Intentional Extreme Low Efficiency Brewing

[minorhero]

Hello folks,

I'm pretty new to brewing and I'm not even sure if this is the right place to post this question, but I've been wondering if there is an advantage to intentionally having low efficiency when brewing. Specifically wondering if we can get vastly different flavors by perhaps having way more grain then normal and perhaps doing a shorter mash?

When making tea (I mean literal tea, not beer), the flavors of the tea change if the leaves are left too long in the water. I wonder if something similar happens with grain when making beer. So for example, if we could use 5 times as much grain and have 5 times shorter mash, would that change the beer flavor while not changing anything else? Has anyone already gone down this rabbit hole?

I was thinking about this because I was wondering if there are things we as homebrewers can do easier then commercial brewers. Commercial brewers have a lot of cool things going for them when it comes putting out a consistent and quality beer, but one thing homebrewers have is really cheap ingredients (simply because we don't use much compared to a commercial brewery). So can we emphasize that aspect and produce something that commercial breweries would struggle to reproduce?

Thank you guys for any thoughts, or if its already been done, with any information.

 

[VikeMan]

Specifically wondering if we can get vastly different flavors by perhaps having way more grain then normal and perhaps doing a shorter mash?

I see two potential problems with this idea...
- If you don't get complete conversion of starches to sugars/dextrins, you'll get starchy beer, with a shorter shelf life.
- Given the limited extraction time, you'll probably get less extraction of the flavors you're trying to increase with the larger grain bill.

 

[Velnerj]

The first thing that comes to mind is unconverted starches. If your mash is too short it'll just leave the wort starchy and a cloudy beer will result.

Secondly your just changing the water to Grist ratio which if taken too far will just create porridge...

If you want to have a low fermentable wort try to do a mash with only 20% base malt. It'll most likely be unpalatably sweet in the end though...

 

[Bobby_M]

Welcome to full volume, no sparge, mashing. Just about all the flavor related pitfalls of a mash are influenced by the pH. Oversparging and/or not tailoring the water chemistry to the grain bill is the way to get outside the reasonable pH range of 5.0 to 5.6.

In a full volume mash, the pH doesn't shift much throughout the process. The efficiency is near 70% vs. 90+ for a sparged system.

 

[minorhero]

I guess I don't know enough about the science of what is happening during a mash. I kind of assumed that in any individual piece of grain all the various processes we are trying to get out of a full length mash are all happening at the same time. But you guys seem to be indicating that it doesn't work that way, that it goes in a order (ie: first X conversion, then Y conversion, then Z conversion etc and NOT: XYZ conversion all at once).

My goal is not to have something that doesn't have much alcohol, I want normal ABV for whatever style of beer I am making. Rather I wondered if there is a way to take advantage of the overall cheaper price of ingredients to make a homebrewers batch of beer compared to a commercial breweries much great volume to make a beer that would have more nuanced flavors.

Currently I am doing BIAB with a dunk sparge. I've been using distilled water and adding salts according to a brewing calculator I found online. I don't really know my efficiencies, I frankly haven't drilled down to number crunching efficiencies or anything like that.

I guess I need to do more research before I can go off into this kind of tangent.

 

[VikeMan]

I'd say that if you're looking to add flavor without increasing gravity (or ABV), look at adding non-fermentables... coffee, tea, spices, lactose, spuce tips, whatever.

 

[Velnerj]

In the end more grain just means more sugars (maltose) which usually means more alcohol... Though the flavor probability also increases it won't out-sing the alcohol contribution.

One thing you could do is look into craft maltsters. Some of them might be gimmicky but others could be legit. They're often more expensive than the big manufacturers but they can bring deep nuances to a beer you'll never get from Briess (for example). I've heard of a barrel aged chocolate malt so who knows what they might come up with.

If you're really crazy you could also look into malting your own grain...

Edited for typos

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Currently I am doing BIAB with a dunk sparge.

Bobby_m gave you the answer above - try a full volume mash with no sparge. Although I found my efficiency with full volume mashing was more often in the 60 to 65% range (not near 70%), but that will vary quite a bit with your targetted OG (the higher the OG, the lower your efficiency). Another thing to try is a shorter boil - some of the Low Oxygen Brewers talk about negative impacts from a hard or extended boil, so maybe shortening and softening your boil (which will also hit efficiency) are things to try.

