does lower eff. effect anything other than your wallet?

[JBrady]

Hey guys I was just wondering if having a lower mash efficiency effects the overall taste of your brew vs. having higher efficiency. If one brewer uses 10 pounds of grain to achieve a certain gravity, and another brewer uses 13 to get the same number, does it mean both beers will theoretically be the same? Or does the brewer who used more grain end up with more body or other flavor changing things? Just because your not converting or extracting the sugar as efficient doesn't mean other flavor contributing factors aren't coming from the extra grain does it? thanks for any info.

 

[Hammy71]

As far as I'm concerned it's just your wallet. Thing to remember is: Consistancy is the most important thing. If you always get 65% efficiency and you tailor you recipe/ingredients to that number.....there's nothing you can't do.

 

[mrk305]

Assuming the gravity started the same, I think the lower efficiency beer brewed with more grains would be better. I don't worry about it and use more grains with my set up.

I often use 13 pounds also.

 

[JNye]

I agree its really only effects your wallet. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to improve your process. I was experiencing ~70% effeciency on my first few batches. I worked on my process and now I am ~78-82%, and I don't feel like I have room for much improvement. IMO you shouldn't be complacent with consistency, you should strive for at least 75%, I think anyone can get that if they want to make the effort.

 

[pkeeler]

It probably depends on why your efficiency is lower. If it is a bad grind, it might effect the final taste. If it is wort loss, then it probably wouldn't make a taste difference. If it is a pH problem, that can effect taste.

 

[JBrady]

Thanks everyone, I'm a "No Sparge" brewer. I literally add all the sparge water to the mash at mashout time and drain everything at once. It takes about 20 minutes to drain everything and I get 70 percent eff. I was just wondering if I'm short selling myself on anything except money. Thanks for the info.

 

[arnoldk2]

The first couple of brews I did I had 60% efficiency. I read blogs on how to improve efficiency and the next thing I now my brews O.G. readings were way to high. My efficiency was hovering around 85% for my last several batches. It really doesn't take to much to improve your efficiency.

 

[earwig]

Do you not sparge just to save time? I'm just being curious.

 

[wonderbread23]

Efficiency does effect flavor. Look into the differences between the taste in a no-sparge brew versus a sparged brew. I tend to believe that the higher your efficiency, the more tannins get extracted from husk material, and you get a touch more astringency. I like to do no-sparge on beers that I want a rich malt character in. 70-80% seems optimal.

 

[JBrady]

Do you not sparge just to save time? I'm just being curious.

I do it because it saves time, but I also do it because I build my water profile from distilled water. If I drained the tun before sparging, the distilled sparge water would increase the ph so much that I would have to worry about unwanted tannin extraction. By combining mash and sparge water before draining, the distilled water can't drive the ph up that high which should give me a better quality of wort given my particular situation. Thats my theory anyways, lol.