Efficiency drop on bigger beers

[Moad]

I brewed 2 beers yesterday and got very different results.

One was 60L of golden @ 1.045 OG. I knocked out 65 Litres at 1.044 so close enough.

Next up was 65L of IPA going for 1.064. I ended up with 66L at 1.056.

Process was exactly the same for both beers, the IPA had a thicker mash but I wouldn't have expected it to make THAT much of a difference (2.8L/KG vs 3 L/KG for the golden)

I'm still getting used to a new system and I use beer smith. Do I need to adjust expected efficiency based on OG target or does BeerSmith do this?

 

[Pogierob]

3v?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Same grain bills ?

 

[Fat Bastard]

Given that he's posted the golden ale was 1.045 and the IPA was supposed to be 1.064 I'd assume not.

Anecdotally I've found an efficiency reduction in bigger beers. I thought I had data to prove this, but when I looked, I found I had a nice graph of mash thickness v. grain absorbtion. Which does drop (from 1.1l/kg to 1l/kg) off as mash thickness increases from 4.1l/KG to 2.5l/kg.

It's probably something to do with that though. Sorry for the vague answer. I'm sure I have the right graph somewhere. I'll post it if I can find it.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Mmm....I seemed to get better overall %eff if I kept the the mash at about 3L\Kg regardless off the beer. Naturally I had a big enough tun to for the extra volume of big beers.

 

[Spiesy]

I BIAB and definitely get diminishing returns with high gravity brews. Particularly if I can't mash full volume due to brew pot restraints.

 

[Mr B]

What do you reckon is the beginning of diminishing returns?

 

[Moad]

3v 100lt vessels.

Will post grain bill tomorrow but I am thinking that the mash thickness definitely comes into play here.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Found it. X axis is grain bill, Y axis is efficency.

 

[Moad]

Interesting, correlates with what I'm seeing. Although with 12.5kg I still hit 85% on the golden. 17Kg on the black IPA and it was around 72 I think

 

[Fat Bastard]

Probably changes with the ratio of grainbed area & depth I'd imagine. My 3v system gets 20-23l in the fermenter depending on the beer. Your numbers would be different, but I reckon the slope would be similar.

 

[manticle]

Fairly well accepted that there is an efficiency drop with gravity increase/larger grain bill as far as I'm aware. Will see if I can find some text references as to why.

 

[Blind Dog]

Should of kept the BM

It's like Carrie but less forgiving


Mwwwwahhhahhah

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Generally the grain bed is thicker and less wort is sparged out with normal volumes.
I compensate for this by "over sparging" and then do an extended boil evaporation , normally two hours.
Big beers are worth the effort :icon_drool2:

 

[Spiesy]

I BIAB and definitely get diminishing returns with high gravity brews. Particularly if I can't mash full volume due to brew pot restraints.

I'd imagine somewhere in the vicinity of 1065+ OG beer.

 

[Spiesy]

Big beers are worth the effort :icon_drool2:

I'm a bit over big beers to be honest.

 

[Tahoose]

I'm a bit over the limit after big beers to be honest.

Sorry mate but that's how I read that.

 

[Alex.Tas]

Sorry for the off topic question,

Generally the grain bed is thicker and less wort is sparged out with normal volumes.
I compensate for this by "over sparging" and then do an extended boil evaporation , normally two hours.

I accidentally did this the other day, from what i've read post incident is that there wont be much caramelisation due to the very high moisture content during the elevated temps, but there will be some darkening.
So does this mean that basically, extended boils will mostly darken your beer and reduce volume?
Are there other significant effects of extended boils for most homebrewers?

 

[manticle]

Development of melanoidens.
I love long boils on big, rich beers. Wee heavy for example - no crystal, just a 3 hour boil.

 

[Weizguy]

Development of melanoidens.
I love long boils on big, rich beers. Wee heavy for example - no crystal, just a 3 hour boil.

Sounds like a beer that did well in the NSW comp this year. Stuster made a long-boil Wee Heavy. Gorgeous.