My efficiency

So I've done 4 small AG batches now and, until today's batch, I never really scrutinized how well my efficiency has been. I downloaded and used the 2 spreadsheets from the wiki. I know lots of people boast efficiency in the 70's & 80's, but I'm never sure if they mean extract efficiency or brewhouse. What I'd like to know is how good or bad are my efficiencies. This latest batch I got a brewhouse efficiency of 64%, a theoretical lautering efficiency of 90%, and an extract efficiency of 72% (based on theoretical lautering and brewhouse). My extract efficiency (based on first wort extract content) is 84%.

Unless noted otherwise, I talk in brewhouse efficiency. Maybe it's counterintuitive but it's the net product and therefore best represents what you got out of given grain bill. I don't care if you get 100% mash lauter efficiency if you leave 3 gallons of it in the kettle during the fermenter transfer.

I agree with Bobby. It's what's going into the fermenter that matters.

Apollo said:

I agree with Bobby. It's what's going into the fermenter that matters.

Click to expand...

That's true as long as you are not trying to troubleshoot your efficiency. Then you really need to know what your conversion and lauter efficiency numbers are.

Where would you say my numbers fall? Is a brewhouse efficiency of 64% on the low-end or about average?

I'd say it's about on the lower end of average. You should be able to get ~70% depending on the multitude of factors (crush, pH, sparge temp, accuracy of measurements [volume and gravity])

But, based on the numbers you posted, your lauter efficiency looks good, so if you can convert a little better, it should correspond to a nearly point-by-point increase in your brewhouse efficiency.

You're conversion efficiency should be able to get into the low 90s.

Sithdad said:

Where would you say my numbers fall? Is a brewhouse efficiency of 64% on the low-end or about average?

Click to expand...

I normally get around 75% brewhouse efficiency doing brew in a bag, using pre-crushed grain bought from Northern Brewer and kind of winging it on things like pH/chemistry control (I ran the numbers once and figured out what I needed to do to get where I want to be, but I don't normally bother measuring and adjusting during each mash).

+1 on improving the conversion efficiency.

kuphish said:

That's true as long as you are not trying to troubleshoot your efficiency. Then you really need to know what your conversion and lauter efficiency numbers are.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear ya there. In troubleshooting discussions, we'd be breaking out the various components. If just speaking generally for recipe creation and such, it would be brew house.

Sithdad said:

Where would you say my numbers fall? Is a brewhouse efficiency of 64% on the low-end or about average?

Click to expand...

In the end your efficiency doesn't matter as much as if you can consistently get the same efficiency. If you plan for and get 64% efficiency nearly every batch then I'd say you are in a better boat than a guy that occasionally gets 80% every few batches.

Bobby_M said:

If just speaking generally for recipe creation and such, it would be brew house.

Click to expand...

Don't agree with this. What Brewsmith refers to as "Efficiency to Boiler" is the most important for my recipe formulation. This is an effective number to use because it combines both mash and lauter efficiency. In other words, wort quality. It's based on pre-boil gravity and volume, so is the most important factor when calculating hop usage. Poor brewhouse efficiency means that you're wasting beer, but doesn't speak to the quality of the beer.

One example would be loosing final volume due to leaf hops soaking up wort. This would result in poor brewhouse effficency. The beer is still good, there's just less of it. You wouldn't adjust your recipe in any way other than evenly scaling for volume.