2nd All Grain - Efficiency?

[Abilor]

I just ran my second all-grain batch for a Wee Heavy using 17.4 pounds of grain overall, 14lbs of which was Maris Otter Pale malt. I see a lot of folks here talking about their efficiency, so I ran mine through a calculator which tells me I am 80.3% efficient. Is that good? Bad? Shoot for higher?

Sorry for the noob question, but I'd rather hear from all-grain guys on this.

Thanks!!

 

[Rhetorik]

80% is pretty darn acceptable IMO.

Honestly though, the most important thing isn't getting the high efficiency as possible... it's getting the most CONSISTENT efficiency possible.

 

[MrE_the_Great]

I'm typically around 74-75% with my setup...and I'm happy with that. Consistency is important for recipe calculation.

 

[brewkinger]

I see a lot of folks here talking about their efficiency, so I ran mine through a calculator which tells me I am 80.3% efficient. Is that good? Bad? Shoot for higher?

Sorry for the noob question, but I'd rather hear from all-grain guys on this.

Thanks!!

Small clarification(s):
Are you measuring mash efficiency or brewhouse/overall efficiency?

 

[Abilor]

The mash efficiency. I'll start tracking brew house as well. Along with tracking generally speaking; I'm using a 10 gallon HLT and Mash Tun cooler setup.

I was worried about all Grain because with extract I had trouble hitting OG all the time. All Grain I just love; it's like the manual transmission of brewing, and the best cars all have three pedals...

 

[pricelessbrewing]

If you had trouble hitting og with extract, then you have issues hitting your volumes.for extract,og is directly tied to your post boil volume and nothing else.

What did you use to calculate your efficiency? How did you neasure your volume?

 

[RM-MN]

If you had trouble hitting og with extract, then you have issues hitting your volumes.for extract,og is directly tied to your post boil volume and nothing else.

What did you use to calculate your efficiency? How did you neasure your volume?

Many people have trouble with extract and OG due to not getting the concentrated wort mixed well enough. That shows up often in the Beginners section.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

True if you're topping off with water.

 

[Abilor]

If you had trouble hitting og with extract, then you have issues hitting your volumes.for extract,og is directly tied to your post boil volume and nothing else.

What did you use to calculate your efficiency? How did you measure your volume?

For my extracts, I developed a trick where I'd pour the wort out of my 4 gallon pot (what I was using at the time) into the fermenter bucket, and then add water to hit the 4.5 gallon mark. I'd give that a good mix, and then sample the OG with a sanitized measuring cup poured into my sample tube. I'd try to get over the desired OG, say hit 1.052 if 1.045 was called for, necessitating adding the rest of the water to make volume. Often, though, I'd be at my target OG with 4.5 gallons of wort. I had refined things like making sure I scraped every little bit of the hot LME out of the jars, using hops filters so I could pour off all the wort, etc., and found I'd still hit OG targets at about 4.8 gallons of wort.

Volume was measured with a combination of markings within my coolers/pots, measuring out fluids with a large two quart measuring cup, and verifying with my "brew stick", crafted against my big brew point for measured quantities of fluid volume. I'd say I'm accurate to the gallon +/- 0.25 cups.

Calculator I used was: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/