Anyone Had a Huge Efficiency Jump Like This?

After a bunch of AG brews under my belt, I was pretty certain I had all my numbers dialed in, for the most part.

Inputting a ~68% mash efficiency into Beersmith allowed me to hit my numbers pretty spot on. I was a happy camper.

Yesterday I brewed an oatmeal stout. Used 67% efficiency for creating my recipe. After struggling a tad with hitting my mash temp, I decided to let it sit for 90 minutes instead of my usual 60 minutes to give the enzymes an extra half an hour to do their work at the intended mash temperature since I had spent a little while stabilizing the temp.

To my surprise, I measured the collected gravity of my first runnings which was 1.075 -> way higher than I was expecting for my 1.052 gravity beer.

After batch sparging and collecting the second runnings, I had a collective preboil gravity of 1.054.

I diluted my concentrated wort with C1V1=C2V2 to the approxamite needed pre-boil gravity to reach 1.052 after 60 min boil. I hit 1.051, not bad.

After calculating my efficiency on brewersfriend and beersmith, i got a mash efficiency of 84%. thats over a 25% increase in efficiency from normal!

*Wondering, has anyone seen a significant jump in efficiency from doing a longer, 90 minute mash???

i double crush my grains and use a 5 gallon cooler with ss braid.

I have had that happen doing my BIAB recipes. As far as I can tell it was due to mashing properly and really getting those sugars out of the grain. My recent Maibock is now going to be a Doppelbock due to an unexpected high efficiency. I did think about watering it down but decided to just heck with it and go with a stronger beer.

I had the exact same thing happen. I've only done two BIAB batches. The first I got 72% and was very pleased. For the second batch, I too mashed for 90 minutes instead of 60. I also sparged with 1 gallon @170F. This resulted in 92% efficiency!

I have always used 68% efficiency to calculate my recipes and have been within .002. The 7th batch i did yesterday I had a preboil reading of 1.052, post boil was supposed to be 1.055. I DID NOT do a longer mash, the only thing I changed was went from fly sparge to batch sparge.

olz431 said:

I have always used 68% efficiency to calculate my recipes and have been within .002. The 7th batch i did yesterday I had a preboil reading of 1.052, post boil was supposed to be 1.055. I DID NOT do a longer mash, the only thing I changed was went from fly sparge to batch sparge.

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woah sound like we have a pretty similar situation here! curious that our intended OG's were the same for our two different recipes...

what was the gravity of your first runnings? i knew right off the bat that my efficiency was high because the gravity of my first runnings was way higher than I had expected.

ive read time and time again that good batch sparging technique can increase efficiency considerably....

i always batch sparge and i did it the same way yesterday as I always do pretty much. i think my culprit is the 90 minute mash.

I did not measure first runnings as I was trying to get everything done rather quickly. Is there a formula for figuring efficiency? I am kind of new to this as I have only been doing this since the new year.

Did you guys stir well before taking a reading? gravity samples were at room temperature and not "adjusted" for temp?

Very interesting. I've also had this happen with BIAB mashing. I was averaging 70% and had a leap to 81%. I did a 90 minute mash but I've done 90 minutes before and still gotten my usual efficiency. I thought I didn't mix the first runnings and sparge well enough, but my brewhouse efficiency still reflected the leap.

I am usually anywhere from 72-75 with a 60 min mash. My last batch had a 110 min mash (not planned... Had to go to my LHBS bc I had the wrong hops... so I left it in the tun). I'm interested to see in there are any negative consequences.

That nut brown came out fine... Except I found I'm not a big Fuggles fan.

I forgot to mention I hit 84% with a 110 min mash.

byounger said:

I forgot to mention I hit 84% with a 110 min mash.

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aha! i mean it makes perfect sense. longer time allowed for enzymatic conversion, the more starch is converted to fermentable sugars like maltose. while many have claimed they get a pretty full conversion in 20 mins or so, im sure the added mash time ensures a totally FULL conversion.

by the way, i calculated that on this particular mash I had 100% conversion. usually i get high 80's to low 90's for conversion efficiency, and thats with a 60 min mash time.

I dont know if the longer time helps so much. I use a iodine solution to check if conversion is complete and often at 45 minutes I am starting the sparge. Doing this though I have had huge jumps like 72% up to 85% but I put it down to better temp control and grind.

Not to get side tracked but.... Mkravitz13, my name is Mike Krovitz and I was born on November 13th. Very interesting.