Hey Pol,
What is your reasoning behind having/wanting such high efficiency? It seems to me that tannins aside, you are getting more than just sugar out the higher the efficiency. Does your beer taste any different than 70-80%? You are a bit far away for a sample and critique, so I have to just go from what you say. Just interested.
Malt conditioning is not a way to increase eff., and the only eff. that a crush will increase is converison eff, and mine is already nearly 100%.
Malt conditioning is ONLY used to keep the husks intact, and since my E-HERMS lives and breathes based on having a nice free flowing grain bed, it fits.
Go back and read what I have written, and you will see that I am actually in the process of reducing my eff. by at least 8%.
There is a difference between conversion eff. and lauter eff. My conversion eff. is 97%, so even if my lauter eff. is only 80%, I am still getting 80% eff.
A guy only converting 70% of his sugars in the mash will lauter 90% eff. and get 63%? He is oversparging and I am not... so his tannin extraction is much worse.
Eff. to the kettle means nothing in terms of tannin extraction, period. If I convert 100% of my mash and leave 20% behind in the grain, I am still at 80% eff. That is A LOT left in the grain.
If you convert 80% of your sugars and lauter 90% efficiently, you are getting 72% eff. to the kettle and sparging MUCH more than I am. So who has more tannin extraction?
Again, I am not doing this to increase eff, read the thread and you will see where this is stated. The purpose of malt conditioning is to help my grain bed run free. I do strive to have excellent conversion eff, because that allows me to sparge much less, creating better wort in the end. It is really simple.
It is really easy to reduce your lauter eff. and I am in the process of doing just this, as this is the ONLY place in the process where extracting tannins takes place. Tannin extraction is not tied at all to eff. but it IS tied directly to pH and therefore your sparge volume. You can have poor eff. to the kettle and easily oversparge. I am sparging with 3 gallons to reach 7.8 in my kettle... I sparge very little
Lets say you mash with 1.25qt/lb and sparge to reach your boil volume. Say you need 7.8 gallons in the kettle, you are only getting 2.125 (on a 10lb grain bill) from the mash, you are sparging with 5.675 gallons?? What? And then you claim that since you have 70% eff. that your beer is better than mine because I get 80%? But I am sparging HALF as much as you...
Again, tannin extraction has
NOTHING to do with eff. to the kettle.(regardless of what anyone wants to say) Sparge temp, volume, husk condition and pH are the only things. Since I sparge less than anyone I personally know, I laugh when I hear that my wort is of lesser quality than thiers just because they have 65-70% eff. Obviously they dont understand mashing or sparging, they are making oatmeal and hoping it turns out OK
And as BobbyM said, there is much LESS tannin extraction because the husks are literally WHOLE.
