How does one determime "efficiency"??

Hi all, just getting back into all grain after a 10 year break and am wondering how you determent the efficiency percentage of the mash?

Thanks,
Mikey.

Certain types of grains have a maximum amount of sugar they can contribute to a volume of water to make wort.

For example: Look at everybody else's posts in these threads! =)

Make sense?

EDIT: I am retarded.

JoePro said:

Make sense?

Click to expand...

Not entirely correct...

You use the 37 of the PPG, not the full 1.037

37*8 (lb) = 296 PPG

296/5 (gal) = 59.2 or 1.059 OG @ 100%

59*.8 (for 80%) = 47.63 or 1.048 OG @ 80% efficiency

Here's a good chart for a rough PPG if you want to do calculations by hand; though most (all?) software will do this for you.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-4-1.html

Umm, I think JoePro's got the general idea but that math is a train wreck.

Most base malts give 36-37 points per pound. So, starting with 8 lbs of base malt you've got 296 points to work with.

296 / 5 gal = 59.2 or an ideal starting gravity of 1.059

If your actual starting gravity was say 1.049 for 5 gal, that means you got 49 points per pound per gallon.

49 / 59.2 = 82.8% efficiency.

Ah hah! So find (from the chart) your points per pound, depending on the grain/malt type and take the last 2 digits of the OG and divide by 59.2 and that gives your efficiency? Got it.

So when doing a 10-11 gal batch you wouldn't have to adjust any figures would you?

Thanks fellas!

MikeyM said:

Ah hah! So find (from the chart) your points per pound, depending on the grain/malt type and take the last 2 digits of the OG and divide by 59.2 and that gives your efficiency? Got it.

Thanks fellas!

Click to expand...

Not completely...

potential PPG * lb of grain = total PPG

total PPG / final gallons of water = total potential OG

actual OG / total potential OG = efficiency.

Here's a good example from Palmer: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-5.html


And, welcome back to brewing!

MikeyM said:

Ah hah! So find (from the chart) your points per pound, depending on the grain/malt type and take the last 2 digits of the OG and divide by 59.2 and that gives your efficiency? Got it.

Thanks fellas!

Click to expand...

No. The 59.2 number is an example.

Take your recipe and add up all the 100% efficiencies for each grain [SUM(your quantity * the last two digits of the points per pound)/batch size].

Then take your pre-boil gravity and divide the last two digits of that by the amount you calculated. That's your Mash efficiency.

AZ_IPA said:

Not completely...

potential PPG * lb of grain = total PPG

total PPG / final gallons of water = total potential OG

total potential OG / actual OG = efficiency.


And, welcome back to brewing!

Click to expand...

*actual OG / total potential OG = efficiency

Here's a good blurb on the process: http://hbd.org/uchima/tech/efficiency.html

Good stuff. Thanks again!

I just record my ingredients, volumes, and gravities into BeerAlchemy and let it do the computation.

This is what brewing software is there for!