What's up with my crappy efficiency?

[JeffNYC]

How many people out there don't really check? Maybe im a total dope, but I checked my first 2 or 3 batches and saw that I was getting 65 to 70 % efficiency and stopped checking gravity readings. I just plan my grain bill for 70 %. I can't taste the difference between 65% and 70% anyway.

I think I'm a dope. I check but consistently get 68% and didn't do anything to improve it until seeing these posts! Seems like I should shooting for 80%...

 

[Orfy]

I think I'm a dope. I check but consistently get 68% and didn't do anything to improve it until seeing these posts! Seems like I should shooting for 80%...

If you are happy with 68% then there really is nothing wrong with that.
If there is anything simple you can do then it may be worth it.

 

[DAAB]

Ray Ashworth (founder of Woodforde's http://www.woodfordes.co.uk/) wrote in Brewer's Contact (the Craft Brewers Association publication) about the lack of maltiness in his home-brewed beers and improvement when he made a no-sparge beer with an efficiency of 58%. Ray says that he achieved good maltiness with high extraction at Woodforde's but couldn't do it at home.

David Edge of the Craft Brewers Association says that home brewers are kidding themselves when they compare an 85% to the 90% a small commercial brewer might get. Because of greater inhomogeneity in their set ups he considers they are actually 'pushing' the mash much harder than the commercial equivalent and you may be extracting more tannins than the commercial brewer at 90%.

Personally I think the first step in getting good efficiency is to get the mash working as effectively as possible by giving it the ideal conditions, everyone gets the temperature right but often over looks PH which can make a big difference. Acidifying the mash is fairly straight forward although with PH 5.2 it's a breeze. This will result in a more effcient conversion and there will be more sugars available for collection.

In the case of fly sparging, once you know the mash is performing as well as it can do you have the option of stopping at a higher run off gravity 1012+ which lots of people seem to agree makes a marked improvement to the maltiness and overall quality of the beer, albeit at the expense of efficiency but then are we trying to produce cheap hooch or quality beer?.

In the case of batch sparging and efficient mash, assuming the calculations are fairly close and the correct amount of wort ends up in the boiler, it's fairly difficult not to hit your target gravity, as long as it is sensible, fwiw i'd try basing recipes on a 75% efficiency and if the gravity of the wort in the fermenter is a little low then a slightly lower efficiency can be planned for in future brews.

btw, fwiw, the Craft Brewers Associations 's champion brewer achieves a brew house efficiency of 68%

You can view the CBAs website at http://www.craftbrewing.org.uk/ there are lots of great technical articles, recipes and some back issues of the journal to look through, worth checking out.

 

[FlyGuy]

In the case of batch sparging and efficient mash, assuming the calculations are fairly close and the correct amount of wort ends up in the boiler, it's fairly difficult not to hit your target gravity, as long as it is sensible, fwiw i'd try basing recipes on a 75% efficiency and if the gravity of the wort in the fermenter is a little low then a slightly lower efficiency can be planned for in future brews.

Interesting information overall -- thanks, but I did want to comment on this remark. Assuming that you shoot for a fixed boil volume, I think it can be difficult to reach your target gravity if you do a lot of brews with variable gravity. If the boil volume is fixed (say at 6.5 gals) then one's efficiency will be largely dependent on the gravity of the recipe (i.e., high in low gravity beers and poorer in high gravity brews). It would be nice to estimate this variation in efficiency, but I still haven't found a formula or tool that will do it. The only other option is to sparge more for bigger brews, so that efficiency is increased, but that takes more time.

So I am certainly not disagreeing with you here, but I do think the issue of hitting target gravity is a little more complex. While there may be some interesting differences here between fly vs. batch sparging, I think the gravity of your recipe and your boil volume/efficiency is also a major consideration, especially if you are shooting for consistency.

 

[DAAB]

If you give the enzymes the ideal working conditions they will do the rest of the work for you regardless of gravity.

However, collecting those sugars may start to become problematic at higher gravitys due to the increased viscosity I guess. Far greater minds than ours (or mine at least) have decided though that the most effective way to retrieve those sugars is to collect a volume equal to your brew length plus losses in 2 equal batches. I don't recall seeing an caveats. However this may well be the stumbling block when it comes to batch sparging, it is often said that a loss of efficiency is common. The simple answer is to collect more wort (ie a more dilute wort) and increase the boil duration so that the losses are effectively increased (ie the losses taken into consideration when calculating the volume that must be collected during lautering).

So basically I am agreeing with you but still think that minor adjustments can be made to a batch sparging system to account for higher gravity beers and retain and still retain a respectable overall or brewhouse efficiency. That aside though, when it comes to homebrewing, quality should be paramount rather than efficiency as we generally don't have any accountants to keep happy and most of us can nip down the road and pick up a cheap case of booze if that's all that's we're after.

 

[FlyGuy]

If you give the enzymes the ideal working conditions they will do the rest of the work for you regardless of gravity.

Actually, what I meant was that your extraction of those sugars is influenced by the sparge:grain ratio whenever you shoot for a fixed boil volume in all your brews. This means you can do the same length of boil (say 60 mins), but to make up a consistent boil volume, your lighter brews are going to get sparged really well and nearly all the sugars will be extracted, vs. a high gravity brew that will get relatively less sparge water and leave lots of those sugars behind.

So it is not so much a question of maximizing efficiency, but rather, predicting what your efficiency will be under a regime of variable sparge:grain ratios. It necessarily be higher for lower gravity beers than higher gravity beers (assuming boil volume is fixed).

