What is your typical mash efficiency?

[urg8rb8]

I mashed a wheat beer last night and got 83% efficiency according to beersmith.

Do you guys ever target your efficiency so that it's predictable? I'm just wondering if you ever worry that your efficiency is better than you predicted causing your ABV to potentially be higher than you originally planned.

 

[BrewSavage]

I don't worry. I'm under no pressure to produce a beer that meets any specification other than I enjoy drinking it.

 

[brew_darrymore]

I BIAB and use a Victoria grain mill. Over the last 20 batches, my mash efficienty is consistently between 78-82%

I'm glad I always end up with the same efficiency, and yes, I use that figure to calculate how much grain I need to get the desired OG for a particular batch.

 

[Gavin C]

Yes I do work to specific targets. Depending on the grainbill I will know at the outset what my mash and brewhouse efficiencies will be to within a very close range.

There is an article about doing just that in my sig, "calculating efficiency".

 

[stpug]

I mashed a wheat beer last night and got 83% efficiency according to beersmith.

Do you guys ever target your efficiency so that it's predictable? I'm just wondering if you ever worry that your efficiency is better than you predicted causing your ABV to potentially be higher than you originally planned.

Like Gavin C, I also target specific numbers during the brewday. They allow me both to gauge my success of the brewday as well as keep my beer balanced to the levels I'm aiming for. It's a good thing to know what you're going for and what you're getting because it allows you to have a predictable brewday and finished product. It also provides you the first point of reflection on how your brewday is going before you ever get to the end. If you find higher or lower then expected mash efficiency then you can expect the same out of your brewhouse efficiency and make on-the-fly adjustments to your hop schedule to account for the increased/reduced gravity; or, you may find yourself figuring out what kind of sugar source to add so that your beer still ends up about where you hoped .

As for "mash efficiency", you should be seeing levels at or greater than about 90%. If you are not then you may be leaving behind significant sugars, using too coarse of crush, or not converting the starches completely. The "brewhouse efficiency" or "fermenter efficiency" is often times what folks refer to when they mentioned numbers like 65-85% effciency, but not always.

 

[beergolf]

You want to get a consistent efficiency. I get 70% almost every time. So my OG ends up within a point or two every time. I am good with that. Some chase higher efficiency, but give me contsant every time and I am happy ,because I know what to expect.

With a consistent efficiency you can plan your recipes accordingly. If you get 60% one time and 80% the next then your recipes will be all over the place.

 

[JGF]

After the first few batches, 79% +/- 1% for all the "normal" beers we make. It's nice to be consistent, helps a lot with recipe planning. We mill our own grain and make water for each batch; both of them seemed to help get a more consistent efficiency.

We've not made a really big beer lately, maybe 8% was the highest. I'd probably plan to get a 5% or so less is we had.

We don't get too worked up about what the efficiency is but like that we're able to know what the end product will be.

 

[serum]

Usually somewhere around the 75% mark

 

[bmbigda]

i think there's a 3rd category here which is your apparent beersmith efficiency. what I mean is there are several knobs you can turn within beersmith to get it to predict the OG and post boil volume you desire. for me I tinkered with them for a while until I landed at setting beersmith to 68% which I "get" consistently these days. but that is not my mash efficiency as others have pointed out.

like others have said consistency for predictability is really all that matters here. we are taking about small money when comparing 70 and 80% efficiency.

 

[bmbigda]

I guess I'm also referring to brew house efficiency which stpug pointed out.

how much available sugar you present to the mash, and how much you get into the fermenter (OG and volume). and can you predict that. that's what's important to me

 

[Qhrumphf]

Another targeting specifics. I don't like missing gravity, below OR above.

I usually get between 85-88% brewhouse efficiency, depending on the gravity of the beer. For "average" gravity to fairly high gravity beers, I get 85% (+/- 0.5% or so). For session beers, it's 88%. For extremely high gravity beers I often partigyle (and depending how far I go I've pushed up to 94% with partigyles), so my efficiency doesn't really go outside of those ranges.

 

[Jimbodaman]

3 batches on my new system and they keep going up. 62%, 68%, 73%. Aiming for a stable 75%

 

[Wiscohio_brewer]

My last 5 batches have all been 75%, which I'm pretty happy with. Maybe once I start milling my own grain, I'll hit 80%, but I'm happy with 70-75% consistently.

 

[whovous]

Still dialing in. I've been around 50 (once) and used to regard 70% as the Holy Grail. Decided to grind my own and lengthen the boil and hit 88%. The process is starting to makemore sense to me now, and I suspect I am going to wind up in the 75-80% range most of the time in the future.

 

[Stillraining]

92 to 97 Mash

 

[pricelessbrewing]

92 to 97 Mash

I don't believe it.


I'm usually in the 83-85% range for mash efficiency for moderate beers depending on my recipe, and sparging method/process. I can get in the 88-90% range if I want to, but the amount of time to do so isn't worth the effort in my opinion.

Some of the past posts have stated they get a "constant efficiency" This is just not realistic and is a mathematical impossibility. Your mash efficiency is going to vary depending on a ton of factors, but mostly due to your recipe, ratio of first runnings to second runnings, and total water needed to grain bill. Larger grain bills, all else being equal, will have lower mash efficiency.

