I just did my first BIAB batch this weekend, which is also my first all grain batch. I used Beersmith to develop a recipe for a pumpkin ale assuming 70% efficiency. I used Priceless' BIAB calculator to determine the temperature and volume for my strike water to mash at 154 degrees. I couldn't check how well I hit the mash temperature because I dropped my thermometer and it broke while adding the grains. I made a 2 gallon batch and expected to end up with 2.25 gallons in my ferment to allow for losses, but I actually ended up with 2.5 gallons. I hit my OG right on the money, 1.066 after temperature adjustment. So, what was my efficiency?
Explain efficiency please!!!
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If you have Beersmith, you could put all your numbers in there and it will calculate it.
Can you provide more about your recipe? Grains, boil time, strike/sparge water amounts, etc
Just a basic 2-Row with nothing else says about 80%, but without knowing what the recipe was, it is a little difficult to help you calculate your efficiency. Also, if you know what your boil off is for a typical batch of that size, that could help a bit too.
Just a basic 2-Row with nothing else says about 80%, but without knowing what the recipe was, it is a little difficult to help you calculate your efficiency. Also, if you know what your boil off is for a typical batch of that size, that could help a bit too.
petrolSpice
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The only efficiency I care about is conversion efficiency, how well you're converting the starches in the grain into sugars. Everything else is just volume losses.
Each grain has a gravity points possible per gallon of water (PPG). 2-row has a PPG of around 37. This means at 100% efficiency, you would get 1 gallon of 1.037 SG wort. If you did 2 gallons it would be 1.0185 SG. If your efficiency is 80% you would get 1 gallon of 1.0296 SG wort.
To get your conversion efficiency you just need to measure the post-mash volume and SG (after squeezing the bag), and know the weight and type of grains.
Brewhouse efficiency includes volume losses which I find to be more confusing as a measure of efficiency. So I just estimate those directly as volume losses.
Each grain has a gravity points possible per gallon of water (PPG). 2-row has a PPG of around 37. This means at 100% efficiency, you would get 1 gallon of 1.037 SG wort. If you did 2 gallons it would be 1.0185 SG. If your efficiency is 80% you would get 1 gallon of 1.0296 SG wort.
To get your conversion efficiency you just need to measure the post-mash volume and SG (after squeezing the bag), and know the weight and type of grains.
Brewhouse efficiency includes volume losses which I find to be more confusing as a measure of efficiency. So I just estimate those directly as volume losses.
Here is the grain bill:
4 lb 6.4 oz 2 row
6.6 oz crystal malt 60L
3.5 oz chocolate malt
3.5 oz flaked oats
7 oz pumpkin puree
I started with 4 gallons of water and ended up with about 2.5 gallons in the fermenter at 1.066 SG.
IF your original recipe calculations were correct (I don't know the loss factors and such so your recipe could have been wrong if BeerSmith had the equipment configured incorrectly, it's very very common for that to happen), but IF they're correct, 70% efficiency, 2.25 gallons, 1.066, means that at the same volume, theoretical 100% efficiency would be 1.088. That equates to a maximum gravity points of 198. You ended up with 2.5 gallons, at 1.066, which is 165 gravity points. 165 out of 198 puts you at 83% efficiency.
^^This^^
I came up with almost exactly the same numbers just using a calculator.
OP, as many have stated on these forums, efficiency is great if you are repeating the same recipe over and over, otherwise being within .25 of your estimated gravity (either high or low) is good for home brewing. Now if you are trying to re-brew a beer for a competition 2nd or 3rd round, then you would really want to have the same efficiency for both.
I suppose this is one way of looking at it, only relevant to BIAB or other no-sparge brewing (yes, I know this is in the BIAB section). But I do agree with with disregarding brewhouse efficiency as a general figure. Some factors, like the protein content of the malts you use, or the hop bill, or procedural things like whether or not you whirlpool/rack off trub/whatever, or what chiller you use, will dramatically impact brewhouse efficiency and resulting fermenter volume, but don't actually impact the gravity of your wort, and will often change recipe to recipe (especially with hop losses).
I think in terms of conversion efficiency and overall "mash" efficiency, which would more accurately be lautering efficiency.
