highest efficiency

So I just finished getting my first lager into the fermenter. I tested the gravity and was literally shocked by what I read. After breaking my hydrometer last week, I bought two so I wouldn't ever have to fly blind. So I grabbed the backup hydrometer to check the gravity again.... same reading. Holy Cow! I thought to myself, then I thought about efficiency. I wrote the recipe assuming an 80% efficiency, but blew the OG out of the water. And I had a larger volume than I planned on as well.... Geeze just how good was that efficiency? So on to the beer recipator, and here's the result:

87%


So what's your highest efficiency ever?

The first beer I brewed with my new Barley Crusher.

Ed Wort's Haus ale.

O.G. 1.057

91% eff

yeah, i write my recipes with 85% eff, but i've been hitting 91% pretty consistently. i dont want to change the efficiency in beersmith to 90% yet though, i know something will go wrong if i get too cocky!

Wouldn't the best time for calculating efficiency be before you boil? That shows the true amount of sugars/volume you have collected. After you boil for 4 hours (exaggeration obviously) you're going to have a much higher gravity.

I always thought the gravity before the boil was what to base efficiency on, then the gravity after the boil was just used to calculate ABV and ABW. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Man I usually plan for 60% efficiency and am happy if I get 70%. I feel like I must be doing something terribly wrong...

I have a cylindrical five gallon rubbermaid cooler mash tun with a false bottom. I do single infusion mashes and fly sparge. My LHBS or online supplier grinds the grains for me.

Same for me... usually have about 60%.

Next time I will buy a barley crusher and do a mash out before sparging. The grain I get from LHBS seems so uncrushed...

Hope to get at least 70% next time.

ksbrain said:

Man I usually plan for 60% efficiency and am happy if I get 70%. I feel like I must be doing something terribly wrong...

I have a cylindrical five gallon rubbermaid cooler mash tun with a false bottom. I do single infusion mashes and fly sparge. My LHBS or online supplier grinds the grains for me.

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Dude, there is NOTHING wrong with 70% efficiency (or even 60% for that matter), especially if you don't crush your own grains. It's not like these things are grades on your brewing ability, like 60% is a C or 75% is a B and 90%+ is an A. All that matters is that you can replicate your numbers consistently.

Remember that most recipes are designed to be in the 65 - 75% range of brewhouse efficiency. That's pretty typical. In some ways, getting really high efficiency, like 90%, is a PITA because you will have to convert every recipe you come across to make it work with your system!

Seriously, we probably pay much more attention to the size of those efficiency numbers than we need to, when we really need to be paying attention to how consistent those numbers are from batch to batch.

I was just looking at another thread on the issue, and they showed a picture of their home-crushed grain. My crushed grain does not look like that! I just assumed that the LHBS and online shop were crushing in a normal way that would give good efficiency. But it seems I may be wrong there.

INeedANewHobby said:

Wouldn't the best time for calculating efficiency be before you boil? That shows the true amount of sugars/volume you have collected. After you boil for 4 hours (exaggeration obviously) you're going to have a much higher gravity.

I always thought the gravity before the boil was what to base efficiency on, then the gravity after the boil was just used to calculate ABV and ABW. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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No, you could sparge with 3 gallons of water or you could sparge with 8 gallons of water and your efficiency could be the same, you'd just have a much larger water to grain ratio. Once your boil is done and you have 5 gallons of water, that's what you are calculating for. If I have x amount of grains and y amount of water and I get allllll the sugar out of those grains, what will my z gravity be in y amount of water? y could change and z could change, but the ratio to x would be the same efficiency no matter what. It's best to use your final amount of water to grain ratio, post boil.

Ó Flannagáin said:

No, you could sparge with 3 gallons of water or you could sparge with 8 gallons of water and your efficiency could be the same, you'd just have a much larger water to grain ratio. Once your boil is done and you have 5 gallons of water, that's what you are calculating for. If I have x amount of grains and y amount of water and I get allllll the sugar out of those grains, what will my z gravity be in y amount of water? y could change and z could change, but the ratio to x would be the same efficiency no matter what. It's best to use your final amount of water to grain ratio, post boil.

