86% Efficiency!!

[dantodd]

Never said you did make that argument. But with all due respect, the whole idea of sparging less and adding top up water was started in this thread when the assumption was made that lower eff. would equal better quality wort. Without that false assumption, no one would be talking about how to reduce eff., reduce sparging, or topping off after the boil.

With all due respect... my posts have everything wo to with the context of posts in this thread.

I apologize if my post was not clear then. I replied VERY SPECIFICALLY and ONLY to humann_brewing's statement that "I think it would be more work to try and get 75% rather that just do what I'm doing."

If you took it as more than that please take comfort in knowing I meant no such thing.

 

[flyangler18]

Not to piss in your cheerios,but you'll get better tasting beer with 70-75%.

Bollocks, bollocks.

 

[The Pol]

Maybe if I sparge with a braid, and not a false bottom and reduce my eff. that way, I can get better beer

 

[mkling]

Originally Posted by mkling
Yep. Most award winning homebrewers seem to advocate to 70-75% efficiency as the magic number for the best beer.

This is a false assumption. Just because your eff. is less, doesnt mean your wort is better

What I said above isn't a false assumption -- OK, maybe the "most" part is an assumption (not proven true or false because I haven't done a full survey of "award winning homebrewers"). However, it is absolutely true that many people who are considered amongst the biggest experts on homebrewing say this, which is all I say in this quote.

I absolutely do agree with your point that having lower efficiency (70-75%) does not by necessity make anybody's wort better. But it is also true that having higher efficiency does by necessity make your wort better. Both can produce very good beer. Both can produce poor quality beer, too.

Personally, I am of the opinion that using less grain to achieve a specific gravity (7 lbs to hit 1.045) generally produces poorer quality wort than more grain to achieve the same gravity (8.5 lbs to hit 1.045). Given that grain is fairly cheap, I'm fine using a bit more to hit my target at a lower efficiency. That doesn't mean that the high efficiency beer will be bad; it'll likely be great. It's just not a risk I want to take.

 

[The Pol]

So, if my lauter process oversparges some of my grain bed, and over sparges others, thus reducing my eff... I get better beer? I just dont see how eff. has anything to do with wort quality, no one has been able to tie it together, except to say that lower eff. creates better beer?

I lauter until I have my preboil volume, isnt that exactly what 65% guys do too? Dont they use the same amount of water that I do? How does this make any sense at all?

THE ONLY difference in what they do is that they are either not converting all of thier sugars, or they are oversparging areas of thier mash.

 

[remilard]

I lauter until I have my preboil volume, isnt that exactly what 65% guys do too? Dont they use the same amount of water that I do? How does this make any sense at all?

THE ONLY difference in what they do is that they are either not converting all of thier sugars, or they are oversparging areas of thier mash.

Lets say I mash with 10 pounds of grain and 20 qts of water. Lets say 10 lbs of grain absorbs 1 gallon of water and I have no other losses. Lets say furthermore that my desired pre-boil volume is 24 qts. I need to sparge with 8 quarts.

Lets say you mash with 9 pounds of grain and 18 qts of water. Lets say that you lose 3.75 qts to absorption with no other losses. Lets say you have a desired pre-boil volume of 24 qts. You need to sparge with 9.75 qts.

Now it is possible that we both will have had similar conversion efficiency and similar sparging dynamics and wind up with the same OG.

Neither of us has a problem with our system but I have achieved the same quantity of wort at the same gravity as you with more grain and a lower efficiency. I did this by choice, not because you are teh awesome and I am an epic failure.

Try adding 10% more grain while holding the water to grain ratio constant next time you repeat a batch. You will sparge less and get a lower efficiency. This doesn't mean that all of a sudden you started oversparging certain parts of your mash, whatever that means.

 

[The Pol]

You dont know what oversparing portions of the mash means?

I mash at 2.0qts/lb

I dont have much sparge water.

If I add 10% more grain, say 1lb, and keep the same water ratio, how will this impact my efficiency?

In your scenario above... if our systems are the same, and you use more grain than me, you would have a HIGHER gravity wort than I in the same volume. I dont see how adding grain will not add more points.

I see what you are saying... more grain, same outcome, less efficiency. I still, however, do not see how higher eff. equals lower quality wort, when I sparge with less water than most anyone I know. I have a much higher ratio of first wort to sparge runnings than most.

 

[jts15]

Maybe if I sparge with a braid, and not a false bottom and reduce my eff. that way, I can get better beer

Does a braid produce lower efficiency? or am I missing some sarcasm suggested by thesmiley?

 

[The Pol]

Does a braid produce lower efficiency? or am I missing some sarcasm suggested by thesmiley?

