• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

How do I increase my efficiencies in Beersmith

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

linusstick

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
250
Reaction score
10
Location
Pittsburgh
My mash efficiency has gone from 70-80 in my last couple beers (I am a BIAB brewer) but I'm confused as to what to enter for my brew house eff). I am constantly overshooting my OG (by a ton). I've been adding spring water to the beer after the boil to bring my volume and OG to where I was shooting for but can't grasp if I should enter the bad data into the recipe or add the water then add how it goes into the fermenter. I feel if I add the gravity AFTER I add water it's giving me a better reading but if I wanted to brew it again, I am going to brew the same flawed beer
 
If your volumes were accurate with the estimates from BeerSmith, then you can update the brew house efficiency in your equipment profile to match the efficiency you are observing. Open up the last recipe you brewed and make sure you have filled out the gravity readings and volumes you actually measured in the 'session' tab. On the left hand side of the tab, you will find a calculation of the 'meas efficiency' as compared to the target from your equipment profile. Update the profile with this new measured efficiency and you should be in a better position. Save the equipment profile and update your next recipe using this profile to apply it to your recipe. You will most likely need to adjust your grain bill to get back to your initial targets.

If your efficiency was much better than the original efficiency from the equipment profile you used when you initially brewed the last recipe, you may need to use 'scale recipe' to adjust the bill of ingredients while updating the recipe to the new equipment profile with the updated brew house efficiency.

Just a note: BeerSmith treats all recipes as an archive. When you change something in your equipment profile and save it, the program will NOT update any existing recipes that you have made or brewed previous to that change.
 
Back
Top