91% brewhouse efficiency!

Believe it or not, I hit this with batch sparging. This is only my 4th AG batch. I contribute this success to paying strict attention to temps (I only lost 2*) and my new monster mill. I was achieving 75 to 80% with my other batches before the mill.
Here are the numbers:
Grain bill:
6.5 lbs american white wheat
3.3 lbs light munich
8.8 oz cara munich III (german)
2.6 oz carafa II (german)
Preboil volume: 7.5 gallon
preboil gravity: 1.046

So, has anyone else have this kind of success with a monster mill? My crush before came from midwest supplies.

I suspect your numbers are off somewhere. Did you temperature adjust the gravity reading? Did you get a good volume measure in your fermenter?

When I first started using brew software and calculated extraction efficiency I was all over the map until I took better gravity and volume measurements in the fermenter or kettle.

For volume measurements I use a stainless steel ruler and a little trigonometry to calculate the volume. Once I did that, then I noticed my extraction efficiencies were more normal to what other brewers report for similar recipes and brew methods.

Cheers,
Scott

First: My hydrometer reading should be accurate, I did the reading @ the temp that the hydrometer was calibrated to.
Second: I have a sight tube on the side of my keggle with pre-marked measurements, It is probably accurate to +/- .25 gallons.

This means if Im off, according to my calculator, +/- 3%... at worst I have 88% efficiency... With batch sparging, this would be excellent... Do you agree?

That is excellent, I agree. I haven't heard anyone obtaining those efficiencies. I'd also be concerned if you're getting numbers like that from overcrushing which could result in astringent beer. But, if you're beer's good, doesn't matter.

The trick is to being able to repeat the performance.

I usually get 87-91% but have recently questioned if that is too high. So next brew session I'm going to cut back on my sparge and shoot for 80-85%.

Dang.. you guys are way ahead of me. I'm around 70-75%. I do make big beers.

Just to share some experience: I once thought I got 98% mash eff. I was shocked and excited!(obviously) Then a few minutes later I realized I was measuring the first runnings frmo the mash and the sugar was super concentrated, so I re-sampled before pitching yeast and was at 80 something. That's more like it. Anyway I just wanted to share that in case something like that may have happened.

I know, I heard of people getting astringent flavors from over sparging... but im doing everything by the book. I mashed 1 .lb of grain to 1.5 quarts of water. This was a recipe from BYO (dunkel wizen). I was only suppose to have a OG of 1.050 but i ended up have over 5.5 gallons of wort with a OG of 1.057. Time will tell i suppose.

1.5qt/lb is a bit thin. I'm not a mash scientist. What's the justification for a thin mash? I typically roll with a 1.3qt/lb mash, but drop below that when I need to fit more grain in the tun.

Scott

scottlindner said:

1.5qt/lb is a bit thin. I'm not a mash scientist. What's the justification for a thin mash? I typically roll with a 1.3qt/lb mash, but drop below that when I need to fit more grain in the tun.

Scott

Click to expand...

That is where i typically mash (1.3 qt./lb) but that recipe called to mash @ 1.5 qt./lb.

I wonder if that aided in the extraction efficiency.

I tasted an astringent beer once. It was a fifth running brew a bud made from a massive brew. It wasn't too bad even with the astringency. I wouldn't say good things about it if I was poured a glass in a bar, but for a fifth running beer... I was impressed.

Scott