Good news/ Bad news

[cimirie]

So, here's the deal. I've been having an atrocious time with my efficiency as of late. I've been consistently in the low 60s for my past 4 brews. In order to compensate, I added an extra 1 lb 2-row in the dry stout I did on Saturday.

So of course, that would be the day I scored by far my best efficiency brew day ever: 90%. So, the good news is my string of bad luck is over. The bad news is that my 4.4% easy drinker has morphed into a 6.6% skull splitter. FML. I can't win...

 

[Pappers_]

That's a big efficiency swing. Have you figured out what the cause of the swing was?

 

[cimirie]

A few guesses: first is that my previous 3 batches were higher gravity brews with fairly sizable grainbills. This tends to be less efficient. Second, my vorlauf almost ended being another sparge: I let it drain a bit too long and instead of pulling off a gallon, I pulled off most of the wort. So agitating the grains when dumping back in may have picked up more sugar. Plus, when I did actually sparge, I used more water than I have my last few brews (to combat my efficiency issues.

Lastly, I'm not sure if this would contribute, but my mash was 3.5 hours. My neighbor came over unexpectedly in the middle of brewing to bring me his stainless steel appliances (he's moving) and I had to hook them all up.