Lowering efficiency to avoid over sparging

My system gets 80% efficiency every time, and I feel I have things pretty well dialed, but I know on lighter styles I am pushing the gravity towards the bottom end when it comes to the end of sparge. I am keeping my water ph below 6 to help avoid any tannin extraction, but I can't help but think, should I not be going that low? The only reason I'm thinking about this is I do get a slight drying on the tongue from a recent blonde ale I did. Should I lower my efficiency to ultimately give me more grain=hitting my preboil gravity sooner=less sparging, or am I thinking about this the wrong way?

Any insight is appreciated.

 

I do my water calcs with brewers friend, and the default it uses for sparge water PH is 5.4.

I would say you are on the right track, but maybe try to acidify your sparge water with the goal of maintaining a your main mash PH.

 

How do you keep your water pH below 6? By calcium additions? Might caSo4 be the reason it feels dry?

If not, if you have the space in your MT you can try a no sparge for the lighter ones, or just try to mash with a higher water/grain ratio, which will give you less sparge water, which will drop your efficiency a tad.

The easiest would be to acidify your water if you're not doing that already.

 

This batch was brewed with RO so my final runnings are close to mash ph so I don't believe it's that. It's more of my final runnings being below 1.008

 

In the mash, it is very bare amount of minerals to RO water, with a light addition of lactic to get to mash ph. Sparge is not modified due to my final runnings being close to mash ph so no need to acidity.
This batch was brewed at a 2.0 ratio to minimize sparging

 

It's the pH which decides how "easily" you'll extract tannins. But what is your mash pH, you just say that the final runnings are close to mash pH. since you use acid, will that say that you maybe targeted 5.2-5.4? and last runnings are still within that range?

 

Mash ph was 5.3, final runnings were 5.45.

 

then your pH is within limits to avoid excess tannin extraction. But you're low with 1.008. I'd say you'd want to sparge less.

But drying feeling and tannins can be different, although the sensation is more or less the same. Tannins are like chewing on a seed you find in grapes, it has a bitterness to it as well as being try. Straight dryness can be from water.

You can try to do a no sparge, and if your mash-tun can't fit all the volume, top up at the boil, this will give you an even lower efficiency. Just so you can test the extremes, and see if that helps. But still. 80% extract efficiency should not by default give you tannins, unless you sparge a lot, and keep your mash pH in place. If your sparge water is over 60% comparing to your mash water, then you're tapping into, or have exceeded (depending on water) the limit for tannin extraction, in light beers, from my experiences.

 

Add more grain would change your efficiency and so would lowering your heat or boil off rate so you don't need to collect so much pre-boil wort.

I just read somewhere that if you crush too fine then can cause increased tannin extraction. A course crush may also help lower your efficiency.


edit:actually lowering your boil off might increase your efficiency but you would have a higher final running.

 

He would need to do both, which is a viable option. Lower boiloff would mean a higher Preboil SG.

 

I think I may try to lower my boil off rate a tad to see if the higher preboil gravity will help. After thinking, I don't want to adjust my efficiency because it'll throw my bigger beers off where this isn't an issue, so between lowering my boil off rate slightly and topping off with water if needed, I think that'll do it

 

If you want a higher FG and insist on the same yeast, Try increasing your mash temp.

 

wow 0 for 4. oops. I am going to have to try and remember where I read the crush thing.

The lower boil off should increase the final run off a bit do I get partial credit for that one.

So if you wanted to lower your efficiency what are the options? You said coarse crush could possible helps some, how about a shorter mash at lower temp before complete conversion or a quicker/faster sparge?

 

Over-sparging should only occur with fly sparging as you continuously add water to trickle down through the mash to extract as much sugar as possible which also raises the pH. Over-sparging shouldn't occur at all with a batch sparge, even a double batch sparge shouldn't raise the pH too much.

It takes high temperature and high pH to extract tannins. Do a batch sparge with cool water. The grain bed will be hot and saturated with water so adding cool water will not make it cold but will limit what tannins can be extracted.

 

You are going to have to heat that water up one way or the other, so if your burner and kettle are sitting idle while you are mashing, why not heat the sparge water to 170? Dial up your favorite water calculator and estimate how much acid to add to drop your sparge water PH to 5.4.

If you do as stated above, you don't have to worry about your running's gravity getting too low. Collect the volume you need based off your boil off rate, and carry on.