Conversion efficiency- how effectively you transform starch into sugar and release it into the wort
Lautering (or mash) efficiency- how effectively you get that sugar into the boil kettle
Brewhouse efficiency- how effectively you get sugar AND volume into the fermenter.
The top two can be very rigorously controlled and consistent. If you follow proper mash procedure, you can reasonably expect to hit 98-99% conversion efficiency absolutely every time you mash. With proper equipment setup you can dial in your process to hit the same efficiency every time, or close to it (there's a necessitated change when water to grain ratios change, effectively higher gravity beers will see lower efficiency and lower gravity beers higher efficiency, but if the water to grain ratio stays the same both in mash and sparge, and the boil lengthened or shortened to compensate, you would expect exactly the same efficiency).
I mention the "IF" part about BeerSmith and equipment because if you allow it to design a recipe based on brewhouse efficiency, but your losses aren't factored in correctly, it does weird things. I prefer to zero out ALL equipment losses, have the software treat mash efficiency and brewhouse efficiency as the same thing, and factor the losses in my head.
As indicated above. To bring it full circle.
Can you walk me through the formulas? Maybe it is just too early, but I'm not following your numbers. I get where you're coming up with the 165 points that I got, but I'm coming up with 212 total theoretical points instead of 198.
I get the total predicted points = (1.066-1)*2.25gallons&1000=148.5
Theoretical points = 148.5 / 70% expected efficiency = 212
What am I doing wrong?
And I understand that these numbers aren't that important for me, but I want to start tracking my efficiency and losses since I'm brand new to all grain so I'm trying to dial my process in. I've never even worried about losses at all, including boil off, since I wasn't doing full volume boils before with extract brews, I'd just add top-off water to get back to my desired volume in the fermenter.
Whoops, math error on my part. You're correct. I calculated based on 75%, not 70%. So here's the process CORRECTLY:
I assume that BeerSmith spit out your target gravity, 1.066 (you said you hit your target gravity on the money, so I'm assuming that was it), at the efficiency you listed, 70%. If that was configured correctly, I calculated from there what 100% efficiency would be- 66/0.70, or 94.2. 94.2*2.25 is 211.95 gravity points maximum, of which 165 achieved calculates to about 78% efficiency.
I assume that BeerSmith spit out your target gravity, 1.066 (you said you hit your target gravity on the money, so I'm assuming that was it), at the efficiency you listed, 70%. If that was configured correctly, I calculated from there what 100% efficiency would be- 66/0.70, or 94.2. 94.2*2.25 is 211.95 gravity points maximum, of which 165 achieved calculates to about 78% efficiency.
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There's already a bunch of good replies. So I'll add nothing here even though there are words. However, I've included some tips. Not sure how much experience you have so here's some things that have come in handy for me.
There are really two types of efficiency. Brewhouse and Mash. A very succinct view of efficiency:
The Mash efficiency is how much sugars you get into the wort. How much/well the grain is milled is a big part of this. Are the grain kernels exposed to enough water at the right temp to activate the enzymes they contain? People commonly see 70-80% here.
Brewhouse efficiency is the how much of the actual liquid wort makes it into your fermenter or can be taken as far as the kegging/bottling process. Losses here are in the form of boil kettle trub or fermenter trub. Aka crap in the bottom of your kettle and carboy. If you mash in another vessel, any liquid left behind. Losses also occur if you have a pump and transfer lines. This can be low maybe 50-60%. Also remember that you will see ~4% shrinkage of the volume after cooling. Beersmith takes this into account.
These two are related in that if you want X amount to package, you will have to start off with X+(physical losses) amount of water. To get that X amount at packaging at the right gravity you will have to know what efficiency you are seeing at mash. Which is trial and error. That's were repeated brews will help. the RDWHAHB comes in real handy. You can vary quite a bit before it gets really noticeable. In my opinion it's always better to go for the right OG and compromise volume if things are going sideways.
With Beersmith, after a few brews, I knew the mash efficiency, so I'd just tinker with the overall until the mash was where I thought it should be. Grain milling was the single biggest factor in that efficiency for me. It also is process dependent. I got 10% better efficiency from BIAB than cooler (70-73% for a cooler).
