Efficiency more than 10% higher than most brews.

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HutBrew

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Efficiency more than 10% higher than most brews.



On this brew day (still in progress) I did a few things differently this time, some of them accidentally- but ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 1.045- instead of a predicted 1.039. I use the same equipment to measure as I have before, and I, almost without exception, end up with a brewhouse efficiency of around 67% so I use this as reference to base my recipes in the Brewfather app. I should end up with nearly 80% brewhouse efficiency when its tapped and in the kegerator.



I use a brewzilla 3.1.1. What I is as follows:



I mashed in at 152*F instead of 148/149*F the latter which i usually do,



I mashed with a lower qt/lb (2.2 instead of ~2.5) so I sparged with more water than usual,



I stirred the mash at 25m then recirculated for a full 45m (which I have done before)



I forgot to add 1/4 campden tablet to treat my city water.



I forgot to add lactic acid 88%- which when I did, I added half the amount I calculated at 30m into the mash



However, I want to think the biggest factor is that I milled my grains 10m before mashing in. I have always used the brew shop or milled myself the night before, as I hand mill instead of using a drill because, well, I’m nuts. I keep my mill set to the width of a credit card+business card together, as I hate stuck sparges with a passion.



I am using 100% barke vienna for this brew as well.



I don’t know what I did to deserve this blessing from Aegir, but I’ll take it! I was aiming for a lighter Vienna malt smash with tett hops, but now its predicted to be a decent ~5.3% ABV beverage.

Just wanted your guys’ opinions on what you think caused this? Prost!
 
Do you brew many batches with a predicted OG of 1.039? That's a relatively "small beer wort". I know for me, in my ~160 batches' experience, smaller beer recipes tend to have better efficiency than bigger beer recipes. For instance, while my overall average efficiency might be 82% for most "normal" wort gravities, at the higher end of the spectrum, if I were brewing a wort of say 1.090 desired OG, I know from experience that I should expect my efficiency would be close to 55%. Same goes for small beers. I have hit 94% efficiency with batches as small as your 1.039 expected OG.

So... I'm not surprised at all. If you want to get technical, this is due to sparge volumes and boiloff rates, etc. Or, you can accept that big beers will reduce efficiency from average, whereas small beers will have relatively higher efficiency.
 
Congrats on finding some efficiencies.

I use the same equipment to measure as I have before, and I, almost without exception, end up with a brewhouse efficiency of around 67% so I use this as reference to base my recipes in the Brewfather app.

Do you always brew batches with the same size grain bills, total water, and boil times? If not, a specific consistent brewhouse efficiency isn't really possible. Bigger grain bills (for example) drive lower efficiencies than smaller grain bills.

I should end up with nearly 80% brewhouse efficiency when its tapped and in the kegerator.

Brewhouse efficiency is a measure of the percent of total possible carbs that made it to the fermenter. If you need some sort of measurement at kegging time, I'm not sure what it is you're calculating.

I mashed with a lower qt/lb (2.2 instead of ~2.5) so I sparged with more water than usual,

With batch sparging, you'll get the highest efficiency when your first runnings are equal to your second runnings. Note, that's "runnings" and not "infusions."
 
Do you brew many batches with a predicted OG of 1.039? That's a relatively "small beer wort". I know for me, in my ~160 batches' experience, smaller beer recipes tend to have better efficiency than bigger beer recipes. For instance, while my overall average efficiency might be 82% for most "normal" wort gravities, at the higher end of the spectrum, if I were brewing a wort of say 1.090 desired OG, I know from experience that I should expect my efficiency would be close to 55%. Same goes for small beers. I have hit 94% efficiency with batches as small as your 1.039 expected OG.

So... I'm not surprised at all. If you want to get technical, this is due to sparge volumes and boiloff rates, etc. Or, you can accept that big beers will reduce efficiency from average, whereas small beers will have relatively higher efficiency.

