How do i determine my effeciency

[ibleedbrew]

did my first AG brew today everything went "ok" hit the OG that the recipe called for so now im just wondering how do i find out my effeciency? step by step? i understand that its how well your "operation" works and how much sugar you extract from the grain i believe? i really dont know so anything will help thanks

 

[gio]

The way to do it is to first calculate the maximum sugar you can get for the grain you use.
For example, let say your recipe used 5lbs of amber malt and 8lbs of pilsner for a 5 gallon batch. Say the ppg for amber is 35 and the 37 for pilsner. I'm just guessing here, you can find the real numbers on one of the many charts online.

So, ideally you would get:

5 * 35 / 5.0 + 8 * 37 / 5.0 = 94.2

So if you had 100% efficiency, your OG would be 1.0942. Now lets say your real OG was 1.071 for 5 gallons. That would mean your efficiency is 71 / 94 or about 75%. In reality your OG is always going to be what the recipe says its gonna be. What will be different is the volume you end up with. So you will have to adjust the gravity values for the volume you end up with to determine the real efficiency.

The other important thing is that you should not include DME, LME or sugar in your efficiency calculations because they are already mashed and you can assume they will contribute 100% of their anticipate ppg. So when you do the calculations from your OG you need to subtract them out.

 

[gio]

If this is still confusing, post your recipe, and the numbers you got and I'll show you how to do it.

 

[ibleedbrew]

okay heres the recipe i was low on mash temp and sparge temp so i started with 3.5 gal on the mash then freaked out cause i was low on temp (145 range) so just threw a bnch of hot water in there to raise the temp prolly another two to three gallons. so anyway after my second runnings and what not i ended up with 6.5 gal boiled and ended with a 1046. recipe called for 1044-1052. thanks for explaining this by the way im super noob i skipped over all other brewing techs and went stait to all grain
7 lbs pils
1 lbs wheat malt
.5 lbs aromatic
.5 cara pils
1 lbs wheat flakes
1 lbs cara viene
.5 OZ orange
.5 OZ coriander
1 oz saaz

 

[ibleedbrew]

why do you add the five for the pils but not the amber?

 

[Walker]

why do you add the five for the pils but not the amber?

? he's not adding 5 onto anything.

The formula is to multiple the weight of each grain by the pppg for each grain. Add those numbers all up. Then divide by the volume of wort you have.

But note... this is only one type of efficiency. This one is "brewhouse efficiency" and is based on volume and gravity you have at the very end of the session, in your fermenter.

You can measure efficiency in other ways. Like... measuring the gravity and volume in your kettle, before you go to the fermenter. This number is higher than the brewhouse efficiency because you probably have a volume loss b/c of deadspace in the kettle.

Example: 10# of 2-row. pppg of 36. At the end of the boil, let's say you have 5.5 gallons of 1.053 wort in your kettle.

max theoretical gravity of 5.5 gallons: (10*36)/5.5 = 65
so 100% efficiency would give you 1.065 OG in 5.5 gallons.
You got 1.053 OG, so (53/65) = 81.5% efficiency.

But, then you run it into your fermenter and end up with only 5 of that 5.5 gallons. The other 0.5 gallons is dead space or crud in the fermenter. Gravity is still 1.053.

max theoretical gravity of 5 gallons: (10*36)/5 = 72
so 100% efficiency would give you 1.072 OG in 5 gallons.
You got 1.053 OG, so (53/72) = 73.6% efficiency.

 

[gio]

okay heres the recipe i was low on mash temp and sparge temp so i started with 3.5 gal on the mash then freaked out cause i was low on temp (145 range) so just threw a bnch of hot water in there to raise the temp prolly another two to three gallons. so anyway after my second runnings and what not i ended up with 6.5 gal boiled and ended with a 1046. recipe called for 1044-1052. thanks for explaining this by the way im super noob i skipped over all other brewing techs and went stait to all grain
7 lbs pils
1 lbs wheat malt
.5 lbs aromatic
.5 cara pils
1 lbs wheat flakes
1 lbs cara viene
.5 OZ orange
.5 OZ coriander
1 oz saaz

ok, first the ppgs are:
pils 37 (assuming german)
wheat 39 (assuming german)
aromatic 36
cara pils 33
wheat flakes 36
cara vienna 34

so, adding them all up:
7 * 37 + 1 * 39 + 0.5 * 36 + 0.5 * 33 + 1 * 36 + 1 * 34 = 402.5
That's the number you'd get with a 100% effeciency.

It seems you say you had 6.5 gallons at the end of your boil, is that right? The important number is the volume you had when you measured your gravity. If you had 6.5 gallons and your gravity was 1.046, then your number is 46 * 6.5 = 299

299 / 402.5 = 74.2% which is pretty good, especially for your first AG mash.

 

[ibleedbrew]

yeah i had spot on 6.5 boiled for an hour transfered and pitched starter drew off some wert in the little test tube guy THEN took my OG reading would that change anything? so were just seeing how well i did at extracting sugars from my grain in the end result? thank you for the help i just didnt know the process and or formulas to determine all this now are the ppgs listed on the grain that ill buy from the store or i google that stuff?

 

[ibleedbrew]

oohh i didnt read you right i had 6.5 pre boil just at five post so 57% is what im really looking at for ground zero ill take it!