Finally!

[tlarham]

I have never escaped the 70% efficiency number...until this past session -- I hit 79% It was a bit of a shocker...

What I did differently? Well I've always just done a drain and batch sparge -- initial mash for an hour, drain and then 168 degree water on the bed, stir and wait (10), drain again.

This time, I used a mashout -- I used the mash calculations in beersmith to figure out how much mashout water I needed and heated that on my burner while I used my heatstick to warm the rest of the sparge water in my hlt.

Mashed for 60, added the mashout (near boiling) to raise the bed temp, waited 10 THEN drained. Added the rest at 168 -- rest for 10, drain again.

So now my brain won't stop...how to break 80%. I have a birthday around the corner...and have been dropping hints for my own mill. Perhaps that will do it...

 

[Bensiff]

Yup, milling your own will very likely increase your efficiency. I have pushed mine to mid 80's on fly sparging; however, I prefer to go a little lower just expedite the process.

 

[NYCHomebrewer]

Jamil has said that targeting really high efficiencies aren't necessarily the best plan. 70-75% is kind of a sweet spot. In one of his podcasts he states that when you are getting really high efficiencies, extra sugars aren't the only things you are extracting but that you are getting higher tannins etc. that can lead to off flavors. Not to mention that on the homebrew scale, a 1-5% increase in efficiency results in a negligible impact on the cost of grains as opposed to the professional scale where a 1% increase could result in a massive savings on grains over the course of a year.

I set and plan my recipes for an efficiency of 70%. Sometimes I get a higher efficiency, but I don't adjust my recipes to reflect that. Just because I get 80% efficiency once doesn't mean that next time I won't get a stuck sparge or have something happen that makes me miss. The 70% gives me a cushion. The problem when you get higher efficiency than expected is that you overshoot your gravity and, if you are like me, and generally plan your recipes for the higher end of the style, your beers can end up getting low points from judges for being too strong for style.

I've found that I actually have to dilute my final wort and discard or freeze the extra for future starters when I overshoot my efficiency too much. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it always starts getting kind of iffy when I have to do math calculations at that point in my brew day.

I suppose you could plan your recipes for the lower side of the gravity range for the style to compensate, but then you risk undershooting your target if you have an off day.

All in all I just find it easier to target 70% expecting to get maybe 75% and loosening my system a bit.

NYCHomebrewer