low efficacy = better beer | HomeBrewTalk.com - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Community.

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk by donating:

  1. Dismiss Notice
  2. We have a new forum and it needs your help! Homebrewing Deals is a forum to post whatever deals and specials you find that other homebrewers might value! Includes coupon layering, Craigslist finds, eBay finds, Amazon specials, etc.
    Dismiss Notice

low efficacy = better beer

Discussion in 'All Grain & Partial Mash Brewing' started by m1k3, Oct 27, 2012.

 

  1. #1
    m1k3

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    Why does everyone chase efficacy?

    Seriously add 5 pounds of base malt to your beer and stop sparging sooner.

    My lasy big beer I stopped sparging at 1.060

    You might call that wasteful, but I'm not Busweiser.

    I'm here for the best beer, not the least expensive.

    So waste $5, you have my permission.
     
  2. #2
    Rev2010

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    Oh Geez, congrats for you. Enjoy your brewing efficiency and move on. Claiming beer is better with lower efficiencies is silly. I've seen this thing before with no sparge but I still think it's silly really.


    Rev.
     
  3. #3
    Qhrumphf

    Stay Rude, Stay Rebel, Stay SHARP  

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    My efficiency is on the lower end (usually 70-72%), higher for session beers. But it's consistent. I don't care if I have low efficiency, or high efficiency, as long as my beer tastes good and I can make what I want to make consistently. Efficiency is a number I use for recipe calculation, nothing more.
     
  4. #4
    bbrim

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    If I get much over 80% efficiency I have problems with tannins. I could fix this by adjusting the pH of my sparge water but I'm not too worried about it. I've settled in around 75% and am happy there.
     
  5. #5
    AndrewD

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    I only know my efficiency because Beersmith tells me. Otherwise I don't give a turkey. I am confident in my cooler mash tun with a braid; it hasn't let me down yet.
     
  6. #6
    BBL_Brewer

    Supporting Member  

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    My efficacy is usally pretty high. My efficiency, on the other hand, varies a little.
     
    TNGabe, neosapien, SurlyBrew and 2 others like this.
  7. #7
    Piratwolf

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    #winning!
     
  8. #8
    chipsah

    Off the Wagon Brewing  

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    High efficacy = good beer.
    High efficiency = stronger (still good in my case) beer.
     
  9. #9
    Trokair

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 27, 2012
    I'm not chasing numbers but I also would rather use the ingredients that I have then throw away a bunch of fermentables and add $5 worth of DME. Not sure what the OP is trying to say. If you want to make your brew day easier just switch to Extract and spend the extra $$ doing that. Adding DME instead of sparging will not make you better beer though.
     
  10. #10
    Fantastical

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    I think the chasing of efficiency is important to an extent in order to maximize your cost effectiveness. To an extent, high efficiency is a good thing. But it depends on what kind of beer you are brewing as well as your tastes and preferences.
     
  11. #11
    Qhrumphf

    Stay Rude, Stay Rebel, Stay SHARP  

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    On the commercial level, absolutely. But on the homebrew level, a few extra points of efficiency saves you at the most a few bucks in grain. If it's so critical to save a few bucks per batch, you should be spending your money somewhere other than brewing.
     
  12. #12
    jeremy0209

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    what he said :)
     
  13. #13
    Sheldon

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    I agree with Qhrumphf (Alex). It a hobby of love and pride, not how to brew the cheapest.
     
  14. #14
    billl

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    Brewing is a hobby. Some brewers lean towards creating the perfect recipe. Some brewers like to make gadgets. Some brewers like to really crank down their process and hit "professional" efficiency levels. There is nothing wrong with someone enjoying any of those aspects.
     
  15. #15
    zeg

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    High efficiency is nice, but not essential.

    Consistent efficiency is, IMO, the best goal. While you can adjust to compensate for variations from batch to batch, this is going to introduce other variations in the beer you produce. Many homebrewers are happy with some variation batch-to-batch, and this is part of the charm of any homemade product. However, to consistently make the best product possible, maintaining as much control as possible over all steps of the process is essential. This way you can adjust one or a few parameters at a time and have confidence that you know what effect your adjustment had.

    One of those parameters, of course, is the efficiency itself. Others have pointed out some side effects of tweaking efficiency, such as changing the rate of tannin extraction. It seems plausible to me that if you want more of the grainy character of the malt, extracting less from a larger quantity may have that effect. I know from brewing coffee that changing the amount of coffee can have unexpected effects. For example, it was a major revelation when I found that the key to avoiding harsh, sour bitterness was to INCREASE rather than decrease the coffee-to-water ratio. This is probably like the tannin effect---you lower your extraction efficiency and leave behind some of the unpleasantness. Of course for beer, the process is more complex (unless you're roasting your own coffee), so things like mash temperature will enter this equation prominently.

    In general, I suspect that a high efficiency---one nearing the limit of your process---will probably be more repeatable. My reasoning is that a high efficiency means you "got everything right," while a lower efficiency may come from a number of different errors. This is just a guess, though. My own efficiency is mediocre and variable, so I don't speak with authority here.
     
  16. #16
    neosapien

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    I'd rather have consistency than any specific value of efficiency.

    Although, if I may borrow a line from the great baron munchausen, in times of trouble I find a modicum of snuff to be most efficacious...
     
  17. #17
    Tiroux

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    Like said, consistency is the more important. If I know my effeciency is 75%, then I do my reciepe for 75% eff, and I got exactly the beer I want.
     
  18. #18
    BOBTHEukBREWER

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 29, 2012
    The OP is saying what I have said on here - stop sparging at say 1.030 hop well and enjoy a super beer.
     
  19. #19
    diS

    Well-Known Member

    Posted Oct 30, 2012
    Couldn't agree more.
     
  20. #20
    m1k3

    Well-Known Member

    Posted May 7, 2014
    I'd like to post a retraction to my old thread. I have since got my own mill. My brewhouse efficiency has gone from a consistent 56% (LHBS crush) to a consistent 71% (with a Barley Crusher standard gap).

    The quality of the beer it produces is completely unaffected.

    I believed I was sparging less and therefore producing a higher quality wort. Wrong.
     
  21. #21
    Croyzen

    Well-Known Member

    Posted May 7, 2014
    Zombie thread wants a beer.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page

Group Builder