is best suited to darker brews. Palmer says the darker malts increase the residual alkalinity in the mash and help put the mash pH closer to 5.2.
So, my hypothesis is that my specific water chemistry allows greater efficiency when I use darker malts, and lesser efficiency when I'm only using pale malts. Is this a valid hypothesis? Has anyone reached this type of conclusion in their own brewhouse? I plan on buying some Five Star 5.2 to help test this, and also to hopefully just straight up increase my mash efficiency all around. It seems lots of people on HBT use Five Star 5.2 with excellent results...