ghart999

Recipes 

Just curious? I assume they all fly sparge too?

menschmaschine

Recipes 

I'm gonna make an educated guess and say well into the 90s. Probably 95+. I believe most do continuous sparging with some variance including hybrid techniques.

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Bigsnake

Recipes 

I'd guess they get pretty high as well. At least in the high 80s. idk if they can go too high because they can pull out other flavors they don't want. Being 65% vs 75% for homebrewers isn't a big deal but for commercial breweries small changes can cost them a lot in extra grain and inconsistent brews.

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6g Better Bottle: Belgian Abt 12 Style
Kegged: English Barleywine, debaniel's Bananas Foster
Bottled: Dude's Fat Tire Clone, Belgian Pale Ale, Orange Blossom Mead

Kilgore_Trout

Recipes 

Yeah I'd say 95 is a reasonable number, at least 90.

Efficiency keeps costs down, which is a good thing if you focus on providing a cheap product.

lamarguy

Recipes 

Ya, 95% extract efficiency in a commercial brewery sounds about right.

ghart999

Recipes 

Wow. 95% is impressive for sure.

I am happy when I break 72%

GilaMinumBeer

Recipes 

I'd say 90% +/-. Which, actually, is feasible for homebrewers too.

And not all Breweries fly sparge, heck, not ALL breweries are All-Grain.

BeerPressure

Recipes 

do they get a tanker truck full of LME?

Kaiser

Recipes 

95-98% is a good range for a large commercial brewery. Small micro breweries that use single infusion and lauter in the mash tun should get less. I'd expect around 90%.

This link shows info for the Huppmann Lauterstar, a high end lautertun. On page 6 there is a chart that shows the OBY (overall brewhouse yield) for a few "brands". They range from 93 - 98%. I have a textbook that shows that very little of unconverted starch and also very little sugars are left in the spent grain. This attests to excellent conversion and lauter efficiency.

Note that the big breweries get this high efficiency with only 5-7% boil-off. I.e. their preboil volume is only about 6% larger than their cast-out. Compare that to the 15-20% boil-off that many home brewers need for 90+ efficiency.

Kai

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Kauai_Kahuna

Recipes 

Kaiser - Has spoken, so I have nothing to really add.
I was just wondering if we have some BMC workers here that may be able to take a stab in the dark. When it comes to to quality control, and perfecting a process. They have to as close as possible.
BTW, Kaiser - Thanks for the link, I learn a lot today.

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In Primary: Belgium Chimay clones.
In Secondary: Braggot, pale ale, end of the world white.
Conditioning: Mead, Cider, braggot, Belgium Wheat.
On Tap: Clones, Chimay Blue, Red, Porter, malted cider.
Bottles: Far, far, too many to list.