Effeciency

I do "no-sparge" brewing so I've never used it that way before. If you add to much I think they say it can give your beer a salty taste, if you google it you can find out more, kind of a mix bag of info out there on weather it works or not. I just use half of what the instructions call for, sorry I'm at work and I don't have my notes.

 

I had huge issues with efficiency until I started stirring the heck out of the grain bed before I vorlauf. Giving the mash a solid stir and then stir some more was my way of hitting the OG dead on when batch sparging.

 

There have been tests done using pH 5.2 stabilizer that shows that it does absolutely zilch to help you hit the correct mash temp, in fact it actually hurts your chances of hitting the correct mash pH. You're better off buying phosphoric acid and pickling lime to hit your mash pH.

I will find the source and post it when I have a chance.

 

Brun'water makes the case agin the 5.2 stabilizer product where you're water ain't super alkaline.

 

You wont break down the starches to sugars at those temps.

 

I think that's the point he's trying to make... that conversion would suck, but that you might get starches dissolved that would contribute to gravity. At 100F, I don't think the starches are soluble. But at 180F, they should be. Also at 180F, I bet there would be some conversion to sugars before all of the enzymes are denatured, because contrary to popular belief, there really is no magic mashout temperature above which they instantly fall apart. It's always a race between conversion (influenced by the enzyme's efficiency at a particular temp) and denaturing...the temp largely determines which one ultimately wins the race.

 

ahh, yea i had trouble understanding what he was trying to do

 

Could you please make a detailed description of your mashing process?

 

I bet this resolution is somewhere within the answer to this question. Just a hunch. The only time I thought I was getting poor efficiency, it was because my refractometer wasn't calibrated properly.

Or if a hydrometer is being used, is the sample being cooled first?

 

For me, it seems when I crush the grains myself at home in a victoria mill (finer crush), I get higher efficiency and better to target OG, when I have the homebrew shops crush my grains (or I use their equipment and crush myself at their establishment) my efficiency suffers. So, for me, it seems to be mostly in the grain crush. Also, duration of the mash, I've used Beersmith and in some cases it tells me the mash is 45 minutes, when really, I think it should be closer to 60 minutes.

 

Beersmith tries to decide mash length? That's kind of goofy. Mash length is one of your fermenatibility 'knobs.' And since Beersmith doesn't change attenuation based on mash length, I wonder why it would presume to recommend any particular length.