Crazy Efficiancy

[paulthenurse]

OK so I made a 10 gallon batch of my Bleacher Beer tonight, it's an American Premium Lager. Figured I'd take advantage of the cold weather, go back to my roots when you could only brew a lager in the winter. I haven't done a 10 gallon all grain batch in years, possibly decades.

So I start out getting frustrated cause the burner won't run cleanly. Some sort of schmutz was in the cup and it was making more soot than heat. Eventually I stopped heating the water and tore everything apart, cleaned it and put it back together. That's better. Let's proceed.

A big grain bill for my mash tun but not insurmountable, a total of 25 lbs of grain. I started with a low protein rest of 120 degrees for 30 minutes then decocted about 1/2 the mash to raise the temp to 144*F. I mashed at 144 for 90 minutes then mashed out and did a fly sparge. Collected 13 gallons of wort and started my boil.

Here is the recipe, and I'm just flabbergasted with what I ended up with. As it comes out of the kettle cooled to 65 *F I have 1.066.


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10 gallon Bleacher Beer
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General
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Category: Light Lager
Subcategory: Premium American Lager
Recipe Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 11 gal.
Volume Boiled: 13 gal.
Mash Efficiency: 85 %
Total Grain/Extract: 25.00 lbs.
Total Hops: 3.0 oz.
Calories (12 fl. oz.): 264.2
Cost to Brew: $55.20 (USD)
Cost per Bottle (12 fl. oz.): $0.47 (USD)

Ingredients
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6 lbs. American 6-row Pale
13.5 lbs. American 2-row
5 lbs. Corn Flaked
0.5 lbs. Oats Flaked
1.0 oz. Phoenix (Whole, 10.00 %AA) boiled 70 minutes.
1.00 oz. Hallertau (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 15 minutes.
1.00 oz. Cascade (Whole, 5.50 %AA) boiled 1 minutes.
Yeast: WYeast 2007 Pilsen Lager

Notes
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Vital Statistics
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Original Gravity: 1.066
Terminal Gravity: 1.012
Color: 3.52 SRM
Bitterness: 21.6 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 7.1 %

I kept on having to refigure the effeciency to get close to where I ended up. According to the recipe and my normal effieciency I should have ended up around 1056. This is not the beer I inteded to brew. I wanted to make a regular American Premium Lager. At 7% this is gonna be a sneakey beer. Hell, St A's is not much stronger.

So I'm a bit numbed right now. I started out my day by blending my Bordeaux blend into the new barrel. 20 gallons of Cab Sav, 5 gallons of Petit Verdot and 5.5 gallons of Cab Franc. Then I racked the Chilean Cab Sav out of the 15 gallon barrel and into a keg and racked a 2/3-1/3 Zinfandel/ Cab Franc blend into the barrel. By this time it's 2:00 pm, I've been tasting (just tasting, not drinking, no more than a 6 oz glass in total) everthing along the way. But I decide that if I don't get this beer brewed today I won't get it done till the middle of February. It's very late in the day to start brewing but I need to stay up late tonight so I can get back into night mode so I go for it.

So I'm done now and I'm happy I did it, but I'm too brain dead to figure out what I did that gave me such a huge OG. Any ideas?

 

[Chriso]

Wow, congrats man! I'm no efficiency expert, but I would predict perhaps.... a trio of really good crush, a "perfect" decoction, and the beer gods were on your side.

That sounds like a fantastically excellent lighter beer for a sports fan to drink. Very impressive!