94% Efficiency?

[yeqmaster]

Hey everyone... Sorry to annoy you with another thread about high efficiencies..

But I am in the process of brewing an amber ale and I find this quite puzzling...
I just finished my fly sparge (my setup consists of two, 5 gallon Rubbermaid coolers) and I emptied 7 gallons into the kettle... I cooled a portion and took a reading. 1.050 preboil OG. I added up the recipe and it looks like max. is 1.053 which puts me out at 94% efficiency... Is this even possible.

I was reading the last thread on high efficiency and people were talking about batches being better at lower efficiencies of 70-75%. Is this true and why? I'm currently doing boil. The recipe calls for 1.5 hour boil. What do you suggest I do? If the gravity is too high, should I add water?

O yea and heres the grain bill:

8.625lb - English 2 Row
0.500lb - Crystal 60
0.500lb - German Light Munich
0.500lb - Belgian Cara-pils
0.375lb - Belgian Biscuit
0.375lb - American Chocolate

Do you get the same efficiency?

Thanks

 

[KingBrianI]

How did you calculate the max og? What is the grain bill?

 

[yeqmaster]

I edited OP with grain bill...

 

[KingBrianI]

It does look like you got about 94% efficiency. Did you weigh the grains? Although not impossible, it would probably be tough to get to 94%. Did you happen to take a gravity reading of your runoff at the end of the fly sparge?

 

[KingBrianI]

By the way, I'd end up following the recipe. You may get slightly lower IBU but it shouldn't make a huge difference. You'll have a bigger beer that the recipe but it should be fine.

 

[Amity]

You know, I have the same "issue". My friend and I have a standard two roller Crankandstein that has never been adjusted from the factory, and a 48qt Coleman cooler with a copper manifold that we made. We get 90-94% efficiency everytime. We've never adjusted anything, it's just the way it worked out. Go with it, but adjust recipes to account for that. A few times we've been way too high on our OG due to that miscalculation.

 

[dontman]

I would only boil for 60 minutes since you less need to concentrate the sugars.

 

[Kaiser]

Did you correct the 7 gal pre boil for temperature?

Kai

 

[yeqmaster]

Did you correct the 7 gal pre boil for temperature?

Kai

Yes I did. I am also sure the grains weighed the amount indicated. I watched the guy at LHBS weigh them out.

Did you happen to take a gravity reading of your runoff at the end of the fly sparge?

The final runoff reading is 1.020.

 

[Kaiser]

I ran the numbers through the efficiency spreadsheet I have and I get 90% +/-5 if I assume 80% extract potential for the base grains and 75% for the specialty grains. I also assumed probable errors of measurement. The temperature of the 7 gal was assumed to be 70 C (160 F).

To reduce the efficiency you can mash thinner and cut down on the sparge water. The quality sacrifice, that many contribute to high efficiency, comes from oversparging. As the run-off gets thinner more and more undesirable compounds will be leached from the husks.

Kai

 

[Dougan]

I would boil for 60 and I've never had any problems adding a half gallon of water or something if i got an OG that was too big.

 

[Kaiser]

With 7 gal at 68f I get 92%. The difference is from the different extract potential that we might be assuming.

Kai

 

[The Pol]

Kai...

If I mash at 2qt/lb, and get 83% eff. am I getting "bad wort" because my eff. is above 70%?

 

[Grizzlybrew]

Ultra high efficiency usually equals increased tannins (astringency) from the grains being sucked out.

That being said, I just read in another post that Chuck Norris regularly acheives 125% eff with no tannins...

 

[The Pol]

Can someone explain to me exactly how high eff. equals tannins? I get it, I have heard it, but I dont know how that happens. Again, I get it, high eff. equals bad wort because of tannins, but how? What am I doing in my process that is doing this? Please, anyone with an answer?

How, how, how, how, how, how... how?

 

[Kaiser]

Kai...

If I mash at 2qt/lb, and get 83% eff. am I getting "bad wort" because my eff. is above 70%?

Let's not start this again.

In the end you need to brew a comparison between your normal way and a no-sparge.

Kai

 

[Kaiser]

Can someone explain to me exactly how high eff. equals tannins? I get it, I have heard it, but I dont know how that happens. Again, I get it, high eff. equals bad wort because of tannins, but how? What am I doing in my process that is doing this? Please, anyone with an answer?

sorry, I thought you referred to the discussion you had recently.

To improve your lauter efficiency in order to improve the efficiency into the kettle you need to collect ever weaker runnings. Those runnings will have an increasing amount of tannins b/c they have been extracted with mostly high pH water.

In fact all sparging and even mashing extracts tannins. It depends on the beer at which the level of tannins is excessive and becomes noticable.

Kai

edit: try this http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing#Extraction_of_Tannins maybe this has some of the answers you are looking for.

 

[The Pol]

sorry, I thought you referred to the discussion you had recently.

To improve your lauter efficiency in order to improve the efficiency into the kettle you need to collect ever weaker runnings. Those runnings will have an increasing amount of tannins b/c they have been extracted with mostly high pH water.

In fact all sparging and even mashing extracts tannins. It depends on the beer at which the level of tannins is excessive and becomes noticable.

Kai

But, like... how would those dilute runnings, really add much to your eff. I mean, they are by definition dilute. Do they have the capacity to get somone from 70% to 85%? That doesnt seem plausible to me. Are these people boiling for 120 minutes to get down to thier target volume then?

Still, having real difficulty wrapping my head around this in a practical manner. I know that oversparging will cause problems... but so will having a poor lauter device and oversparing portions of your grain bed. You are getting 70% eff because for example you are leaving sugars in the grain bed, sure, but your runnings are dilute because of channeling lets say. How is that any different than somone oversparging the entire grain bed?

I am not real smart, so I may be talking out my a$$... but that is what the internet is for, everyone else is doing it

 

[The Pol]

FWIW Kai... I enjoy reading your posts and your site. Good stuff.

I am a practical guy... I dont like to read something and just believe it. I also need things explained in a practical manner. I get that oversparging will increase tannin extraction, but come on... in a pracitcal manner, I cannot beleive that dilute runnings from oversparging will produce a 20% increase in eff. I mean, practically, youd have to boil for what 2 hours to boil off all that water?

I mash thin at 2qt/lb, so my sparge volume is reduced. My eff. is stuck at 83%... so with my sparge runoff reduced, what else could I be doing to hurt my wort?

 

[remilard]

A lot of guys on the intrawebs are quoting boil off rates 2-4 times commercial rates. So, no, you do not have to boil longer to boil off excessive collected wort.

No sparge gives about 65% efficiency. Obviously a brewer getting 65% while sparging is doing something wrong.

 

[Kaiser]

No sparge gives about 65% efficiency. Obviously a brewer getting 65% while sparging is doing something wrong.

Actually, no sparge efficiency depends on OG of the beer. It can be in the mid to upper 70s for moderate gravity beers.

Pol, I don't think that the problem of excessive tannin extraction is as simple as looking at efficiency. My take is that as home brewers we can allow ourselves a buffer by shooting for a lauter efficiency of 85-90%, maybe even 95% if you have a well designed fly sparging system. To get the efficiency into the kettle you'll have to multiply this with your conversion efficiency. I know you know that but I wanted to make this point.

Part of getting to know your system should be a side by side between a low and a high efficiency beer. You could get the low efficiency beer by just using the first wort and adding the sparge water w/o running it through the grain.

Kai

 

[The Pol]

You know what Kai, I may do just that. Issue is... once I do this, if I do notice a difference, what do I do to LOWER my eff? Aside from not sparging and just topping off the kettle? I dont really want to mash thinner.