Efficiency+Recipe Calibration

Hey all,

In the past, i use to hit or be below 70% eff. Now that i am hitting my temps, volumes, and stirring like a mad mad am up to 80% consistently. My problem is that i ordered a couple recipes based on my old efficiency and that my beers are turning out different. I brewed a blonde ale that is more of a Pale Ale, a red thats now a brown, etc.

Tomorrow I will be brewing a Moose Drool clone and don't want it to taste like Yak Expectorate . From looking at previous threads, its looks like my options are: (1) to add top-off water after the boil or (2) collect more wort and end up with a larger volume.

What should i do? I really want to replicate it as best as i can.

70% Eff.: 1.052, 26 IBUs, 4.5% ABV
80% Eff.: 1.059, 25 IBUs, 5.3% ABV

For some reason BeerSmith says the color will stay the same, but that hasn't been the case for some of my previous beers.

Thank,

Dave

I'd collect more wort and go for the greater volume....put 5.5 gallon in beersmith and see what you get for gravity.... But then again....knowing my luck I'd do that and for some reason my eff. would suck this one time. So, diluting the wort after you've took a reading might be smarter.

I've never heard of higher efficiency increasing the SRM. The color comes mostly from the husk which is why steeping works in extract brewing. It doesn't depend on conversion.

Bobby_M said:

I've never heard of higher efficiency increasing the SRM. The color comes mostly from the husk which is why steeping works in extract brewing. It doesn't depend on conversion.

Click to expand...

Well, a lot of efficiency issues are lauter based, and not conversion. IE, if you're leaving a gallon of wort in your mash tun every round of sparging, you;re probably going to end up with lighter color.


Agree with you on conversion vs color though.

Here's what to do: Let's say you put 75% into Beersmith. It will tell you what your pre-boil gravity should be. Right before you start boiling the sparge runnings, fill a glass measuring cup (or anything that won't melt) with wort. Put it in your freezer. While the wort is heating up to boiling temp, you sample will cool. As soon as it's cool enough, take a hydrometer reading. This hydrometer reading will tell you what you're efficiency was.

You can then dilute the beer if it was too high, or add Dry Malt Extract if it was too low. Beersmith will calculate both of these fixes for you.

May be obvious but make sure if you dilute you do so before adding hops, otherwise you will lose IBU's and hop flavor.