Really weird efficiency issue

[TimT]

Often I prefer to keep my recipes to myself unless they work out really well, that way the only person to know my shame is myself.... but anyway, last night I had a *really* strange problem with a new brew and I'm not sure what to think of it.

Basically I super-overshot the predicted gravity in the recipe (Altbier).

My variations were to add a small amount of toasted rolled oats, and to substitute all the crystal and a small amount of the base malt with Munich. I added

So for a standard 22 batch, these would be the quantities:
3.5 kg Maris Otter malt
1.5 kg Munich malt
100 g Chocolate malt
100 g toasted oats

(The original recipe - 4.25 kg pale malt, 300 g crystal, 100 g chocolate).

To that I added maybe 2.5 kg toasted Dandelion root and as much fennel as it could bear at the end of the boil.
Mashed at, let's say, 65 C.

The *predicted* gravity for the original recipe is 1.042 - 1.046. The gravity I got was 1.058. I did some fiddling around with Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator and depending on certain variables I got efficiency at either just above 50 per cent, or just above 80 per cent.

As they say in France - le what the ****?

So: what's the missing variable here? Is there a shitload of sugar in fennel that would have added to the malt sugars? Does Munich just have so much more sugar in it than crystal? Do toasted oats have a lot more sugar than I suspected? Did I get a really, dismally low gravity considering the ingredients I used, or was my mistake to actually break the laws of the universe and get a much higher gravity than should be physically possible? (If so, I'm not letting anybody ever borrow my hydrometer, I think it could be magic (or possibly stuffed))....

(Oh, if the recipe turns out to be shit, there's not very much of it anyway, it's one fifth of the amounts given above).

As a side note, how good is dandelion root? It's very good. The flavour is brilliant for the darker ales - stouts, porters, browns. Brings a really pleasing, earthy bitterness to the brew, and you don't even have to add very much to get the flavour. It's great.

 

[MHB]

Ok Tim, First up when and where efficiency is measured and what is included, most commonly we measure at the end of the boil, stating total volume in kettle and OG,
You used 5.2Kg of grist, without sitting down for hours looking up at the various yields - just back of the envelope say your potential was 78%, that gives you 4.056 Kg of potential extract.
A 22L batch, say you allow 3L of losses (kettle bottoms, transfers, samples...) 4.056Kg in 25L would give you an OG at end of boil of 16.2oP or call it 1.065 to the nearest, you got 1.058, so your efficiency is roughly 58/65*100= 89%
Anywhere near 90% is a pretty impressive yield, I brewed yesterday and got about 87% at the end of the boil, just over 80% in fermenter, on a beer at 1.087 I am pretty happy with that.
Good yields just mean you did everything right - now go and do it again, and again, and..... The measure of a brewers skill isn't being able to get good yields once, it is your ability to repeat the process and get good predictable results every time.
Mark

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

. The measure of a brewers skill isn't being able to get good yields once, it is your ability to repeat the process and get good predictable results every time.
Mark




This is sooooo true !