This is a fact, anyone claiming otherwise doesn't measure accurately or doesn't understand how to calculate their efficiency.

You don't want to get a constant efficiency, unless you plan on brewing the same beer ad nauseum, what you want is a predictable efficiency. To that end, I don't think anyone has given better advice to that point on these forums than @doug293cz, although Gavin and myself are probably the next most knowledgeable in my biased opinion.

For simulations on your equipment for batch sparging and no sparging (fly sparging simulations are hard) , you can use my mash/biab calculator located in my sig. Give thanks for the mash analysis numbers to doug, he did the grunt work, I just put it online in an easy to use format when I combined it with my calculator.

Since I started using dougs simulations, I haven't been off on my OG by more than 0.002~ and that was because I boiled off slightly more than intended due to the finicky controls on my burner.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I think this is a great topic for me since just today I did an exercise in figuring out apparent and real efficiency.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/09/07/apparent-and-real-attenuation-for-beer-brewers-part-1/

I did their example problem and then applied my own most recent beer and came up with:

Apparent - 87.3%
Actual - 70.9%

My beer was a partial mash 2.25 gallon IPA. I used 1.25 lbs. of Maris Otter and 2.5 lbs. of Briess "Golden Light DME".

The online calculator planners showed that I came in a little low, but I am extremely happy with the taste results so far.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I don't believe it.


I'm usually in the 83-85% range for mash efficiency for moderate beers depending on my recipe, and sparging method/process. I can get in the 88-90% range if I want to, but the amount of time to do so isn't worth the effort in my opinion.

Some of the past posts have stated they get a "constant efficiency" This is just not realistic and is a mathematical impossibility. Your mash efficiency is going to vary depending on a ton of factors, but mostly due to your recipe, ratio of first runnings to second runnings, and total water needed to grain bill. Larger grain bills, all else being equal, will have lower mash efficiency.

This is a fact, anyone claiming otherwise doesn't measure accurately or doesn't understand how to calculate their efficiency.

You don't want to get a constant efficiency, unless you plan on brewing the same beer ad nauseum, what you want is a predictable efficiency. To that end, I don't think anyone has given better advice to that point on these forums than @doug293cz, although Gavin and myself are probably the next most knowledgeable in my biased opinion.

For simulations on your equipment for batch sparging and no sparging (fly sparging simulations are hard) , you can use my mash/biab calculator located in my sig. Give thanks for the mash analysis numbers to doug, he did the grunt work, I just put it online in an easy to use format when I combined it with my calculator.

Since I started using dougs simulations, I haven't been off on my OG by more than 0.002~ and that was because I boiled off slightly more than intended due to the finicky controls on my burner.

Yep. It really helps to separate efficiency down. I think in terms of conversion (how much sugar is in the mash), lautering (how much sugar is in the kettle), and brewhouse (how much sugar combined with how much volume makes it in the fermenter) efficiency. Anyone should be able to easily obtain good conversion efficiency (mine is 98-99%, every single batch without exception). Lautering efficiency can easily be made predictable by consistent practice and attention to details. And brewhouse efficiency depends heavily on the recipe as well as equipment and to me is an afterthought. Hitting the right gravity is my primary concern, hitting my target fermenter volume is secondary.

And with changing gravity relating to high vs. low gravity beers, if you think in terms of pounds of grain per gallon batch, it's easy to see why this is the case. A 20lb grain bill in a 5 gallon batch (Barleywine) vs. the exact same 20 lb grain bill in a 10 gallon batch (ESB). Unless you sparge the crap out of the smaller batch and due an extremely long boil, you are going to have to collect a lot less runnings and rinse the sugars a lot less, and leave it all behind in the mash. As a result, instead of the small higher gravity batch having twice the gravity of the big lower gravity batch, it's going to be noticeably less than twice the gravity.

 

[RevA]

My brewhouse efficiency is usually between 75 and 79% with batch sparging in mash tun with biab filter rather than manifold

 

[urg8rb8]

I got the 83% using mash in a bag method.

 

[MerlinWerks]

For most normal gravity beers I get 78% - 82% mash efficiency and ~ 70% brewhouse, with a BIAB setup. I actually get slightly better mash efficiency (85%) on bigger brews (1.070+). For those brews I increase my boil time which increases my total water volume, this allows me to reserve a gal or so of mash liquor to do a pour over sparge after my initial drain. Before going that route my OG would always end up at least 5 points shy on the bigger beers.

 

[Stillraining]

I don't believe it.

I have never questioned BeerSmith so just going on what it crunches out. Maybe I don't have it set up right ... Told me I hit 93.2 on last brew day...(mash not brew-house).

I will use your other program and see what comparisons I get and let you know.

 

[Gavin C]

Beersmith or any calculator is only as useful as the data you feed it. GI/GO

You're the brewer. Don't let any tool dictate what you do. You tell it not the other way round.

The math is very simple for calculating efficiencies.

Accurate measures are the key to getting useful data that you can learn from and/or modify your process to the betterment of your brewing.