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Exactly, that's why I had to go back and redo the calculations, because I over sparged and ended up with about 7 gallons post boil. Efficiency doesn't matter much as long as you achieve about what you expected. If you're WAY off, then the utilization of your hops will go down, which could throw a beer way off balance. In my case the IBU's went from 29 to 27. No biggy, just means that I will use 85% when I write the next recipe.

I have an idea for anyone trying to increase efficiency:

stop after filling your boil pot half way, and stir the heck out of the mash (try not to splash). You will have to recirculate again to reset the grain bed, but I've found that raises my efficiency by more than ten percent. Also, try to get the total water volume right, so the mash drains dry right when the boil pot fills. If there's still some left, but not enough room in the pot, put the last bit in a different pot. Then start the boil but don't put any hops in at first. Let some water boil out, and add the extra into the pot. Watch out for boil over when you add.

Oh, and get a mill, even if it's a corona. I crush pretty darn tight with mine and haven't had a stuck sparge problem yet.

I crush tight with my corona as well... no problems yet, except my drill starts smoking half way through the crush. Kinda freaks me out.

Aren't you supposed to stop sparging at some certain specific gravity of the runnings? I don't have a refractometer, so I've always just sparged to my pre-boil volume. I might try to stir up the mash like that next time.

ksbrain said:

Aren't you supposed to stop sparging at some certain specific gravity of the runnings? I don't have a refractometer, so I've always just sparged to my pre-boil volume. I might try to stir up the mash like that next time.

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When I'm doing big beers, I usually sparge one extra time with a little extra water and then boild for 2 hours. Throw my hops in after the first hour. Helps get that extra bit of efficiency with 14+ lbs of grain.

INeedANewHobby said:

Wouldn't the best time for calculating efficiency be before you boil? That shows the true amount of sugars/volume you have collected. After you boil for 4 hours (exaggeration obviously) you're going to have a much higher gravity.

I always thought the gravity before the boil was what to base efficiency on, then the gravity after the boil was just used to calculate ABV and ABW. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

I generally take a reading and note the volume at two places, pre-boil and post boil right after cooling. I only have two brews under my belt with the new BC so I'm a little reluctant to start changing the brewhouse efficiency quite yet.

I know I am lucky with a great HBS, but I still fail to understand why so many people out there are getting bad crushes from their HBS. Theoretically, the HBS owner/employees are probably homebrewers themselves crushing their grains in the store where they work.

Do they fail to realize their bad crush? What kind of mills do they even use?

I don't know what kind of mill my store uses, I'll check it out next time, but I don't see how they could crush that much differently than if I did it myself using the same system.

With that said, I hit 77-78% my last batch. After my first mash (in which I didn't know what I was doing) I haven't gone below 75%.

PseudoChef said:

I know I am lucky with a great HBS, but I still fail to understand why so many people out there are getting bad crushes from their HBS. Theoretically, the HBS owner/employees are probably homebrewers themselves crushing their grains in the store where they work.

Do they fail to realize their bad crush? What kind of mills do they even use?

I don't know what kind of mill my store uses, I'll check it out next time, but I don't see how they could crush that much differently than if I did it myself using the same system.

With that said, I hit 77-78% my last batch. After my first mash (in which I didn't know what I was doing) I haven't gone below 75%.

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I crush my own now, but one order I got from NB was an absolute, terrible crush. I got about 45% efficiency. I knew it was bad before my brew, but I was living in Germany and didn't want to mail it back and wait for themt o mail back to me. WOuld've been another 10 days to a week before I could've brewed.

There are two problems that CAN occur from over crushing: stuck sparge, and excessive husk in the boil. On my last brew (the one that hit 87%) I ground the grain really tight. There wasn't one single whole granule in the batch. Getting the flow started took a little stirring and scraping, then a little blowing air into the drain hose to loosen up some gunk, but it was corn grits that were getting stuck not barley (makin an american pilsner). I didn't have a problem getting the wort to clear after that. I've seen the pre-crushed grain at the LHBS but it is like half crushed at best. If you're trying to take total control of your brewing, a mill is a must have item. Maybe you could ask the LHBS to give you a finer crush next time?

