Calculating Efficency in Beersmith. Got a question.

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fat x nub

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So I noticed that I can calculate my effeciency by clicking on the brewhouse efficiency button in Beersmith:ban:. However, I noticed that there are three ways it tells me my effecency:

1) Based on OG
2) Based on volume and OG going into the boiler
3) Based on batch voulme going into the fermenter

Should I average the three together or just look at a particular one? Thanks guys
 
I don't have Beersmith, but you cannot calculate efficiency without knowing both the volume and gravity.
1 Does not take volume into account, so I don't see how that could work.
2 is your lauter efficiency which tells you how well the mash and sparge has gone. That's good to know if you need to make some adjustments during the boil
3 doesn't mention the gravity of the wort going into the fermenter, but I suspect if you look at the values to be entered to get the answer, you will find that OG is one of them. If so, this would be your brew house efficiency (which should always be lower than 2) as you lose some volume due to trub, hop absorption, and wort left in the equipment.

-a.
 
Efficiency calculations require grainbill weights(with maximum yield stats), volume, and gravity. The software obviously knows the grainbill. The "into the boiler" calc is mash/lauter efficiency. "into the fermenter" is brewhouse. Both are important.
 
I don't have Beersmith, but you cannot calculate efficiency without knowing both the volume and gravity.
1 Does not take volume into account, so I don't see how that could work.
2 is your lauter efficiency which tells you how well the mash and sparge has gone. That's good to know if you need to make some adjustments during the boil
3 doesn't mention the gravity of the wort going into the fermenter, but I suspect if you look at the values to be entered to get the answer, you will find that OG is one of them. If so, this would be your brew house efficiency (which should always be lower than 2) as you lose some volume due to trub, hop absorption, and wort left in the equipment.

-a.

I will post a pic :D:

Might be a little big but w/e
beersmithuc9.jpg
 
Efficiency calculations require grainbill weights(with maximum yield stats), volume, and gravity. The software obviously knows the grainbill. The "into the boiler" calc is mash/lauter efficiency. "into the fermenter" is brewhouse. Both are important.

Ok thanks a lot. But when it calculates brewhouse effiecency does it take the gravity into effect?
 
Efficiency.JPG


BE Based on Target:

This section merely helps the user to tweak the estimate efficiency used to determine the potential extract based on the PPPG figures as keyed for individual ingredients (Grain, Sugar, Adjuncts)

Efficiency into Boiler:

This is your Mash Efficiency or Sparge efficiency. Again dependant on the accuracy of extract potential for the DB ingredients. This tells you how much of the sugar you actually extracted from the grist.

Efficiency into Fermenter:

This is the actual Brewhouse efficiency. Which takes in consideration how well the Mash/Sparge went, volume boiled off, how well you compensated for dead space losses and how well you hit your intended gravity post boil.

So, you want to pay attention to all 3.

Edit: OP linked pic while I was typing. Dang.
 
Yeah, it has to. Now that you posted the pic, I can see why it's confusing. The first box and last box are both variations of the same calculation. The first box is using your batch size number as the volume and your actual entered OG. Then the 3rd box is there because it's often you'll find that you ended up with a little more or less volume into the fermenter due to unplanned boiloff rates or hop absorption so it gives you a place to enter the actual. Doing that gives you a corrected brewhouse efficiency. It would have been a little more intuitive to join those two sections.
 
Yeah, it has to. Now that you posted the pic, I can see why it's confusing. The first box and last box are both variations of the same calculation. The first box is using your batch size number as the volume and your actual entered OG. Then the 3rd box is there because it's often you'll find that you ended up with a little more or less volume into the fermenter due to unplanned boiloff rates or hop absorption so it gives you a place to enter the actual. Doing that gives you a corrected brewhouse efficiency. It would have been a little more intuitive to join those two sections.

Thanks! I am going to start calculating effiecency now:mug:
 
Look at the top section first.
On the right side, it states that you have set you have set the program up to expect 70% efficiency, which would result in an OG of 1.046 if you achieved your required target volume of 6.00g. (I know you had specified a target volume of 6.00g because section 3 - right side states planned volume is 6.00g)
You actually achieved a gravity of 1.047, but it fails to take into account that you only collected 5.50g of wort instead of the 6.00g that you had told Beersmith that you would collect. The Actual Efficiency reported in this section is incorrect as you did not achieve the planned volume. However, as the efficiency reported in this section is higher than those reported in sections 2 and 3, it indicates that you have entered an incorrect parameter (in this case the boil off rate) somewhere else.

