Efficiency Calculations (cold break or not)

When calculating efficiency do you guys account for the 1/2 gallon +/- left in the brew pot after whirlpool and siphon into the primary, I usually leave behind at least 1/2 a gollon of cold break and hop sludge. That 1/2 gallon brings efficiency up around 6-8 % using beersmith. For those of you who use this method of course.
Thanks

You need to calc for the full volume of what's in the kettle otherwise you're efficiencies will be off. It is wort after all.

IMHO, the most honest eff measurement is brewhouse which accounts for volume and gravity of the wort in the fermenter compared to the amount of grain you started with. Yes, this means any wort loss after mash/lauter drops that number.

Sure, mash/lauter effiency is good to know, especially if you're getting really low numbers, for throuble shooting purposes. This if figured on the gravity of your preboil wort.

It depends on what efficiency you are calculating. If you want to know your brewhouse efficiency then it is based on what ends up in your fermentor. If you want to know your mash/sparge efficiency then it is based on what goes into your kettle. I would guess it is the latter efficiency most people post here.

GT

I talk in brewhouse here because it's the end result, bottom line. Quoting 90% out of the mashtun only to leave 2 gallons in the kettle would be a false sense of success.

What is the best course of action for those who dump the entire contents of the kettle into primary (cold-break and all)?

Should I take my SG reading in the kettle, and a volume measurement, then estimate how much I'm losing due to break/trub in the fermenter and adjust my brewhaus eff%?

Us pro brewers are most interested in mash/sparge efficency. I want to know what my mash/sparge process is doing on a consistent basis. what goes into kettle pre-boil. That tells you what your getting out of your mash-tun, brewhouse efficency has so many variables, i.e hot & cold break,shrinkage,amount of hops,filtered or not,etc. I still want to know brewhouse eff. to see my BBL yield, with that said you want to know if you run X amount of water through X grain and get 1.xxx gravity into kettle. This is what will accurately tell you what your getting out of your induvidual mash tun, and is what i punch into beersmith. If i rely on what goes into ferm./bright tank isn't going to tell me what i'm getting out of mash tun consistently, there's to many variables after pre-boil. This is assuming full volume boils of course. Cheers!!!