Where it always gets tricky for me is the boil stage. Especially if you were low or high on Gravity coming in. Especially if you are brewing outside with a burner. Seems like my boil off is always a little different. This where the Beersmith Tools section can help.. Beersmith should tell you the before and after. But you may have to do the points calculation. For example if you have 7.25 gallons preboil, plan to boil off 1.25 gallons to end up with 6 gallons of 1.040 Your preboil gravity needs to be 1.033. Quick math 6*40 gravity points = 7.25*33 gravity points.
If you're coming out of the mash with the right gravity but are low on volume. You can just still go for it, although it will be hoppier. You can adjust that on the fly in Beersmith and add less hops. You can also add water and then DME in the boil.
If you're coming out of the mash with the right gravity but are high on volume, only transfer the needed volume.
If you're coming out of the mash with the high gravity add water and then only transfer the needed pre-boil volume.
If you're coming out of the mash with a low gravity, add DME to the boil.
Also your boil-off should be pretty linear. So if you are over or under half of your boil off expectation half way through the boil, adjust the heat.
Most importantly get a probe thermometer and refractometer. Those will improve your brew day so much. You can get a good enough ATC refractometer for around $30 bucks and very good probe thermometer for $10-25. I bought my refractometer off of ebay and I got a thermoworks RT600C for around $20. You don't have to worry about breakage and they are way easier to use with hot swirling wort. Easier to sanitize too.
There are really two types of efficiency. Brewhouse and Mash. A very succinct view of efficiency:
The Mash efficiency is how much sugars you get into the wort. How much/well the grain is milled is a big part of this. Are the grain kernels exposed to enough water at the right temp to activate the enzymes they contain? People commonly see 70-80% here.
Brewhouse efficiency is the how much of the actual liquid wort makes it into your fermenter or can be taken as far as the kegging/bottling process. Losses here are in the form of boil kettle trub or fermenter trub. Aka crap in the bottom of your kettle and carboy. If you mash in another vessel, any liquid left behind. Losses also occur if you have a pump and transfer lines. This can be low maybe 50-60%. Also remember that you will see ~4% shrinkage of the volume after cooling. Beersmith takes this into account.
These two are related in that if you want X amount to package, you will have to start off with X+(physical losses) amount of water. To get that X amount at packaging at the right gravity you will have to know what efficiency you are seeing at mash. Which is trial and error. That's were repeated brews will help. the RDWHAHB comes in real handy. You can vary quite a bit before it gets really noticeable. In my opinion it's always better to go for the right OG and compromise volume if things are going sideways.
With Beersmith, after a few brews, I knew the mash efficiency, so I'd just tinker with the overall until the mash was where I thought it should be. Grain milling was the single biggest factor in that efficiency for me. It also is process dependent. I got 10% better efficiency from BIAB than cooler (70-73% for a cooler).
Where it always gets tricky for me is the boil stage. Especially if you were low or high on Gravity coming in. Especially if you are brewing outside with a burner. Seems like my boil off is always a little different. This where the Beersmith Tools section can help.. Beersmith should tell you the before and after. But you may have to do the points calculation. For example if you have 7.25 gallons preboil, plan to boil off 1.25 gallons to end up with 6 gallons of 1.040 Your preboil gravity needs to be 1.033. Quick math 6*40 gravity points = 7.25*33 gravity points.
If you're coming out of the mash with the right gravity but are low on volume. You can just still go for it, although it will be hoppier. You can adjust that on the fly in Beersmith and add less hops. You can also add water and then DME in the boil.
If you're coming out of the mash with the right gravity but are high on volume, only transfer the needed volume.
If you're coming out of the mash with the high gravity add water and then only transfer the needed pre-boil volume.
If you're coming out of the mash with a low gravity, add DME to the boil.
Also your boil-off should be pretty linear. So if you are over or under half of your boil off expectation half way through the boil, adjust the heat.
Most importantly get a probe thermometer and refractometer. Those will improve your brew day so much. You can get a good enough ATC refractometer for around $30 bucks and very good probe thermometer for $10-25. I bought my refractometer off of ebay and I got a thermoworks RT600C for around $20. You don't have to worry about breakage and they are way easier to use with hot swirling wort. Easier to sanitize too.
m1k3
Well-Known Member
Weird, I only care about brewhouse efficiency. If I want to hit a particular OG (ABV%) I need to know what my brewhouse efficiency is. Mash conversion alone is insufficient to predict a target OG.
