Better Mash Efficiency

[hopsinjoor]

Neither me, or my beers, have the legs for wearing a dress. I didn't click the link, there's something a little too pork based for my liking.

I mashed in this morning, I'm doing an Imperial Stout with Saison yeast (following a conversation at work yesterday), it will be mashing for 2 hours, at 64 degrees, before I sparge. Details are

7500 Marris Otter
1000 Roasted Barley
500 Wheat
500 Flaked Oats
160 Chocolate
60 rye

and

Bramling x 75 5.6% 60 29.4
Bramling x 15 5.6% 20 3.6
Bramling x 20 5.6% 15 3.9
Bramling x 40 5.60% 10 5.7
Bramling x 40 5.60% 0 1.9

Though, the hops may change, depending on how I feel during the boil. I chose BramX as I have quite a bit, and it's the only English hop I have at the moment.

The theoretical OG I am aiming for with this malt bill is 1.093, with a batch size of 22 litres, so I am aiming for 70% efficiency. I wonder how it will manage.

[hopsinjoor]

Just to follow this up, as I said I would.

I got the 70% system efficiency, unfortunately I had a slow mash problem at the end of the 2 hour mash, so I put some more water in, and didn't take that into account when boiling, so I ended up with 24 litres at 1.085.

Full details of the brew are here.

[darkonnis]

I bottled mine today and the fridge apparently decided to freeze the fv it was in. I got 3L down from 5... so who the hell knows what i've ended up with... tactical T-54? Though the T-54 is pretty tactical proof So that'd work rather well.

[hopsinjoor]

Ice brewing? Wow, that's going to be a proper "craft" brew that, you might want to drink small amounts, if it's crazy strong that is. Wow,

[seymour]

...I was told at a homebrew meeting by JK of Marble, that for beers over 1.070 that they would mash at about 62-64 degrees for over 2 hours, that way you get more fermentables, rather than complex sugars that can't be eaten by the yeast...

Bump.

So, what else did JK of Marble say? Any recipe clues?

[orlando]

Thanks barney lots to think about.

I figured boiling would be more expensive (hence the extra grain being my first port of call) that said, I have my heart set on atleast trying the long period just to see what happens and for the experience of having done it.

With regards to sparging with 6ph water, how do you alter the pH when you do it? I figure its a case of adding a chemical but what exactly?

What you are actually after here is not low pH water, what you are after is reducing the buffering effect of alkalinity in your domestic/starting water that prevents the malts from effectively bringing the mash pH into the right range. This is done by making sure your alkalinity is low enough to allow the malts to do this. The usual way of doing this is to use proprietary products like CRS but a lot of brewers are now moving to specific acids, phosphoric is the one that adds least to the water but lactic, hydrochloric and sulphuric will all do this with varying degrees of attached hazard. Once you have done this you can then play with the various salts that will adjust the water to a profile that suits the style of beer. Have a look at this thread for a lengthy but in depth look at the subject.

[hopsinjoor]

Bump.

So, what else did JK of Marble say? Any recipe clues?

Afraid not, no. It was just a fairly generic scenario explanation on how they mashed their beers when doing the higher gravity stuff. So lower temps, with longer mashes as well to get as much out of the grain as well.

As I generally brew the higher strength beers, I kinda took this to heart and just mashed this way, which gave me better efficiency and higher OGs, but meant that the body was a bit thin.

I was speaking to the head brewer at Buxton recently, after he'd had some of my beers. He said that my beers would benefit from mashing at 66 degrees C, and sparging at 74 degrees. Basically getting the temperature above 70 degrees to hit the alpha and beta, without going too high in the mash. I've yet to do this properly as I need to rebuild some stuff, but I will happily sacrifice some efficiency for better body and more sweetness.

[IPA]

I know that mash efficiency isn't the end of the world, I myself have said (and stick to) that adding a bit more grain at the homebrew level pretty much solves the problem.

But with my big rig build coming to a close as far as alterations go and yesterday me doing the T-54 RIS, it got me to thinking:

2.5kg of grain will make 5L at 1.114 SG (72% efficiency), it would also make 15L at 1.038 SG (72% efficiency). The thing here is this, my efficiency dropped doing the high gravity to less than 50% so I didn't get my 1.114 I got about 1.094, so would I not be better off sparging until it's done and simply boiling down to the amount I want?

This is more a case of me being curious and because I do wonder how commercial brewers up the efficiency of their stronger ales than me actually planning a 5 hour boil (though I might just to see what happens)

Is there an alternative I haven't considered?

Would a long (2 - 4hrs) be a bad thing?

Cheers
Cooky

I use a Speidel Braumeister and get an efficiency of over 88% ( thanks to sparging advice from this guy on JBK http://tavastlandbrewing.wordpress.com/ ) which means 5kg of grain gives me 25 litres with an OG of 1.053 If I want to make a really strong beer I devide the grain bill in half mash the first half then sparge and after cooling I mash the second half with the the liquor from the first mash.