gravity too high

[50quidsoundboy]

my AG brews keep overshooting their gravity.

According to calculations done in Beer Engine, the mash efficiency is at about 90%. Considering I'm (a) a beginner (b) not exactly on high-end kit (i'm mashing in a converted cool box, outdoors, covering it in cushions and coats) can this be right? Is there another explanation? I was expecting to be in the region of 75% as per the Beer Engine defaults and the recipes in BYOBRA.

Cheers

Jon

 

[Hawks]

It is pretty easy to overshoot the 75%, my efficiency when I started AG was 89% IIRC - the first few beers came out much stronger than planned as I used the same baseline. I do remember my Ringwood 49er clone tasted more like Old Thumper, but I was happy with that at the time - now I would add more hops to compensate. You can adjust your efficiency in Beer Engine and you'll finetune it over a few brews and be able to predict your OG much better.

The reason, IIRC from previously reading, is a lot to do with the higher quality of ingredients available now. The conversion rates are therefore higher and achieving 85-90% efficiency is quite usual ( I get 85% on my current set up ).

There is another discussion on benefits of higher v lower efficiency and the impact on the final product - I am sure someone will know more about that and post their thoughts.