Here's how I would state it. I may or may not have copied this from an old presentation:

Recipes with larger grain bills (but the same pre-boil volume) require more total water, because of more grain wort absorption. So the ratio of absorbed wort to total wort (including absorbed) is larger. Therefore a smaller percentage of the total sugars/dextrins produced makes it to the kettle.
 
Do you brew many batches with a predicted OG of 1.039? That's a relatively "small beer wort". I know for me, in my ~160 batches' experience, smaller beer recipes tend to have better efficiency than bigger beer recipes. For instance, while my overall average efficiency might be 82% for most "normal" wort gravities, at the higher end of the spectrum, if I were brewing a wort of say 1.090 desired OG, I know from experience that I should expect my efficiency would be close to 55%. Same goes for small beers. I have hit 94% efficiency with batches as small as your 1.039 expected OG.

So... I'm not surprised at all. If you want to get technical, this is due to sparge volumes and boiloff rates, etc. Or, you can accept that big beers will reduce efficiency from average, whereas small beers will have relatively higher efficiency.
Yes, I pretty much only make lighter, <5.5%ABV beers, but yet my efficiency has mostly remained south of 70%

What you’re saying is making good sense to me- I’ve probably just found the sweet spot with my setup and have just been doing something wrong- or been unfortunate.
 
Here's how I would state it. I may or may not have copied this from an old presentation:

Recipes with larger grain bills (but the same pre-boil volume) require more total water, because of more grain wort absorption. So the ratio of absorbed wort to total wort (including absorbed) is larger. Therefore a smaller percentage of the total sugars/dextrins produced makes it to the kettle.
This makes perfect sense guys, I get the idea that less sugar is soluble with less water

As far as brewhouse efficiency- i guess i misunderstood the concept- I though FG played a role (total amount of alcohol produced per pounds of grain)

I ended up with an OG of 1.049-1.050 (right in between) which was (for such a light batch) much higher than expected.

When I tweaked the BF app’s efficiency, so the OG matched, i ended up with 79% (which is probably where it should be, but I always use 67% based on pretty much all previous batches)

Hope that makes sense!
 
Do you always brew batches with the same size grain bills, total water, and boil times? If not, a specific consistent brewhouse efficiency isn't really possible. Bigger grain bills (for example) drive lower efficiencies than smaller grain bills

I have been sticking to 10lbs of grain per brew for about the past 6-7 brews, and never had an OG more than 1.044, maybe 1.045.

Total water went up this time, used more sparge water than usual

That could be it, i used to use more water in the mash, and less in the sparge- this time i used less in the mash, and more in the sparge, rinsing more sugars off the grains?
 
As far as brewhouse efficiency- i guess i misunderstood the concept- I though FG played a role (total amount of alcohol produced per pounds of grain)

Brewhouse Efficiency is not a function of FG. A lower FG (for a given OG) does mean more alcohol.

But Brewhouse Efficiency is simply the total sugars and dextrins that make it to the fermenter divided by the total potential sugars and dextrins available from the grains.

You could conceivably compute the weight of alcohol that makes it into your keg, divide by the pounds of grain, and call it something. (But it wouldn't be brewhouse efficiency.) I'd suggest "Buzz Yield." Come to think of it, maybe @bracconiere computes something along these lines? :)
 
Brewhouse Efficiency is not a function of FG. A lower FG (for a given OG) does mean more alcohol.

But Brewhouse Efficiency is simply the total sugars and dextrins that make it to the fermenter divided by the total potential sugars and dextrins available from the grains.

You could conceivably compute the weight of alcohol that makes it into your keg, divide by the pounds of grain, and call it something. (But it wouldn't be brewhouse efficiency.) I'd suggest "Buzz Yield." Come to think of it, maybe @bracconiere computes something along these lines? :)

Makes perfect sense now!

