Nice steady crush makes for 90% efficiency.

Comment by jt on September 27, 2009 at 11:09am

Efficiency is a shit of a topic.
How much of efficency is crush and how much is technique, I reckon consistency is the goal ?

Comment by JoKing on September 27, 2009 at 11:23am

Consistency is the ultimate goal. I've managed to hit 88 - 90 for 5 of the last sub 1.060 brews. The crush has a massive part to play in this - like 50% of it. 25% is technique: once you've nailed the whole runoff and sparge thing it's like routine. 25% is system: flase bottom dead space, channeling of water, grain bed depth etc.

The crush on the other hand can change from batch to batch. Some grains are fatter than others etc.

I may go on about efficiency a bit... but I'm stoked to be consistently hitting high numbers. I think my first mash was about 65% and my estimated numbers (SG etc) was so bad that it dropped the beer out of style. It is so awesome to plug in 88% in the efficiency selection on the old brew software and hit it on brew day. It makes brewing to style that much easier.

Comment by jt on September 27, 2009 at 11:50am

I had a very consistent 72% for a long time, made it very easy for recipe formulation and hop utilisation (I'm lazy and don't adjust for boil gravity)
Seems to have been creeping up though and I'm poring over the notes to work out why.

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