Brew house efficiency for an imperial stout

[Nmnbrewer]

Designing a Russian imperial stout recipe and I'm just wondering what you biab full volume no spargers have been setting your brew house efficiency at on beersmith. Normally I'm set at 72 for a typical medium gravity beer.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Depends a lot on your process, and grain bill amounts.

Use my calculator, below, and first set it up for an average brew day for you. Then increase the grain bill and you should see the lauter, mash, and brewhouse efficiencies decrease in turn.


https://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/#Advanced

 

[ampsnohms]

I second that priceless brewing calculator. That **** is gold. Always perfectly accurate once you adjust it with your numbers.

 

[Tarpon87]

I am normally in the high 70s for efficiency using full volume biab, I did a tenfidy clone a few months ago and I was in the low 60s for efficiency. Most my grainbills are between 14-16lbs, the stout was around 24-25, cant remember exactly w/o my notes.

 

[Smellyglove]

Around 55% Mash efficiency for an 1.115 OG with targeted preboil volume. If I drain my mash completely I'm up to 60% Mash efficiency as I'm getting much higher preboil volumes than a "normal" grist. with the same numbers for grain absorption.

I'm usually at 72%-ish too for normal beers, so I guess you can ballpark it with my numbers.

 

[Dcpcooks]

I see a 12-15% reduction in efficiency once I climb over 1.100. It'll increase gradually as og climbs. So I usually go from 80% to 65-67% for imperial beers.

 

[Smellyglove]

I see a 12-15% reduction in efficiency once I climb over 1.100. It'll increase gradually as og climbs. So I usually go from 80% to 65-67% for imperial beers.

Is this with no-sparge?

 

[TheBrewBrotha]

I agree that this depends on your process and will also cosign https://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/#Advanced

I've only brewed one RIS and set me efficiency to 65% in BeerSmith and ended up with 70%. When brewing big beers, efficiency takes a hit. Sometimes a big one, wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[doug293cz]

Here's a chart that shows what lauter efficiency does as the gran bill to pre-boil volume ratio increases for both single batch sparge and no-sparge for several different levels of grain absorption. Small beers on the left, big beers on the right. If you conversion efficiency stays constant, then mash efficiency will vary proportionately to lauter efficiency (mash eff = conv eff * lauter eff.)



Brew on

 

[Dcpcooks]

Is this with no-sparge?

No I fly sparge with a 3 kettle germs system.

 

[doug293cz]

No I fly sparge with a 3 kettle germs system.

Better sanitation can help with those germs.

The general effects of going to larger grain bills are the same regardless of sparge process, or no-sparge. The curves of efficiency vs grain bill size will shift up or down, and change slope a bit depending on process.

Brew on