Of course, if you only brew beer in one range (say 1.050 to 1.060) then none of this matters at all!

 

[DAAB]

Actually, what I meant was that your extraction of those sugars is influenced by the sparge:grain ratio whenever you shoot for a fixed boil volume in all your brews. This means you can do the same length of boil (say 60 mins), but to make up a consistent boil volume, your lighter brews are going to get sparged really well and nearly all the sugars will be extracted, vs. a high gravity brew that will get relatively less sparge water and leave lots of those sugars behind.

Absolutely, I was just suggesting a way to maximise efficiency when batch sparging higher gravity beers. If efficiency isn't of prime importance (and I suggested previously it shouldn't be) then a consistant boil voilume can be used but the grain bill will have to be altered to take into consideration a lower efficiency.

So it is not so much a question of maximizing efficiency, but rather, predicting what your efficiency will be under a regime of variable sparge:grain ratios. It necessarily be higher for lower gravity beers than higher gravity beers (assuming boil volume is fixed).

Don't confuse my mention of maximising the mash performance with maximising brewhouse efficiency. As you point out there will be different sparge water/grain ratios depending on the gravity but by maximising the perormance of the mash you give yourself the chance of collecting the most sugars possible for the ratio you are using.

Of course, if you only brew beer in one range (say 1.050 to 1.060) then none of this matters at all!

No, besides the intention of my original post was to point out was that high efficiency does not mean quality beer, infact in homebrewing it is usually quite the opposite. As has been pointed out on another forum, when people start talking about efficency it becomes a dick swinging contest rather than focusing on what makes an good beer. I'd rather be making great beer in a system with 60-70% efficiency rather than a very efficient average beer.

 

[FlyGuy]

Absolutely, I was just suggesting a way to maximise efficiency when batch sparging higher gravity beers. If efficiency isn't of prime importance (and I suggested previously it shouldn't be) then a consistant boil voilume can be used but the grain bill will have to be altered to take into consideration a lower efficiency.

Gotcha. Hey, have you read this thread? Interesting stuff related to this.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=38211

Previously, I have stressed the exact same point that you do above regarding 'best techniques' for batch sparge efficiency, but Bobby_M seems to be demonstrating that it is not a general rule. Lots of interesting ideas in that thread for alternatives to increase efficiency.

Don't confuse my mention of maximising the mash performance with maximising brewhouse efficiency. As you point out there will be different sparge water/grain ratios depending on the gravity but by maximising the perormance of the mash you give yourself the chance of collecting the most sugars possible for the ratio you are using.

Yeah, I see what you are saying. But for high gravity brews, I still believe it has more to do with how much you are willing to sparge and boil. I only say this because for me, mash performance has not been an issue and I have been consistent in that respect. The aspect that I can't control as easily is extract efficiency due to variation in gravity (because I prefer to shoot for a fixed boil volume). I just wish I had a formula to predict extract efficiency based on sparge volume:grist ratio. Anyways, yeah it is all important -- didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

As has been pointed out on another forum, when people start talking about efficency it becomes a dick swinging contest rather than focusing on what makes an good beer. I'd rather be making great beer in a system with 60-70% efficiency rather than a very efficient average beer.

Yep, I really agree with you there! And perhaps just to add to that, it should be stressed that while maximizing efficiency seems to get all the attention, the more IMPORTANT goal should be to maximize your CONSISTENCY with respect to efficiency. Someone who brews consistently at 70% is much more likely to make good beer than someone who is bouncing around between 80% and 90% efficiency desparately trying to capture those last elusive gravity points. Regardless, it is still fun to try to get the most out of your own system!

Thanks for the back-and-forth -- good stuff man! I appreciate it.

 

[DAAB]

Yeah, I see what you are saying. But for high gravity brews, I still believe it has more to do with how much you are willing to sparge and boil. I only say this because for me, mash performance has not been an issue and I have been consistent in that respect. The aspect that I can't control as easily is extract efficiency due to variation in gravity (because I prefer to shoot for a fixed boil volume). I just wish I had a formula to predict extract efficiency based on sparge volume:grist ratio.


There's always parti gyle brewing if you did want to increase brewhouse efficiency when brewing higher gravity beers, it's a slightly different approach which basically involves making a strong ale/barleywine from the first runnings then remashing and collecting the second runnings for a lower gravity running beer. I mention this as i've just seen this article http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.2/mosher.html
which addresses parti gyle brewing and recipe formulation so it may have something that may help derive a formula, I haven't read it thoroughly though.

Cheers

 

[BierMuncher]

...btw, fwiw, the Craft Brewers Associations 's champion brewer achieves a brew house efficiency of 68%
...

I feel better.

I hit 67% last night with a (23 lb) 10 gallon batch of Anchor. Seems the bigger the beer, the more my efficiency starts to fall.

I ended up with about 13 gallons and doing a 90 minute boil to get down to 11.

 

[JeffNYC]

btw, fwiw, the Craft Brewers Associations 's champion brewer achieves a brew house efficiency of 68%

Hmmm. That just so happens to be my efficiency...very consistently 68%. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to improve it...

 

[DAAB]

Well the first thing to sort out is the mash conditions, ie PH, liquor/grain ratio, duration and temperature. Once you know your mash is producing all the sugars it can then you can think about making alterations to how you extract those sugars (if you think you need to ).