Is this Efficiency Calc Correct?

I brewed Bier Muncher's Centennial Blonde yesterday (see recipe below) and I used the brewhouse efficiency calculator at Brewer's Friend, home brewing resources to calculate my efficiency.

I mashed for 70 minutes at 150 degrees and batch sparged at 165 and 170 with a 20 minute rest after adding the sparge water. I collected 7.25 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.03 at 125 degrees. Using the hydrometer tempurature adjustment calculator this gravity has an adjusted value of 1.040 at 59 degrees.

After inputing the grain bill into the calculator the brewhouse efficiency is 90.98. Is this correct? This is my third all grain and i'm still trying to figure out the calcs for efficiency. Post boil I collected approximately 5.5 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1.045.

Any help/clarification would be appreciated.



****5 Gallon Batch****

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.040 SG
Estimated Color: 3.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount
7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (55 min)
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (35 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (20 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min)
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) (Hydrated)


Mash at 150 degrees for 60 minutes.

What was the post boil volume and gravity? That is brewhouse efficiency. (I think it really should be the volume form the bottles or keg.)

I get 88.8% into the kettle and 76.2% into the Fermenter

Yankeehillbrewer,

Thanks for the response. How did you arrive at those numbers?

Thanks Again

I take the max PPG for the given grain, multiply that by the pounds you are using, & divide by gallons. Then divide the actual gravity by the maximum.

So...

2 Row 38 x7/5.5 = 48.36
Carapils 32 x .75/5.5 = 4.36
Caramel 10 35 x .5/5.5 = 3.18
Vienna 35 x .5/5.5 = 3.18
Total = 59(Rounded down) For you Max OG if you got 100% eff
45/59=76.2% efficiency into the fermenter

To figure what it is into the BK just change 5.5 to 7.25. I use the max PPG numbers from the chart in How to Brew.

Hope that helps

Got It.

Thanks, time to find the chart in How to Brew.

bhegarty said:

Got It.

Thanks, time to find the chart in How to Brew.

Click to expand...

Chapter 18, Page 193 in the hardcopy

There's also a malt table in HBT's very own wiki. You can also figure efficiency by using any one of many software packages out there, all of which have a free trial. Beersmith.com beertools.com, etc.

One thing in your op caught my eye:

I collected 7.25 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.03 at 125 degrees. Using the hydrometer tempurature adjustment calculator this gravity has an adjusted value of 1.040 at 59 degrees.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't measure the gravity at that high of a temp. I know there is a temp correction but when it's that warm it can be pretty far off. IMO, cool it to at least room temp before taking the reading.

What you might wanna do (on a non-brew day) is to measure some distilled water at the cal temp (you should get 1.000) and then measure it again at room temp. Then you'll have actually seen the difference and when you measure at room temp in the future you'll be better equipped to do the temp correction. Then just do all your measurements at room temp (which simplifies things imo).

Here's the wiki Malts Chart

EDIT: Just noticed that your Conversion (into kettle) and Brewhouse efficiency (into fermenter) are quite a bit apart. Often the reason for this is the volume measurements. Water expands as it heats so if you measure the volume when it's hot (like you would pre-boil) you'll get a number that's too high which inflates the efficiency number. Then if you measure the volume in your fermenter when it's cool you get a more accurate number. But in comparison the Brewhouse eff will seem low compared to the Conversion eff because the Conversion eff number was inflated.