Twilight Zone Efficiency

[Bru4u]

I brewed last sat, a simple enough brew, I called the brewery Coolabrew, where I live is Coolacresig, anyhow here is what should have happened.

Coolabrew Gold
75 Ltr
12.5Kg Pale Malt
500g Crystal
400g Wheat Malt
75g First Gold Pellet 6.5% alpha, 90 min
25g First Gold Pellet 30 Min
40g Fuggle 4.3 Alpha 15 Min

A nice light beer you would think with not too much alcohol cos it is for an up and coming party, and seeing everyone buckled after 5 pints would be madness.
So I stopped taking runnings at 1.008 and the temperature control was perfect through out the session, my fourth in all.
Ended up nice and clear with good break material left in the kettle.

I boiled for 90 mins and ended up with just over 75 ltr at 1.050, Is my maths up the duff or is that an unusual efficiency, am I right in saying it's about 88%, I mashed over a 90 min period aswell.

Bru

[brewzone]

Blimey Bru4U!!!

I've just run through a few numbers and I'd say You were nearer to 95% which is astounding!!!!

12.5 * 296=3700
00.9 * 275=247.5
3700+247.5=3947.5
3947.5 * 0.95=3750.125
3750.125/75=50

How slowly/quickly did You sparge?

[Bru4u]

About 45 mins with the spinny, there was still some water in the grains when sparging stopped, so once I lit the kettle I came back to the mash tun and drained the remainder, it read over 1.010 so I threw it in the kettle. I guess it was in effect a mixture of fly and batch sparging, is there a risk of absorbing undesirables, is it a bad thing to get that much efficiency.
I suppose I'll know in about three weeks when I taste it.
I also only used one pack of SO4 but made a starter, it is still fermenting like a train.

[alefric]

Blimey Bru4U!!!

I've just run through a few numbers and I'd say You were nearer to 95% which is astounding!!!!

12.5 * 296=3700
00.9 * 275=247.5
3700+247.5=3947.5
3947.5 * 0.95=3750.125
3750.125/75=50

How slowly/quickly did You sparge?

Thats amazing!!!..........give or take i get it to 94%........If only i could do that my grain bill could come down by a third......let us know what it comes out like.

Andrew

[hoppingMad]

Yep I agree its 94%. Is this going to provide a higher alcohol % than you had originally wanted ? If so, its not a problem adding boiled cooled water just before bottling ( kegging ).
Not wanting to discourage you after your excellent efficiency, and you have every right to be at 94% but it begs a few questions: are you sure your gravity sample was performed correctly ? Did you take another reading ? Where did you draw off your sample from ?

I drew off a sample once from my brew kettle before the boil and got a very high reading. Turned out to be the old "stratified wort syndrome" I had indeed stirred the hot wort but did not stir enough, and so my sample, which was taken from the bottom, was higher gravity wort than from the top. ( my volume calculations were correct )

[delboy]

Thats seems a bit strange, are you sure that your fermenter is calibrated correctly??

Even with 100 % conversion in the mash you should still end up losing a sizeable chunk to dead space in the mash tun and the boiler, not to mention the loss to the trub and hops!!

[Bru4u]

I thought the same, I took several samples, the last from the kettle after the boil, I had around 81 ltr in the kettle, just saved it from boiling over a few times, 75 ltr went in to the fementer, well 74. something, the grain was weighed accurate.
I think what made the figures was after fly sparging stopped at 1.010, there was a break while i got the kettle going, I drained the remaining wort from the mash tun in to a bucket, this wort would have been just submerging the grains for about 15 min and so absorbed more, well it must have cos it measured over 1.010 after cooling to 20 deg, If I did not add this, things would have been normal, around 80% My reason for posting was to try and find out the effect it would have on the beer, I'm not too concerned about the efficiency, I'd be happy with 70%. The cost of the beer is minimal in regard to the quality.
I will taste it soon and if good I will attempt to repeat the process taking detailed notes.