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Mash efficiency when batch sparging big beers

merfizle

Grandmaster Brewer
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I found this old thread and had a couple of questions. 

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,182.msg597.html#msg597

I normally get about 72% mash efficiency for beers 1.070 and lower.  I'm planning on a big beer for Extreme Beerfest that will have an OG of 1.090.  According to the above thread I  should lower my efficiency and was planning on dropping that to 60%.  Normally, I open the mash drain valve 100% since I'm doing batch sparging.  Would it help efficiency if I did a hybrid sparge and slowly lautered like fly sparging?  Also, wouldn't doing a second sparge rinse the rest of the sugars?  Granted, preboil would be larger but I could increase my boil time.  Could hybrid sparging aka doing a second sparge like this be included in the next release of Beersmith?

Thanks.

Mark
 
I typically do not change the efficiency numbers for bigger beers because what I find with my system is that I end up with my target volume before the runnings get down too that magic 1.010 area. I have started to do a triple batch sparge and it does seem to help but my guess would be that the only way to know for sure is to experiement with your setup.
 
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