Does my efficieny suck? ..... or have i been short changing myself?

I started brewing over six months ago now. I have done 6 or 7 all-grain brews. They have all turned out great. My efficiency has consistently been between 70-75% batch sparging in a ten gallon cooler with a copper manifold.

I've read through countless hundred page threads about batch vs. fly sparging. People using both methods claiming to get 80-87% with the occasional person claiming that they got 93%.

So I thought to myself "wow, does my process really suck that much that others are getting over 15% more efficiency points than me?"

It's not that 70% is unacceptable by any means. I know the amount of grain used to compensate is pretty marginal. However, since it is a hobby, reading about this stuff just interests me and I enjoy trying to refine and perfect my process as much as possible.

Then while doing my last batch I had a thought. I have been calculating "brewhouse efficiency" for all my past batches since this seems to be most useful in allowing you to plan for recipes to get the volume and gravity needed while accounting for trub loss. Suprisingly, my most recent batch was spot on my usual 70%

This past batch was an ipa and had about a gallon of trub due to the large volume of hops used in the recipe. So out of curiousity I calculated my "mash efficiency" or "extraction efficiency" (for some reason i had never calculated this before) using preboil gravity and volume and to my surprise it was 86%! Maybe my efficiency doesn't suck after all? or does it?

So after all that, my question is this. In all these efficiency arguments and claims you read on here where people are saying "I get 86%, i get 82%, etc.", which efficiency are people using? For comparibility purposes "mash efficiency" seems more proper to use as it is consistent from batch to batch. Trub volume and losses can vary depending on recipe and system design so comparing brewhouse efficiency seems useless. If you are comparing an ipa with six ounces of hops and a gallon of trub loss it is going to be a lot lower than a pale ale where you had an ounce of hops and sucked the kettle bone dry. However, your mash efficiency should be fairly consistent.

I had a similar question a while ago, here is what Mr. Joe Camel explained to me:

Joe Camel said:

Beersmith gives you 3 efficiency numbers but it would be better if it only gave 2 as one is confusing and in my opinion not meaningful.

1. Brewhouse efficiency based on target volume, what you have listed as actual efficiency. This is based on your final OG and the planned volume for your recipe. This is your efficiency if you intend to discard your excess wort, I don't like that it's here, or if it needs to be there, it should be renamed something other than actual or brewhouse efficiency, as it's neither.

2. Efficiency into the boiler - this is the product of your mash and lauter efficiencies. If you're getting 86%, it means you're probably getting full starch conversion and getting as much as you can expect from your batch sparge. Keep doing what you're doing.

3. Efficiency into the fermenter - This is your true brewhouse efficiency in Beersmith as it's based on mash, lauter and transfer from your boiler. Since it's calculated from actual volume measured and actual OG compared to your theoretical targets, it's a true value. This is the number I pay attention to and use to adjust the Brewhouse efficiency value in the recipe window.

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Thanks for clarifying. I also use beer smith.

In my original post the two efficiencies I am referring to are "efficiency into the fermenter" where the inputs are wort volume into the carboy (or fermentation vessel of your choice) & o.g.

The other is "efficiency into the boiler" which I refer to as "mash efficiency" in my post. The inputs being pre-boil wort volume and pre-boil gravity.

So if I were to post on one of these "batch vs fly sparging is better" threads? Would it be correct to reply with my 70% or my 86%? for comparability purposes with what others are claiming to get?

yeast_infection said:

So if I were to post on one of these "batch vs fly sparging is better" threads? Would it be correct to reply with my 70% or my 86%? for comparability purposes with what others are claiming to get?

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Most go by efficiency into the fermenter as total brewhouse efficiency, so 70%.

The efficiency you should be using (when comparing with others) is the efficiency into the fermenter. The efficiency into the boiler is useful for diagnosing mash/lauter problems, but nothing else.
Even the efficiency into the fermenter can be misleading. If you dump everything (including trub and hops) into the fermenter, you will get higher efficiency than if you leave the trub and hops behind; but you will leave more in the fermenter when the time comes to transfer to secondary, bottle, or keg.
There is nothing wrong with 70% brewhouse efficiency. That's what Jamil Zainasheff achieves. This is not because he couldn't get higher efficiency. It is because getting higher efficiency comes at the cost of lower quality, and he has chosen to go with lower efficiency to get the highest quality with his system.
The most important thing about efficiency is that it should be consistent. If it jumps about all over the place, you will never know what you are brewing.

-a.