They can be very prone to channeling while fly sparging, oversparging some areas and undersparging others.

 

[dfohio]

Does a braid produce lower efficiency? or am I missing some sarcasm suggested by thesmiley?

They can be very prone to channeling while fly sparging, oversparging some areas and undersparging others.

Just to clear things up, The Pol is talking about fly sparging. A braid used in a well done batch sparge can yield great efficiency. Theoretically a perfectly designed fly sparge system will outperform the perfectly designed batch sparge system. However, in practice this is not always the case, hence some of the discussion that has been going on about efficiency. Needless to the say the braid works great for what it is.

 

[Joos]

I believe this is a myth that has zero merit.

Using extreme measures to get a higher efficiency is one thing. Having a sound system and good practices that results in a high effciency will not result in worse beer.

No offense,but I will take Zainasheff,Palmer,and papazians advice over yours.

 

[Joos]

And yet, virtually all commercial breweries they strive to match get significantly higher efficiency from their mashes. So, yeah...

That is because it's a buisness and they need to make the most profit from their materials.Give me a minute and I will find some links to back me up here

 

[flyangler18]

No offense,but I will take Zainasheff,Palmer,and papazians advice over yours.

What I have yet to understand fully is what is magical about 70 -75% efficiency, regardless of what Jamil, Palmer and Papa Charlie have said. I respect them immensely but that has always been a sticking point for me.

I'm hoping Kaiser sees this thread, as he's far more eloquent than I on this subject.

The only way that I can see a higher efficiency resulting in a lesser quality beer is if the brewer 'bandaids' a conversion issue by increasing the sparge to maximize efficiency and boiling longer to meet target gravity calculations.

 

[dfohio]

No offense,but I will take Zainasheff,Palmer,and papazians advice over yours.

That's perfectly fine, those individuals are incredibly knowledgeable and have contributed a ton of information. I don't blame you.

My point is the 70% theory doesn't make any sense to me and I'm not going to follow advice blindly just because of the person who said it.

The more we question old techniques and theories, the more we will progress.

 

[The Pol]

That's perfectly fine, those individuals are incredibly knowledgeable and have contributed a ton of information. I don't blame you.

My point is the 70% theory doesn't make any sense to me and I'm not going to follow advice blindly just because of the person who said it.

The more we question old techniques and theories, the more we will progress.

I agree... why is 70-75% so godly? How is it any different than 85%?

You are telling me that because a guy/gal has excellent mash properties and is getting nearly 100% conversion eff. and has an efficient lautering system that evenly sparges his grain bed, thier beer is "worse"? Because a brewer is achieving +80%, thier is worse than someone who is not converting all of thier sugars or thier lautering process channels the grain bed, thus oversparging some grain and under sparging others creating a more dilute wort?

I have asked this before, and thus far no one has answered it... funny... what am I doing at 83% that is giving me wort of less quality, exactly? Dont tell me, "well... higher eff. produces lower quality wort" because that is not an explaination.

By the way... if you dont chill your wort, your beer will be crap too. Oh, and batch sparging doesnt work... and if you mash thin your beer will be watery... and... People like to repeat what they read or hear, even if they dont have a solid foundation to base it upon. By foundation, I dont mean reading, I mean doing.

 

[bob1852]

I'm hoping Kaiser sees this thread, as he's far more eloquent than I on this subject.

There's some good discussion in this thread between Kai, Denny, and Jamil, and others about this topic (quality of wort v. effeciency):

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/mash-thickness-confusion-138511/

 

[The Pol]

There's some good discussion in this thread between Kai, Denny, and Jamil, and others about this topic (quality of wort v. effeciency):

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/mash-thickness-confusion-138511/

But, in that entire thread, I dont see where anyone answered the simplest of all questions. WHY DO YOU THINK HIGH EFF. MEANS LOWER QUALITY WORT? What are brewers doing in achieving high eff. that leads people to beleive that thier wort is sub par??? No one is answering that.

Throwing out blaket statements are what people do well. But, what I am interested in is... IS MY WORT lower quality because I have 83% eff. in my system?? If so, tell me what I am doing so that I can fix it. Thus far, no one has answered that.

 

[bob1852]

But, in that entire thread, I dont see where anyone answered the simplest of all questions. WHY DO YOU THINK HIGH EFF. MEANS LOWER QUALITY WORT? What are brewers doing in achieving high eff. that leads people to beleive that thier wort is sub par??? No one is answering that.

Throwing out blaket statements are what people do well. But, what I am interested in is... IS MY WORT lower quality because I have 83% eff. in my system?? If so, tell me what I am doing so that I can fix it. Thus far, no one has answered that.

