Calculating efficiency, beersmith or by hand?

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dmbnpj

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I see that buying the beersmith program will allow me to enter some variables and it will kick out my efficiency for me.

I've read a couple articles on how to calculate it but it looks confusing. Plus, it looks like I will need to reference a list of all the different malts and the ppg they produce? In the examples, I couldn't find some of the malts on the list. What do most of you recommend?
 
You can guess at your efficiency the before the first time (by using beersmith or the like), but after that you can take a hydro reading before boil and measure your actual efficiency by plugging that number in beersmith.
 
It's good to know how to do everything "by hand" but now I rely on Beersmith.

When I do a decoction or a step mash, it's nice to have it all calculated out for me, but I think it's important to understand it and be able to do it by hand if you had to. Now that I've worked with the formulas, though, I'm pretty happy allowing the software to do the work. Best $20 I ever spent on brewing!
 
I usually do a quick calculation assuming 37 points per pound of grain.

So gallons collected times numbers to the right of the decimal point divided by pounds of grain times 37.

(5 gallons times 52) divided by (9# times 37) = 260/333 or 78%

The real calculation with specialty grains is better, but the above is close enough for me.
 
YooperBrew said:
It's good to know how to do everything "by hand" but now I rely on Beersmith.

When I do a decoction or a step mash, it's nice to have it all calculated out for me, but I think it's important to understand it and be able to do it by hand if you had to. Now that I've worked with the formulas, though, I'm pretty happy allowing the software to do the work. Best $20 I ever spent on brewing!
Click to expand...

+1 I'm with Yooper on this, for sure
 
I ended up buying beersmith and have a couple recipes in there. But, where exactly does it tell me my efficiency? I brewed a pale ale today and my O.G. ended up being 12 brix or 1.048 S.G.
 
Thats where it is. Thanks. I only got 63.2% efficiency. I guess beersmith defaults to 75% next to that efficiency button. Should I leave it at that?
 
Do you batch sparge?

Do you have a grain mill or have it crushed at the local brew store?
 
I have a Barley Crusher set at default, .038 or .039 not sure which. I tried the fly sparge cheaply, cottage cheese lid on top of the grain.
 

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