Section 2 is much more understandable. You specify the volume and the pre-boil gravity. The left side is what you specified, the right side specified what you had set Beersmith up to excpect.
You hit the pre-boil volume exactly (7.00g), but your bre-boil gravity was a few points low. The percentage reported here is what I referred to as your lauter efficiency, and Bobby_M referred to (more accurately) as your mash/lauter efficiency. Beersmith refers to it as "Efficiency into Boiler". This is a parameter specified by you, and to get accurate results you need to adjust this parameter downwards by about 3%

Section 3 reports your brewhouse efficiency. You entered the volume into the fermenter in this section, and it uses the OG entered in section 1 to complete the calculation. You lost an additional 2% (which is pretty good) between your Efficiency into Boiler, and your Brewhouse Efficiency.

I don't know exactly what parameter Beersmith expects for the efficiency prediction, but my guess would be Brewhouse Efficiency, in which case, you should reduce it by about 5%

Hope you can understand all this.

-a.
 
That whole display in BS is a mess.

What is called "Actual Efficiency" in the first section really isn't your Brewhouse efficiency (unless you hit your planned final volume exactly), and what is called "Efficiency as calculated from Actual Volume" in the third section really is your actual Brewhouse efficiency because it is based on all the actuals, plus your grain bill. What is called "Brewhouse Efficiency" in the first section is really your assumed input Brewhouse efficiency from which BS calculated the "Estimated OG" above it.

The "Planned Volume" in the second section serves no useful purpose since no estimated mash/lauter efficiency based on it is calculated and displayed. That would be interesting for comparison with your actual mash/lauter efficiency though. The field labeled "Efficiency into Boiler" belongs to the left underneath the actuals from which it is calculated.

If I were redesigning that dialogue box, I'd clearly label the input assumed efficiency and display all the estimated efficiencies based on input or calculated volumes in one section. Then I'd put all the actuals and results calculated from them in a separate section. I think that would make it more understandable.
 
If you would contact the people at Beersmith, it would help the programmer(s) of Beersmith to understand what brewers want changed. If we don't do this then we deserve what we get. Sometimes it takes a while to get software bugs ironed out though. I do think that it is one of the best programs of it's type but they should jump on this obvious stuff that makes new brewers have to ask all these questions. Programs should work properly when they are sold but that never seems to be the case.
 
The short answer is when someone asks what your efficiency is - it's #3.
 
Another thing that would be helpful for the efficiency displays and calculations is if BS would show you your total gravity units from your grain bill. The total possible at 100% efficiency, your estimated yield calculated from your grain bill and your input efficiency, and the actual total GUs based on your actual volume and OG.

Another thing I'd like to see is the estimated GU yields displayed along side each fermentable item in your grain bill on the main recipe page. Right to the right of the % of fermentables column. You can calculate this yourself since each fermentable item has a potential yield associated with it and you can display these in the detailed information for the item. But BS is already calculating them, so it might as well display them.

Another thing I'd like to see is the ability to calculate how much hops of a particular hop to use based on an input of HBUs (home bittering units) or AAUs (Alpha Acid Units), since many recipes specify bitterness in those terms. For example, a recipe might call for .5 oz of Columbus at 14% AA (7 HBUs) for an extract recipe, and 20% less (5.6 HBUs) for an all-grain full-boil batch due to higher hop utilization in the latter case. But you've got Columbus that was measured at 12.2% this year instead of the recipes presumed 14%. You can change the AA% for any hop when you add it to your recipe, but it would be nice to calculate the weight of the addition based on the desired HBUs.

Another thing that would be nice would be for BS to calculate the IBUs based on the method, since the method affects hop utilization. You get different utilization in a partial boil versus a full boil. Maybe it does this already, but I can't tell if it does.

So now that I've added all these suggestions, perhaps I'll point the BS developer to this thread. I must say, the program is amazing and hugely beneficial as it stands, but continued improvements like these would make it even more so.
 
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