Efficiency explained...?

[Jonathan Daniel]

So I've brewed several batches, all extract and all from kits from my local HB store. They all turned out wonderful. I'm planning now on taking the next step and am going to start all grain by doing BIAB brewing for several batches (until I get comfortable with it and until I can afford a three tier system). I understand that in order to really be successful with all grain, you need to be able to understand your efficiency. However there are a few things under that umbrella that I don't understand and can't seem to find answers for on the interwebs.

If I understand things, brew house efficiency is the effectiveness of my personal equipment to extract the sugars from the grains, as well as any water loss during boiling or mashing or to the trub. Is that correct? If so, it sounds to me that I have to brew many, many batches and measure all of those things (water loss, gravity, etc) at all phases in order to understand the pattern and the efficiency. But my problem/concern is that I'll never have an accurate "my system brews at an efficiency of 72%" because there's always going to be some variable I didn't know about...temperature outside, maybe my burner is running hot that day, whatever it is.

So how do you get around that? Do I have to brew, like, 100 batches in order to just understand what my efficiency is so I'll know going forward how to adjust recipes for my own system?

And I know that 'efficiency' in one form relates to the potential of a grain to yield sugars. But is that different for different grains? So if I'm doing a batch and I'm using 2 or 3 different grains, how does that play into things?

Also, what is the difference in brew house efficiency and extract efficiency? I've heard both terms and it sounds like they're completely separate.

Based on all the tutorials out there and software available, I'm sure that once I understand the why and the questions above, I'll be able to actually do the calculations just fine. And then when I know that i generally lose X ounces of water in a boil, or that i tend to get Y % of sugars out of a batch of grains, then I'll be able to start coming up with my own recipes or adjusting others to fit my system.

I'm sorry this is so long, but any help y'all can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!

 

[tomwhit19]

do you use any brewing software? i.e beersmith or brewers friend calculators? a lot of people use some sort of brewing software that does those calculations for you. im not entirely sure on the mathematical formula for calculating efficiency but mash efficiency is the amount of sugars extracted in the mash that make it to the boil which is measured by your post mash gravity and boil volume. like i said im not entirely sure on how those numbers work in a mathematical formula, i use beersmith and when i enter those two numbers it gives me my mash efficiency. and you are correct in saying that your mash efficiency will decrease due to variables like bad grain crush (the main contributor to low mash efficiency), not hitting your post mash gravity and boil volume

hope this helps

 

[EarthwormJim]

Look at this.

 

[grampamark]

Here's a link to a brewhouse efficiency calculator (this is just one of many such which are available).

Fill in the blanks, using your ingredients and volume into the boil kettle, along with your preboil gravity, and you will get a mash efficiency number.

After boiling, reset the fields, and enter the original gravity and the volume into the fermenter, to get a brewhouse efficiency number.

Some additional reading on the topic will help with understanding the process. "How to Brew", by Palmer, has a basic, understandable, explanation of how these values are arrived at. The first edition of the book is available, free, online.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

Yeah I use brewersfriend and just backed into the efficiency after doing my first BIAB batch. Put your recipe in, use a conservative brewhouse efficiency the first time, brew the batch, and measure your OG. More than likely your OG won't match what the software says it should be, then adjust the efficiency on the recipe until the recipe OG matches your actual one.

If your variables stay the same(grain sourced and crushed the same, same system) the efficiency should remain consistent across all batches and you can just use that going forward on recipes.

FWIW I get 55-60% on my BIAB batches because my crush isn't fine enough on the grain I buy online but I've been too lazy to fix that yet.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Four points you want to consider:

1. Conversion efficiency. This is how efficient your mash is at releasing/converting starches into sugars. If well performed, this should be consistently near 100% (I hit 99%+ EVERY TIME). You can measure this by comparing the gravity of your first wort (before any sparge water is added) to the maximum possible for your grain bill and grain to water ratio.

