Efficiency - Mash Out or Multi-Rest?

[radamadar]

Did my first wheat beer yesterday... sort of a German-American hybrid, and brew day went pretty well. The grain bill was as follows.

Since the malts were a bit different than what I usually do, I did a pretty serious step mash using a combo of decoctions and infusions and a mash out at the end. Otherwise, I stuck to my usual procedures as far as sparging, water prep, etc.

Interesting thing was, my calculated efficiency came out about 10 points higher than what I've been seeing. I went through the numbers a couple of times, and my BG and OG numbers and volume ratios all line up, so I think its real. Question is, do you think this is mostly due to the mash out, the lower temp steps, or some combination of both? Please see below. Final volume was about 6.4 gallons at 1.047, eff = 81%.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

I usually get a higher efficiency whenever I do multi-rest mashes, but I avoid doing them because it takes so much time. I think the extra time in the mash may be what's getting you the higher efficiency.

I do mashouts on all of my beers and consistently hit 75-78%. I might have to try brewing without the mashout to see if it lowers my efficiency.