Batch efficiency

[dentdr]

What is batch efficiency? and what is an acceptable number??

 

[arnoldk2]

Normally when talking efficiencies you are talking about brewhouse efficiency or extraction efficiency. The brewhouse efficiency takes into account your entire system and your process and determines how efficient it is. It looks at how much sugar is extracted from your grain, how much water put in vs water removed. A low brewhouse efficiency will require more grain and water to produce the beer you want. Extraction efficiency tells how much sugar is being extracted from the grains. I use this number when calculating the lbs of grain i need. Every grain you use has a extract potential. This potential extraction along with you extraction efficiency will allow you to figure out how much grain is needed. I use beer smith instead of hand calculating me recipes now. Beer smith only has a brew house efficiency input. I batch sparge and after a few tweaks to my gear and process my brewhouse efficiency is 75%. It normally takes 3 or 4 brews to dial in your efficiency. A good jumping off point is 65%. After taking your OG measurement you can now adjust your efficiency accordingly for your next beer.

 

[TopherM]

Most recipes assume a 70% brewhouse efficiency, so would call that the benchmark. I find that efficiency is MOST important in being able to reproduce brews. Having a high/low efficiency really isn't as important as having a CONSISTENT efficiency where you know you can brew the same recipe at two different times and hit the same OG/FG/ABV and flavor profile, because you extracted pretty close to the same amount of sugars from the grain in both attempts.

My equipment is dialed in at about 76% (+/- 2 or so) efficiency, which I'm more than happy with. I can reproduce my house brews all day and they end up pretty much exactly the same, whereas someone with varying efficiencies, like 83% one batch, 69% the next, 74% the next, couldn't do the same recipe twice and expect the same final results.

Hope that makes sense!!