 

[minorhero]

Bobby_m gave you the answer above - try a full volume mash with no sparge. Although I found my efficiency with full volume mashing was more often in the 60 to 65% range (not near 70%), but that will vary quite a bit with your targetted OG (the higher the OG, the lower your efficiency). Another thing to try is a shorter boil - some of the Low Oxygen Brewers talk about negative impacts from a hard or extended boil, so maybe shortening and softening your boil (which will also hit efficiency) are things to try.

I also thought about not going very hard with the boil as well on the theory that some flavors might be lost in extended boil, again this is just my hunch not really anything else. This is definitely something to look into as well. Thank you!

 

[Falstaff]

I've read about the inverse for low efficiency. Overnight mash at room temp.

Also, no boil is a great way to taste the grain. It tastes kinda weird tho.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

My goal is not to have something that doesn't have much alcohol, I want normal ABV for whatever style of beer I am making. Rather I wondered if there is a way to take advantage of the overall cheaper price of ingredients to make a homebrewers batch of beer compared to a commercial breweries much great volume to make a beer that would have more nuanced flavors.

One thing that comes to mind is a process that I have often seen called "Non-Enzymatic Mashing". I have never tried it myself. It is a process where the "mash" is conducted at much lower temperatures than a standard mash. You end up using a lot more grain to get the same gravity, so it is often used to make lower gravity/ABV beers. Here is an article that looks decent: Everything To Know About Non-Enzymatic Mashing In 2021

 

[Bobby_M]

I also thought about not going very hard with the boil as well on the theory that some flavors might be lost in extended boil, again this is just my hunch not really anything else. This is definitely something to look into as well. Thank you!

If by flavors you mean stuff like DMS, you really do want to boil that nasty stuff off. If you run a shorter boil you have to boil hard. If you boil more gently, you need at least 30 minutes for non Pilsner malts (Pale malt or darker) and at least 60 for pilsner.

 

[bwible]

One thing that comes to mind is a process that I have often seen called "Non-Enzymatic Mashing". I have never tried it myself. It is a process where the "mash" is conducted at much lower temperatures than a standard mash. You end up using a lot more grain to get the same gravity, so it is often used to make lower gravity/ABV beers. Here is an article that looks decent: Everything To Know About Non-Enzymatic Mashing In 2021

Beat me to it

Using 5 times the grain does not decrease the time required for mash conversion. It makes a higher starting gravity.

People are writing about doing the non-enyzymatic mashing with their specialty grains. I glossed over the article awhile back. It has much detail about different ways to do the process and there’s a video out there somewhere from an AHA conference about it.

You can also control fermentabity to a point with your mash temp. Lower mash temps will create a more fermentable wort. Higher mash temps will create a less fermentable. People mash for American Lagers at 147. Something like a Scottish Ale where you want some body, mash toward 158.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

This topic Low Enzymatic/Cold Mash/Low alcohol beer may also be of interest.

There's a set of articles in that topic that I accumulated when I was looking into this a while back:

I thought I'd share links for what I have found (over the years). I've brewed this way a couple of times. No recipes worthy of sharing (yet, as I'll brew this way again as time permits).

Here's a PPT that's essentially the same as the HomeBrewCon 2016 presentation:

• https://www.pnwhc.com/sites/default/files/slides/PNWHC17_NonEnzymaticMashing_AaronHyde.pptx

This might be the blog from one of the posters in one of the /r/homebrewing topics.

• Cold Extraction – HORN BREWING

/r/homebrewing had a couple of long (for them anyway ) topics on it:

Couple of additional links at Briess's site:

• Santa's Big Red Sack of Hops - 5 gal recipe - Brewing With Briess
• Holiday Brewing - Briess Style - Brewing With Briess

Before /r/homebrewing, there were a couple of bloggers who posted results (apparently a year after attending HomeBrewCon 2016)

• Exbeerimental Brewing – Tim Vandergrift
• Non-Enzymatically Mashed Beer: Update – Tim Vandergrift
• Non Enzymatic Mashing, aka "Cold Mashing". Is this paralleling an art technique of range and contrast?
• Non Enzymatic Mashing, Take 1
• Non Enzymatic Mashing, Take 2

And a couple of additional links that may (or may not) be interesting:

• Mash In With Cold Water
• Starting the mash COLD ?
• Cold "mashing"? Is this possible?

If you have a BYO digital subscription: Brewing Table Beer: The challenges of making a 3% ABV beer - Brew Your Own