Or is that just how BeerSmith has influenced my recipe creation / brewing?
If I wanted to know my predicted OG from 10 or 15 pounds of grain... I'd need my brewhouse efficiency, no?
Brewhouse efficiency has little to do with your OG unless you're hellbent on hitting particular batch size, and even then it'll only line up for that particular recipe (or at least recipes similar to it, alter the grist composition or hop bill substantially and your hop and trub losses will change, whether that's into the fermenter or into the keg/bottles, and as a result the brewhouse efficiency will change). If your principal concern is hitting your OG, your conversion and lautering efficiency are all you need.
imasickboy
Drinkasaurus extraordinarius
As mentioned above, focus on good mash efficiency first. Developing a consistency there will go a long way towards repeatable brewing. Besides, if you can't get the sugars into the kettle in the first place, you can't really make beer.
Brewhouse efficiency is easy to maintain, except for wild swings in hop volumes. Measure water accurately, don't boil over, maintain consistent boil off rates during every brew session, and don't spill your wort or beer on the floor.
Brewhouse efficiency is easy to maintain, except for wild swings in hop volumes. Measure water accurately, don't boil over, maintain consistent boil off rates during every brew session, and don't spill your wort or beer on the floor.
petrolSpice
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If I know my conversion efficiency and boiloff rate, then I can reasonably estimate my OG. This is assuming I'm not adding sugars or water after mashing.
Brewhouse efficiency accounts for other losses such as leaving some wort/trub in the bottom of the kettle. This effects the brewhouse efficiency because you are leaving sugars behind in the kettle, but it does not effect OG (assuming the stuff at the bottom of the kettle is the same OG as the good wort that went into the fermenter, not sure how accurate this assumption is, but it doesn't really matter for me since i usually pour everything into the fermenter).
Murphys_Law
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A related question then on efficiency...
What is a desired conversion efficiency? I use Brewers Friend and on a recent IPA my CE was 83%. I've read you should be 90%+, is this true?
I'm usually around 85% and am ok with that
petrolSpice
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With BIAB I'd be very surprised if you got above 90%. I'm usually 70-75%. Big beers with thick mashes get down to 60%. I don't sparge, just squeeze the bag.
Here is a very easy chart from Braukaiser to use to determine your conversion efficiency. Enter the chart at your mash thickness then read across for the gravity you would have with 100% conversion. Measure your actual gravty and compare it to this chart to get your percentage conversion:
Murphys_Law
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This is conversion efficiency, correct? Not Brew House? I guess that is where I get confused, myself. Brewers Friend lists four "efficiency's": Conversion, Pre-Boil, Ending Kettle and Brew House. When people talk about efficiency I always wondered which one!
Sorry to the OP for the thread jack but I guess this is on-topic related to efficiency!
petrolSpice
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I'm talking conversion efficiency. Brewhouse efficiency should always be lower than or equal to conversion efficiency.
This kind of confusion is exactly why I only care about conversion efficiency. Everything else is a volume loss, sometimes volume+sugar. I build my own calculator around this because I don't like how Beersmith, Priceless, Brewers Friend account for losses. I can account for them in my own way which coincides with my particular process.
BIAB conversion efficiency shouldn't be any lower than any other mashing technique. If anything the ability to mill finer without worrying about a stuck sparge should increase it. May have a small impact from water to grist ratio, but that's not limited to BIAB.
In either case, I hit 98-99% conversion on every single beer, regardless of size or gravity.
In either case, I hit 98-99% conversion on every single beer, regardless of size or gravity.
Murphys_Law
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What is your process like? Do you do full volume mash or a thin mash and sparge? Typical 60 min mash at "usual" temps (i.e. Between say 150 and 156 or so)? Curious about your grind, too
Thanks!
