calculating efficiency?

MASH INGREDIENTS
-- 7 lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale 36
-- 0.75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt 30
-- 0.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit malt 35

(7X36)+(.75X30)+(.25X35)
252+7.5+26.25=285.75

286/7 wort pre boil?
40.8
1.041og I got a 1.032
32/41
so my efficiency is
78?

Gustavo said:

MASH INGREDIENTS
-- 7 lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale 36
-- 0.75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt 30
-- 0.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit malt 35

(7X36)+(.75X30)+(.25X35)
252+7.5+26.25=285.75

286/7 wort pre boil?
40.8
1.041og I got a 1.032
32/41
so my efficiency is
78?

Click to expand...

What is your batch size? 7 gallons? Or is that your pre boil volume?

Quick question. Is the 1032 measurement temperature adjusted? Hydrometer or refractometer?

According to here
http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/
you have 75.8% or so.

That would be your mash/lauter efficiency. You will probably lose a little bit to trub, dead space, hop absorption etc on the way to the fermenter (I lose about 5%). You could repeat the calculation using your OG and volume in the fermenter to get your brewhouse efficiency.

-a.

I'm having a migraine getting these numbers to make sense. The link you gave to the Brewersfriend calculator says "Brewhouse Efficiency", but isn't it calculating lauter efficiency (given the pre-boil volume/OG data)? From what I can tell, mash, lauter and brewhouse numbers are all calculated differently, and there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what the gold standard is. Well, brewhouse is easy enough, but I'm confused about the mash/lauter numbers.

Here's my example:
3.75lb Pilsner
2lb Light Munich
0.25lb Carapils
0.25lb Crystal 60L
0.25lb Victory

4.1 gallons pre-boil volume
OG 1.046 (temp corrected)

3.3 gallons post-boil volume
OG 1.052 (temp corrected)

Brewersfriend says I have 78% "Brewhouse" efficiency (I assume it's calculating lauter efficiency, may be wrong there), and Beersmith says I have 73% brewhouse efficiency based on the wort in fermenter. If I plug the post-boil numbers into Brewersfriend (as ajf said), I get 71% brewhouse efficiency. Not like it's a huge deal, the system makes great beers, but you kind of have to understand exactly what you're getting before you can make improvements on the mash side.

I normally just track the mash efficiency (the numbers you got in your original post). This is basically the measure of how much fermentable sugar you extracted from the grain. Brewhouse efficiency accounts for other factors including loss to trub, equipment, thermal expansion, etc.

All I really care about is if my mashing process is resulting is the highest consistent sugar extraction possible with my system.

YMMV

Yes pre boil. And my gravity reading was post boil

Reading was taken by a hydrometer. And no I dis not temp adj. O dis check on the calc. And I believe it was 1.034

Sorry damn spell check on iPhone , lol. Was typing to fast, well actually I just doubled check the temp adj. And it was about 1.036

There are several types of efficiency you can calculate at various stages in the brew, but you need to use the volume and SG from the same point in the process. You can't use the pre-boil volume with the post boil gravity, etc. If your end volume was 5 gal at 1.036, then you got ~63% from that grain bill. (286/5=57.2, 36/57.2=62.9)

or: 78+73+71/3 = 74%

Actually, I think the important calculation is the conversion of the sugars.
The others I would use for information or ignore.

Thank you

I used to do all of this by hand... now I just use BeerSmith!

Go with what's simple.

Can you do the various calculations in Beersmith, or just brewhouse? I'm more interested in the mash side, and these calcs are easy enough to do by hand. Can't find a way to get it out of Beersmith, strange since all the needed info is already plugged in.