HomebrewandBeer.com forum

Regards speedie
Ps hope that the others follow my thoughts

Speedie, your thoughts are much easier to follow now that your leaving blank lines. Good one.

Hirns your felosify is sound in approach but flawed in reality (now dont get offended)

If the chippy can’t hang a door after 30 plus years he won’t be self employed and living on his reputation the same can be said for the teacher he will never get up the train of command as he can’t portray his thoughts adequately

I would argue that there is something to Hirn's philosphy. As a keen snow-skier I observed that the best skiers do not necessarily make the best ski instructors. An instructor of a low level class may not be a world-class skier but can be a great teacher, an awesome skier may teach a top level class based on ability and passing instructor exams but in reality may be a poor teacher, even more so if they have to teach a low level class. The awesome skier would still expect/demand respect if e.g. he was in a bar discussing skiing and said "I'm a top level ski instructor", despite actually being a poor teacher.

Speedie, on a personal note - your recent posts demonstrate an increased willingness to discuss and you have started to back up your viewpoint with reasoning and explanation. A big thumbs up to that, thats what its all about.

Cheers
Earle

They are still rambling lectures almost entirely removed from the point of the thread but.

70% is a figure i am happy with for now, it's reasonably consistent and I have enough AGs under my belt (80+) that i can predict when it's likely to go up or down.

The cost of malt is small so i am not bothered if i cant squeeze out another 10%, the key in brewing (in my opinion) is consistency and i have that.

I don't brew beer because it is cheaper than buying beer, i do so because i love brewing and getting into the science behind it.

I use a marga mill to crush the grain and have been for 3 years now. I plan on upgrading to something better but other things seem to leap frog them in priority. As i mentioned elsewhere, i batch sparge so that is less efficient that fly sparging but again, it works for me and I am happy with that. My system is an urn to heat water sitting on top of a few milk crates to gravity feed that into an esky which is my mash tun which i then gravity feed into buckets. I then transfer this by hand to the kettle. I gravity feed from the kettle through a plate chiller into a fermenter. Very simple but it works and i produce good beer. 20L at a time, occasionally 40L if i do a concentrated boil.

What's that age old saying? If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Happy to discuss this further but efficiency isn't everything in brewing. I aim for balanced beers (sometimes true to style) and in my opinion and going on the feedback i have received from BJCP judges (of which i am almost one) as well as non brewing mates, i am achieving that.

The key point in my ramblings is that it doesn't matter how you calculate efficiency, OG, IBU etc as long as the result is predictable and consistent then you are on the right track.

no probs doctor hear from you soon
speedie
and thanks earl