Ó Flannagáin said:

I crush my own now, but one order I got from NB was an absolute, terrible crush. I got about 45% efficiency. I knew it was bad before my brew, but I was living in Germany and didn't want to mail it back and wait for themt o mail back to me. WOuld've been another 10 days to a week before I could've brewed.

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What efficiency do you get from your Corona mill? I got mine really really cheap from someone terribly dissatisfied with it, but haven't made the plunge to all-grain yet. (I need mash tun and a bigger brew kettle first.) I was quite happy with my crush after a few minutes tweaking, but of course I have no idea how it will work in a mash.

Ølbart said:

What efficiency do you get from your Corona mill? I got mine really really cheap from someone terribly dissatisfied with it, but haven't made the plunge to all-grain yet. (I need mash tun and a bigger brew kettle first.) I was quite happy with my crush after a few minutes tweaking, but of course I have no idea how it will work in a mash.

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I was getting 75-80 regularly, then I switched from hand cranking to drill and it's dropped to 68-70. I have to figure out my drill settings better and it will go back up.

ksbrain said:

Aren't you supposed to stop sparging at some certain specific gravity of the runnings? I don't have a refractometer, so I've always just sparged to my pre-boil volume. I might try to stir up the mash like that next time.

Click to expand...

I've read that you shouldn't sparge with any more than 1/2 gal per lb of grain. Otherwise, you start to leach tannins out of the grain husks. I believe this has to do with the pH of the water/sweet liquor rising as the sugars are depleted from the grain bed.

Of course, what I haven't read is how this number should be adjusted (up or down) based on the thickness of your mash (I usually mash w/ 1qt-1.25qt/lb of grain). Anyone else have a rule of thumb for "total water used" per lb of grain?

Highest I've had recently was 92 or 93%. Though the last couple of have not been as good 75% and 83% respectively. I have my recipes set at 85% so those hurt a little.

My goal though isn't the efficiency number itself. I want to hit my OG on a consistent basis. If I got 75% consistently and hit my OG I would be happy with it. It's when I plan on 85% and hit 90% that I don't really like. You end up with either a bigger beer or more beer with less IBU's (unless you manage to change your hops additions). Honestly of all the batches I've done this year, I think only one has hit the OG. Most were only a couple of points off and only one or two were way out of whack (the last two). Got another one planned for this weekend and hopefully I can get it back on track.

ctkach said:

I've read that you shouldn't sparge with any more than 1/2 gal per lb of grain. Otherwise, you start to leach tannins out of the grain husks. I believe this has to do with the pH of the water/sweet liquor rising as the sugars are depleted from the grain bed.

Of course, what I haven't read is how this number should be adjusted (up or down) based on the thickness of your mash (I usually mash w/ 1qt-1.25qt/lb of grain). Anyone else have a rule of thumb for "total water used" per lb of grain?

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I do 1.25qt/lb of grain for my mash, then just sparge with however much I need to hit my pre-boil target.

The best efficiency I've gotten so far has been 72%.

Screw all you guys with 90%+

:fro:

The best efficiency I ever had was 91%, and it took a lot of sixty-somethings to get there. Now I average high seventies-low eighties.

87% once. I see that as a fluke and not as my new target.

I regularly reach somewhere in the 74-80% range now. But that is since I started buying my grain from a little LHBS in another state. (Cheaper AND better than the big mail order places.) I'm a believer: a good grind helps a lot.

According to Beersmith I've hit 106% into the boiler twice. But I end up with about 91-89% almost everytime. I love my crankandstein.

sause said:

According to Beersmith I've hit 106% into the boiler twice. But I end up with about 91-89% almost everytime. I love my crankandstein.

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Obviously you (or that program) aren't very good at math.

brett said:

The best efficiency I've gotten so far has been 72%.

Screw all you guys with 90%+

:fro:

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I thought I hit 73% today, but after getting the wort into the fermenter it was only 68%. Still that's my best so far. The 3 I did prior to today were about 63%.