Holy cow, I’ve never done anything quite like that. I very rarely do any step mashes. Very interesting! I’ll bet it turns out just great like a million bucks. Keep me posted!
I want to couple it to a short boil as well.
Thanks for reposting this Amanda, Hochkurz is on my list of things to try.
Will you be doing this on a recipe you’ve brewed before? I would be curious if you get similar conversion efficiencies on the different mashes.
Efficiency is nothing, no problem. ATTENUATION is the variable to pay attention to. In my experience.
You hit it on the head Dave. Attenuation is the variable if like to play with. With 1 gal batches it’s no big deal to throw grain at an efficiency issue. I’m definitely more worried about attenuation.
I’m going to try it on my original BDSA recipe.
Y’all are preachin’ to the choir about brewhouse efficiency. I’m around 60-62% brewhouse efficiency on the Z and I’m not trying to change that.
I was only curious if the mash would even fully convert in that short of a time (i.e. conversion efficiency). I would venture to guess yes, but I don’t know that for sure.
Obviously attenuation is much more important - you certainly can’t taste efficiency! 
All of this. I’m a lot more worried about consistent efficiency (as much as I can control, with big beers usually being different) than some arbitrary number.
Actually I think the answer is no; HOWEVER, I also find 40 minutes to be a sort of magical point of diminishing returns, beyond which, you don’t really gain enough efficiency to give a crap, or at least, I don’t personally. Can you get a few more points out by mashing much longer? Sure you can. Does it matter? That’s a question that each individual needs to answer for himself/herself.
Ah… but can’t you?! Again, more experiments are needed! I’ve been meaning to run such an experiment for a long time, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I too have come to conclusion that high system efficiency is not a good or worthwhile goal.
I started monitoring mashing efficiency (measured by undiluted wort gravity from mash and compared to theoretical gravity calculated for the water/grist ratio) and found that I get a little over 100% when compared to Kai’s efficiency chart (he apparently used a conservative assumption in creating the chart). So my mashing performance is great. However, its the extraction and transfer of that sugar content from the tun to the kettle (system efficiency) that is problematic for me.
Since getting my own mill, I’ve noted that my system efficiency has been pretty high (82 to 90 percent). Most would say: “Great”. But I found that my beer quality actually suffered a bit. I chased a tannin problem for half a year and finally determined that I needed to avoid putting too much of my sparging water through the mash bed. Now I reserve a good 1 to 1.5 gal of sparging water and only add that remaining water directly to the kettle as needed to meet my pre-boil volume (5.5 gal batch size). That improved the quality, but I’m not sure that I’m where I want my beers to be.
At this point, I’m probably going to bump that amount of reserved sparging water up (less of the calculated sparging water will go into the tun) and just live with the reduced system efficiency. I think better beer is made with lower efficiency. So Dave’s comment to worry less about efficiency and more about attenuation is exactly the way I feel too.
I’ve implemented nearly the exact same process changes for the exact same reasons to the betterment of the beer and detriment of my brewhouse/system efficiency. Less of my sparge water actually sees the grain and ends up directly in the boil kettle instead. I’ve taken it a step further in that I will pick a method of sparging and amount to sparge with based on grainbill size and water:grist ratio, and while it may sound more complicated it’s actually a faster and easier process in the end.
I’m happy to see some reasonably credible anecdotal evidence supporting my theory!
As I shall always say… more experiments are needed! Don’t take anybody’s word as gospel, even mine.
Until you test it, it’s just a(n?) hypothesis. ;D
This message courtesy your resident… Well, maybe not evil scientist, per se, but evil TA for sure.
Oh, you’re evil! ;D
Scientists and rationals may claim that I rely too much on my intuition, and need to provide objective evidence. My response is, yeah, maybe someday… but also if I never get around to it due to my laziness or whatever, then who really gives a rat?! As long as I’m happy, I’m happy – right!? ;D
Anyone who is interested is certainly invited to run their own experiments proving my theory true or false, which I can choose to accept or ignore. It’s all good!! ;D
Since I’ve tried blended partigyle I’ve been even less concerned with efficiency.
Same here! Partigyle is a sure-fire way to know how high efficiency is… not the yummiest thing. Taste them second runnings. Even after they are boiled separately for an hour or two or whatever… taste is WEAK.
Amanda – sorry if we’re derailing this again. [/derail]
I PM’d you Dave.
Where’s the fun in that!?
Seriously, awesome experiment, I look forward to reading more about the final results. Any plans to present the beers to blind tasters?
I switched my wort production to a modified no-sparge for all of my beers because of this^^^^. Turns out it is easier and more hands free than my previous way. I vary in efficiency from 65-68% with average gravity beers (1.050) down to 44% with huge gravity beers (1.100+). These high gravity beers also typically need a longer boil (sometimes 2 hrs) to reach my expected OG (unless there are large amounts of sugar additions).
I like the rich flavor profile from the no-sparge, although lately I feel that some beers can become a bit too bold for the style using this technique. So I am currently revamping some of my grain bills to account for this. We shall see how things go with competition season approaching in early spring with this.