2. Lauter efficiency. This is how effective you are at getting all that sugar into your kettle. And can be read by preboil gravity and volume again compared to maximum possible. This combines the above with how effectively you sparge. Some refer to this as "mash efficiency". It is less constant than conversion but still should be highly predictable, tied to gravity (for bigger beers it will go down and smaller beers it will go up, tied to how much water is used between mash/sparge vs grain amount).

3. Brewhouse efficiency. This is how much makes it into the fermenter, and has miminimal impact on wort gravity apart from boiloff (which is a known factor). It's HEAVILY recipe dependent (especially with hops), has no bearing on anything, and I've never seen a software program that models it well. It's also heavily process dependent. Do you leave trub behind or dump it all in the fermenter? Are you using an immersion chiller, or losing volume to a plate chiller/heatex/CFC?

4. Packaging efficiency. What makes it into packages. More important than brewhouse. Equivalently process and recipe dependent.

The core thing to get out of this, you can determine the last two FOR ONE RECIPE if your process is consistent.

Otherwise, I would 100% disregard them. Only factor that matters is with #4 if you bottle condition and can't adjust priming sugar on the fly or if you *insist* on packaging a given amount.

Otherwise, focusing on #1 and #2 help the most important part, getting the *wort* you want (gravity and bitterness), and let the volume fall where it may.

I can guarantee if you worry about #3 as some programs like BeerSmith want you to do, instead of tricking them to completely disregard it, you will not have reliable calculations until you adjust each recipe individually after brewing it multiple times, and you'll NEVER get accurate results the first time on a recipe unless a stroke of luck. If you DO ignore them, and are good in your process, you'll hit your wort gravity EVERY TIME.

You can learn with experience to know what to expect for kettle and fermenter losses for a given beer. You still won't be 100% for anything until you've brewed it a few times (and even then it still varies, agricultural variance if nothing else).

Even professionally, yield (the latter two) is something to try and improve and sales gets grumpy if volumes don't meet projections, but first and foremost, wort going into FV has to be to spec (the first two).

 

[TEWNCfarms]

So I've brewed several batches, all extract and all from kits from my local HB store. They all turned out wonderful. I'm planning now on taking the next step and am going to start all grain by doing BIAB brewing for several batches (until I get comfortable with it and until I can afford a three tier system). I understand that in order to really be successful with all grain, you need to be able to understand your efficiency. However there are a few things under that umbrella that I don't understand and can't seem to find answers for on the interwebs.

If I understand things, brew house efficiency is the effectiveness of my personal equipment to extract the sugars from the grains, as well as any water loss during boiling or mashing or to the trub. Is that correct? If so, it sounds to me that I have to brew many, many batches and measure all of those things (water loss, gravity, etc) at all phases in order to understand the pattern and the efficiency. But my problem/concern is that I'll never have an accurate "my system brews at an efficiency of 72%" because there's always going to be some variable I didn't know about...temperature outside, maybe my burner is running hot that day, whatever it is.

So how do you get around that? Do I have to brew, like, 100 batches in order to just understand what my efficiency is so I'll know going forward how to adjust recipes for my own system?

And I know that 'efficiency' in one form relates to the potential of a grain to yield sugars. But is that different for different grains? So if I'm doing a batch and I'm using 2 or 3 different grains, how does that play into things?

Also, what is the difference in brew house efficiency and extract efficiency? I've heard both terms and it sounds like they're completely separate.

Based on all the tutorials out there and software available, I'm sure that once I understand the why and the questions above, I'll be able to actually do the calculations just fine. And then when I know that i generally lose X ounces of water in a boil, or that i tend to get Y % of sugars out of a batch of grains, then I'll be able to start coming up with my own recipes or adjusting others to fit my system.

I'm sorry this is so long, but any help y'all can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!

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

That is the easiest and best for me, it’ll help you get exactly the water and such you need and it will give you your efficiency just buy entering in your data from the recipe your using and your kettle size (I’d check your boil off rate to make sure, boil however many gallons you’re going to do with just water for an hour and measure), it even tells you when you enter your kettle size and diameter what exactly is the height of a gallon and 2.5 Gal or wherever you need to be. It’s the easiest calculator and actually gives results, all the other calculators out there just seem to give me the exact data I already know and enter.