The Opposite of Why I got Into This

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I didn't read this whole thread, but I think I might have some insight on your sour flavor. I have bought malt from an LHBS that seems has little traffic. I look at their extensive 8 gallon buckets of grain and think, "some of this malt must be extremely old". I don't know what made me do it but i shoved a 1/4 ounce of the dry crushed malt in my mouth before mashing in and detected a faint but clearly there sour taste. I discounted it until it showed up in my beer. I think old malt may pick up this flavor from lactobacillus that I have heard hangs out in barley malt. I taste my grist before mashing in now because I believe it adds additional data to understanding my process. I think we've all had bad brew days. It's no different than any other hobby. Sometimes you don't catch a fish, sometimes you can't get that carburetor to fit your intake. If the hobbies were too easy, they wouldn't be fun. Stop being so hard on yourself. Every beer I've made has had faults unexpected happenings, greatness and joy. Learn a little, drink a little and have fun.

 

[applescrap]

So you took a shot at a big beer with more complex procedures with a change in equipment and it didn't turn out as expected. Dust off your ego, take and bow, pat yourself on the back and accept my high five.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Teddy Roosevelt.

BTW, the analogy of doing 40mph in a drag race is misguided. In the end, it's taste that counts, not efficiency. Efficiency affects the cost of your beer, but not necessary the quality. It's very important for commercial brewers who need to squeeze out the slimmest of profit margins and achieve economies of scale. If you chase efficiency, it's possible that you will get excess tannins resulting is astringency in your beer.

I stopped chasing efficiency and instead focused on water profile and temperature (mash and fermentation) and the results were very noticeable for the positive.

I like and appreciate the keep trying sentiment. I said the same thing to a good brewer once, not about a face marred by dust and blood, but about efficiency. He said the beer with the more sugar, the better efficiency, would have more flavor. I have to agree with that from a common sense perspective. If you use more grain, than that could change, but if using the same exact recipe, the beer made with 90 percent efficiency would have more flavor than one at 70, imo. If nothing else it would be stronger, but sure, to each their own. Had another friend who said that he brewed so much, the extra grain added up. I am willing to try for 90, I will report back on what I find. I agree water is key.

 

[NSMikeD]

Regarding efficiency, for my 2.5 gallon brews, the difference between 70% and 90% mash efficiency works out to about two bucks. The goal is to accurately predict how much grain to use to result in a desired amount of sugars. The is why I think, for the average home brewer, consistency is more important that absolute efficiency.

Pursuing efficiency is good- as long as it done hand in hand with achieving consistency

 

[Gytaryst]

Where do you get your grain crushed? Do you double mill it? A finer crush will give better efficiency.

I contacted my LHBS a few weeks ago and asked some of those questions. Eventually I probably want to buy a grain crusher and mill my own, but for now I'm tired of washing bottles and want to get into kegging, so that's where I'm focusing the money I spend.

My LHBS has their crusher set to .038, (which according to them is a good semi-fine crush). They can't adjust it for each individual customer, (which I can understand), and they can't really double mill it because they said at .038 it's too fine for the rollers to grab the second time thru.

So you took a shot at a big beer with more complex procedures with a change in equipment and it didn't turn out as expected. Dust off your ego, take and bow, pat yourself on the back and accept my high five.

BTW, the analogy of doing 40mph in a drag race is misguided. In the end, it's taste that counts, not efficiency. Efficiency affects the cost of your beer, but not necessary the quality. It's very important for commercial brewers who need to squeeze out the slimmest of profit margins and achieve economies of scale. If you chase efficiency, it's possible that you will get excess tannins resulting is astringency in your beer.

Yes and no. My analogy was perhaps not a perfect comparison, but not "misguided." I agree, "If you chase efficiency, it's possible that you will get excess tannins resulting is astringency in your beer." My goal really isn't 99% efficiency, (if that is even possible). And I agree that consistency takes priority over efficiency to a certain extent. My only point is that I can't be satisfied with a 65% efficiency no matter how "consistent" it might be. I think I could live with 72% . . . or 74 . . . 76 . . .

I didn't read this whole thread, but I think I might have some insight on your sour flavor. I have bought malt from an LHBS that seems has little traffic. I look at their extensive 8 gallon buckets of grain and think, "some of this malt must be extremely old". I don't know what made me do it but i shoved a 1/4 ounce of the dry crushed malt in my mouth before mashing in and detected a faint but clearly there sour taste. I discounted it until it showed up in my beer. I think old malt may pick up this flavor from lactobacillus that I have heard hangs out in barley malt. I taste my grist before mashing in now because I believe it adds additional data to understanding my process. I think we've all had bad brew days. It's no different than any other hobby. Sometimes you don't catch a fish, sometimes you can't get that carburetor to fit your intake. If the hobbies were too easy, they wouldn't be fun. Stop being so hard on yourself. Every beer I've made has had faults unexpected happenings, greatness and joy. Learn a little, drink a little and have fun.

I hadn't thought about the grain, good point. This particular beer was mostly pilsen malt, (which I doubt sits around). Without going back and looking at the recipe there really wasn't any malts in it that I would think would fall under the "light traffic" category. One of my challenges with my later Belgians was to try and make the recipes as simple and minimal as possible so I could then better evaluate exactly where I was getting what flavors from. If I have 5 or 6 different malts in there it's harder to pinpoint that. As this beer gets older the tase is starting to mellow and round out. There is still a definite sourness. Like I said it's not a face puckering eye twitching sour, but it does seem out of place in this beer. I don't like sour beers, and I wouldn't classify this as a sour - but still, to me it's an "off flavor."

Regarding efficiency, for my 2.5 gallon brews, the difference between 70% and 90% mash efficiency works out to about two bucks. The goal is to accurately predict how much grain to use to result in a desired amount of sugars. The is why I think, for the average home brewer, consistency is more important that absolute efficiency.
Pursuing efficiency is good- as long as it done hand in hand with achieving consistency

My reasoning is even more straight forward than that. Most of the recipes I look at are figured at around 70% to 72% efficiency. Just for simplicity sake I would like to not have to adjust everything in that regard.

Great advice guys - thanks.

I went back and forth deciding between a false bottom and "The Brew Bag." In the end it came down to pretty much a coin toss and the thing that tipped me toward the brew bag was cost. Now that I've used it twice and my efficiency is still in the low 60's, I've decided to bite the bullet and get a false bottom. I'm leaning toward this one.

My last brew day was the smoothest brew day I've had to date. The only tweak I'm still working on is clarity. I use an immersion chiller in my BK so whirlpooling doesn't work. I use hop pellets in a fine mesh nylon bag, but I still end up with a ton of hop trub. Right now I rely on cold crashing after fermentation for about 90% of all my clearing efforts. My beers are fairly clear, but I would like to get them a little clearer if possible.

Cheers guys