My typical homebrew mash is 1.5 quarts per pound, temps range 147-158 depending on the beer (60-90 mins depending on the temp), mill is set at 0.030". Sometimes I'll step mash but usually don't. Usually don't mash-out either. I do, however, pay religious attention to water and pH, and my pH is nailed down to target, 5.3-5.5 room temp (higher for roasted beers, lower for crisper pale beers, and a "normal" pH of about 5.4 room temp). My first runnings are always 19-20°P (typically closer to 20°P for a standard grist).
My mash efficiency into the kettle is usually 85-88% though ("average" gravity to session beers, respectively, if I feel like fly sparging I can push 90%, but I usually just batch sparge). Really big beers are lower than that, but I usually partigyle those, and then the "overall" efficiency of the partigyle usually pushes up into the low to mid 90% (93-95%) range.
Here is a very easy chart from Braukaiser to use to determine your conversion efficiency. Enter the chart at your mash thickness then read across for the gravity you would have with 100% conversion. Measure your actual gravty and compare it to this chart to get your percentage conversion:
There's a few assumptions he makes here (moisture content, grain extract potential, etc), but yes, this is a good baseline. He has a spreadsheet where you can plug in actual data, and that'll let you know exactly where you are more accurately.
pricelessbrewing
Brewer's Friend Software Manager
I like brewers friends image outlining the different points throughout breweday, but the terms they use are completely different than the common standard.
To complicate things further, some people use conversion to mean mash efficiency, as petrolspice is doing now.
I recommend reading my blog post for more info. http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/methods/Efficiency
To complicate things further, some people use conversion to mean mash efficiency, as petrolspice is doing now.
I recommend reading my blog post for more info. http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/methods/Efficiency
petrolSpice
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When I say conversion efficiency that's what I mean. Gravity points obtained after mashing divided by the gravity points possible in the grain. This is what you describe in your blog too.
I'm not sure how mash efficiency is different?
pricelessbrewing
Brewer's Friend Software Manager
If you're getting 70-80% conversion, you're having issues somewhere. It should be 90-98%.
Conversion % is the amount of extract/sugar/gravity points present in the mash . Meaning the wort in the mash and the wort absorbed by the grain, not just the wort drained from the mash. Which is what it looked like you were describing
Conversion % is the amount of extract/sugar/gravity points present in the mash . Meaning the wort in the mash and the wort absorbed by the grain, not just the wort drained from the mash. Which is what it looked like you were describing
I got the impression, from how he described things, that he's going no sparge full volume BIAB. When sparging is taken out of the equation, mash efficiency and conversion efficiency become much the same thing (or at least functionally interchangeable), and grain absorption can be treated as a volume loss. It's an unconventional way of thinking about it, but functional as far as I can tell.
petrolSpice
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Durr I see now! Yes, good point. So my 20-30% efficiency loss is because some of the sugar is staying in the grain and going into the trash instead of my beer. I will refer to this as mash efficiency for now on.
I'm curious if a small dunk sparge would help my mash efficiency. I would have to balance it with mash thickness so my pre-boil volume is correct. I like thin mashes because it helps my mash efficiency.
Your efficiency is 100 times the ratio of the mass of extract you realized to the mass of the grains you mashed. For example if you mash 10 kg of grain and wind up with 8 kg of extract in the kettle then your efficiency, to the kettle, is 80%. A well run commercial operation can get close to this. A home brewer will generally be at about the 70% level.
To determine the mass of extract weigh the wort or measure its volume. Correct the volume to room temperature. Measure the SG at room temperature and multiply the SG by the volume and then by 0.998203 kg/L. Now use the ASBC tables or polynomial to convert SG to ° Plato, divide that by 100 and multiply the resulting decimal fraction by the weight of the wort. The result is the weight of the extract.
pricelessbrewing
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Nope. The volume loss in mashing contains sugar.
It does. But so does the volume loss to a plate chiller or left behind with trub.
What I'm getting at is that with solid mashing process and no sparging, by knowing your conversion efficiency and grain absorption rates you can determine what volume of wort, and at what gravity you'll have in the kettle ahead of time, much like you would with knowing your mash efficiency.
Like I said, it's not a conventional approach or conventional terminology, but in terms of accurately and consistently predicting results, it's functional. But it sounds like you were correct and he was just mixing up terms so never mind.
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