The math is probably something like:

[(OG-FG) x (total volume of beer in keg)] / [mass of grain used]
 
This makes perfect sense guys, I get the idea that less sugar is soluble with less water
Solubility does not come into play in mashing and lautering. The solubility of maltose in water at mash temps (~152°F) is 66.7 wt%, which corresponds to an SG of 1.329. You cannot create wort anywhere near that concentrated during a mash. All of the sugar created during the mash is dissolved (in solution) as it is created, and since we are well below the solubility limit, none of the sugar will precipitate out of solution after it is created.

Lauter efficiency is determined by how much wort is retained by the grain after lautering is complete, and the sugar concentration of the retained wort. More grain means more wort will be retained by the grain mass, so lower lauter efficiency, all else being equal. Sparging reduces the concentration of the wort retained by the grain, so increases lauter efficiency.

Mash efficiency = Conversion efficiency * Lauter efficiency, and
Brewhouse efficiency = Mash efficiency * Volume in Fermenter / Post-boil Volume

Your increased Brewhouse efficiency could have been due to better conversion efficiency, better lauter efficiency (because more brewing water was used), or some of both.

Brew on :mug:
 
I mashed with a lower qt/lb (2.2 instead of ~2.5) so I sparged with more water than usual,


damn, i only mash in like 1.3-1.4 qt/lb....i get around 83%, or 90% if i'm feeling energetic and do a decotion.....


so i'd say that's it.....
 
I use about 2.8 quarts per pound, and I don't sparge afterwards but I do squeeze the bag. I get about the same pre-boil gravity as did with a more concentrated mash followed by a dunk sparge to yield the same total volume, even thought theoretically the sparge should be more efficient. I use a Corona mill and it creates a lot of flour when I grind the malt; that probably increases the efficiency. If I was brewing a really heavy beer with a huge amount of malt, I'd probably do a sparge just on principle (it would have to help, right?)
 
Do you brew many batches with a predicted OG of 1.039? That's a relatively "small beer wort". I know for me, in my ~160 batches' experience, smaller beer recipes tend to have better efficiency than bigger beer recipes. For instance, while my overall average efficiency might be 82% for most "normal" wort gravities, at the higher end of the spectrum, if I were brewing a wort of say 1.090 desired OG, I know from experience that I should expect my efficiency would be close to 55%. Same goes for small beers. I have hit 94% efficiency with batches as small as your 1.039 expected OG.

So... I'm not surprised at all. If you want to get technical, this is due to sparge volumes and boiloff rates, etc. Or, you can accept that big beers will reduce efficiency from average, whereas small beers will have relatively higher efficiency.
I was pretty sure the OP said "pre boil gravity" of 10.39.
 
I was pretty sure the OP said "pre boil gravity" of 10.39.
Oh! I missed that part! My contributions above might not be very applicable in this case then.

damn, i only mash in like 1.3-1.4 qt/lb....i get around 83%, or 90% if i'm feeling energetic and do a decotion.....


so i'd say that's it.....

You could be onto something here, but it’s hard to say for sure. Sparging extra (changed from 2.5 to 2.2 qt/lb water to grist ratio in the mash) should tend to improve efficiency… but probably not >10% like was seen here.

My new insight: OP forgot to add lactic acid up front. I do wonder if this might be a mash pH thing. I used to aim for 5.3-5.4, until I realized that all the old textbooks were written with that goal being intended to be measured not at room temperature but at MASH temperature… my thinking is that this was an in-line pH reading, on the recirc line or wherever. After I found this out, I aim for 5.5-5.6 pH in my mashes now, as measured at room temperature. Past experiments that myself and others have run show that pH in the mash is 0.25 lower than measured at room temperature. So this way I am still hitting the original goal of 5.3-5.4… but at MASH temperature. Assuming the OP (and probably nearly all homebrewers!) are aiming for that range not at mash temperature but at room temperature….. perhaps the lactic acid additions are hurting more than they are helping. Mash pH might be falling to about 5.1, too low for great efficiency. Reference:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/will-it-mash-at-ph-5-00.667992/page-2#post-8653242
 
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