Calculating Efficiency with BTL or Beeralchemy

Just dowloaded some free trial for BTL and Beeralchemy. I just went over to all grain and I do not know what my efficiency was for my first batch. My primary concern is calculating this and using a brewing program that I will continue to use for all brewing tasks. I couldn't figure out how to do this calculation, beeralchemy just wanted me to put my efficiency in...and I don't know it. So, do either of these programs do this and I'm just looking over it, and which one would you recommend?

You should be able to figure out your efficiency by knowing the SG, total volume in fermentor, recipe, and preboil volume. I've had a few drinks, so there's probably more to it.

I use beer tools pro and love it. It's a very clean program and easy to figure out once you play with it for awhile. I just punch in my recipe, pre-boil volume, post-boil volume, and SG and it'll tell me what my efficiency was.

Beeralchemy asks your efficiency so that when you start creating recipes it predicts your OG for a particular profile. It's nice. You can have different profiles for different styles or different ingredient sources or whatever you wish, all with different efficiencies. The thing is that you have no idea what your efficiency is. Since you're new to all grain, put 70% in as a starting point for your first recipe with this program. After you input your first recipe, it will give you an anticipated OG which you can compare to your actual stats.

BA is updated a couple times a month and does everything I want from a brewing program.

If you have the stats from your first batch Beeralchemy will calculate your mash efficiency for you, here is what to do. Add the recipe that you brewed then add a batch to that recipe, put in all the stats (particularly pre-boil volume and gravity) from that batch and then go to the compare tab and it will tell you your mash efficiency.

I'm a bit confused. Beeralchemy reports my actual "mash efficiency" as 72.1%.

Brewer's Friend, on the other hand, has 4 different calcs for efficiency: conversion efficiency, Pre-boil efficiency, ending kettle efficiency, and brewhouse efficiency. My numbers there were 89.5%, 73%, 72%, and 61.4% respectively. (link to calc: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ )

It appears that BeerAlchemy is reporting either Pre-boil efficiency or Ending Kettle efficiency, rather than Conversion efficiency. My understanding is that most everyone's conversion efficiency (assuming proper methods) should be at least 90%.

I'm ok with my 89.5% conversion efficiency, and probably ok with 73/72% kettle efficiency, but Brewhouse efficiency of 61% seems low.

Can anyone comment on this? Thank you.

Jeremy