Good point Pol, and I should've included your name in their as well as you've contributed quite a bit to that thread.

It (high eff = low quality wort) probably originates from the fears (real or perceived) over tannin extaction from fly sparging when your gravity gets below 1.008.

Everything I've read says this can be chalked up there as false along with HSA, no-chill = haze, vorlauf or die, no airlock bubbles = no fermentation, etc.

maybe the HBT collective could write a new How to, or Complete Joy?

 

[The Pol]

I just dont know how much higher eff. you can get by running off an extra gallon of 1.008 wort. I just run off until I have pre-boil volume, eff. aside. I did take Kai's advice and played with thinner mashing to increase my conversion eff. (which will not hurt wort quality) and thusly reduced my sparge water volume (better for wort quality) and my eff. went UP... not down.

Now, common wisdom would say that since my eff. went up, that my wort quality went down. From what I can see, both changes I made to mash and lauter are beneficial to wort quality.

 

[bob1852]

I just dont know how much higher eff. you can get by running off an extra gallon of 1.008 wort.

I agree - most of my brews, I hit my pre-boil when the runnings are ~1.015.

I could sparge more to squeeze an extra point or two, but why?

 

[mkling]

Hey The Pol,

I'll reply since I feel like a comment of mine started all of this. I am a statistician by training, so I'll speak to this in my way . . . All real-life data, especially involving people, involves distributions. There are ranges of results the vast majority of time. When you're comparing multiple conditions or situations, the distribution of results will often overlap a lot. In this case, this means that there are folks who produce great resulting wort with high and average efficiency; there are also folks who produce lousy quality wort with high and average efficiency. Eventhough distributions overlap a lot, this doesn't mean they are identical in quality. Even overlapping distributions can be, on average, quite different where one condition is typically better than another. This means that a researcher can say that one condition is better than another (for instance 75% efficiency is better than 90% eff.) without saying that in every case this is true. So that, while on average this could be true, on an individual basis it will certainly not always be true. (To avoid an argument, I've not done research to prove it's true; I'm just using it as an example.)

So, to the question you asked above:

"IS MY WORT lower quality because I have 83% eff. in my system?? If so, tell me what I am doing so that I can fix it. Thus far, no one has answered that."

No one can answer it because none of us are brewing with you or tasting your beer. The most likely source of poor quality wort at high efficiency is tannin extraction from either oversparging or too fine of a crush. If you think there's no excess tannins & others who drink your beer agree, then I'd say you're just fine, doing nothing wrong & making great beer! Well done!

Personally, I think we pay too much attention to that efficiency number. As long as it isn't miserably low, there's no special benefit to aiming for great efficiency -- at most it might save you 5 cents per beer. If you have great technique, awesome, be glad. It's just not the measure of success in my mind -- hopefully we can agree, that's all about taste!

 

[The Pol]

I agree - most of my brews, I hit my pre-boil when the runnings are ~1.015.

I could sparge more to squeeze an extra point or two, but why?

So you can boil longer?

 

[The Pol]

I agree that SOME methods of obtaining higher can lead to excess tannin extraction (gross oversparging, crushing too fine). By the same token, SOME reasons that people achieve poor efficiency can lead to lower quality wort (channeling, oversparging due to poor manifold design).

This being said, this idea getting tossed around that having high eff. leads to lower quality wort, is just about as true as saying having low efficiency means that you will have lower qulaity wort. They are both painted with a very broad brush and offer little benefit to any brewer trying to grasp the idea.

They are simply phrases being regurgitated that are broad generalizations.

 

[mkling]

I agree that SOME methods of obtaining higher can lead to excess tannin extraction (gross oversparging, crushing too fine). By the same token, SOME reasons that people achieve poor efficiency can lead to lower quality wort (channeling, oversparging due to poor manifold design).

This being said, this idea getting tossed around that having high eff. leads to lower quality wort, is just about as true as saying having low efficiency means that you will have lower qulaity wort. They are both painted with a very broad brush and offer little benefit to any brewer trying to grasp the idea.

They are simply phrases being regurgitated that are broad generalizations.

I absolutely agree! Well said! However, broad generalizations still have their place as "typical truisms". For instance, in general doing some sparging will generally be better than not sparging, but in some situations "no sparge" brewing can produce great results. Same can be said for wort chilling; typically better to use a wort chiller, but there are exceptions to this & it isn't true 100% of the time. Life is full of rules that are generally true but with many, many exceptions to those rules. Embrace the probabilistic nature of life!

 

[Benjibbad]

A wise man once told me "All generalizations are false, including this one"