 

[Stillraining]

I have to get to work but a quick look at that calculator and I have a question..

Yours has a Conversion eff. and a Mash eff...Which one are you referencing when saying you don't believe my quoted Beer Smith numbers?

Also I take first running and second running OG's is your "Mash OG" same as First running's? I do not dip out of the top the the tun..I just open the valve to collect it.

Thanks for that Gavin That's the most concise description I have ever seen on the subject. I will run the number by hand and see what that comes up to.

 

[doug293cz]

I think this is a great topic for me since just today I did an exercise in figuring out apparent and real efficiency.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/09/07/apparent-and-real-attenuation-for-beer-brewers-part-1/

I did their example problem and then applied my own most recent beer and came up with:

Apparent - 87.3%
Actual - 70.9%

My beer was a partial mash 2.25 gallon IPA. I used 1.25 lbs. of Maris Otter and 2.5 lbs. of Briess "Golden Light DME".

The online calculator planners showed that I came in a little low, but I am extremely happy with the taste results so far.

Wrong topic. You're talking about attenuation during fermentation, not efficiency.

Brew on

 

[Iseneye]

I have to get to work but a quick look at that calculator and I have a question..

Yours has a Conversion eff. and a Mash eff...Which one are you using when saying you don't believe my quoted Beer Smith numbers?

Thanks for that Gavin That's the most concise description I have ever seen on the subject. I will run the number by hand and see what it is.

It's confusing when people don't refer to what efficiency they are talking about. I assumed your 92-97% was mash efficiency which is believable but others may have assumed you were talking about brewhouse efficiency which is not believable.

 

[Gavin C]

I have to get to work but a quick look at that calculator and I have a question..

Yours has a Conversion eff. and a Mash eff...Which one are you referencing when saying you don't believe my quoted Beer Smith numbers?

Also I take first running and second running OG's is your "Mash OG" same as First running's? I do not dip out of the top the the tun..I just open the valve to collect it.

Thanks for that Gavin That's the most concise description I have ever seen on the subject. I will run the number by hand and see what that comes up to.

No worries. I'm not suggesting that you need to do the numbers by hand. Just that any calculator will work just fine. The data is the key.

Just as an example.

Preboil volume needs to be corrected for shrinkage to the same temperature as your hydrometer is calibrated at.

Similarly any gravity readings should be taken ideally at the devices calibration temperature.

Measurement error is always present. Minimizing it should be a goal if you care about efficiency numbers and the benefits that knowing them can bring to the table.

Not everyones cares nor am I suggesting they should. This is a hobby for extraction of fun first and foremost.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Mash og and first runnings should be equal assuming you stir a bit before separating the two.

Second runnnings would be gravity of the sparge run off. All my calculations use braukaiders definitions of conversion, lauter, mash, and brewhouse. These vary from those in say "how to brew" by palmer or those calculated on brewers friend.

Anytime someone says "xx efficiency" I take it to refer to brewhouse, as that's the typical convention. If you're referencing conversion efficiency, which is a function of the grain bill, Strike volume, and mash/first runnings gravity, then I totally believe you as that's a typical expected range. There's no reason someone should be below 92% conversion except for the largest of grain bills where there isn't enough strike water to provide a good mash thickness.

 

[Qhrumphf]

It's confusing when people don't refer to what efficiency they are talking about. I assumed your 92-97% was mash efficiency which is believable but others may have assumed you were talking about brewhouse efficiency which is not believable.

Why is 92-97% brewhouse not believable? I've hit 94% brewhouse before. I don't normally like to go that high though as it's hard to get there without oversparging. But I've done it.

 

[Stillraining]

Anytime someone says "xx efficiency" I take it to refer to brewhouse, as that's the typical convention.

Well I guess its my turn to say " I don't believe it "...because my original post contained a qualifier.

So in this case you were wrong.. As the OP was talking Mash eff. as the thread title states and that's what I quoted. As did most every other poster.

I thank you for agreeing now that I probably do indeed get 92 t0 97 % mash eff. I will still play with your calculator and see what gives.

If there is a discrepancy I guess we will just have to split the differencs as Im sure Brad Smith took pains to make sure his calculator was as accurate as yours...no?

 

[Jaybird]

On most all my beers under about 1.060 to 1.055 OG I will hit in the high high 80's. 87-89... if I am making a larger beer 1.060 and up it seem I drop a few points into the 85-ish range. I do fly sparge. I try and keep my HLT temps in the 175* range knowing it drops about 5-7 deg during transfer. I have been hitting those numbers for YEARS!

Cheers
Jay

 

[Gavin C]

Im sure Brad Smith took pains to make sure his calculator was as accurate as yours...no?

I'm not so sure. Priceless' calculator is IMHO a better numbers tool. I don't use it but have played with it using my data and it's right on the money.

Unlike priceless' tool there is no correction for volumetric expansion in pre-boil volumes in Beersmith. A glaring error if you ask me but what the flock do I know.

This results in an overly inflated mash efficiency unless you make the appropriate correction yourself. (Not hard to do)

Once I started doing that an irksome mysterious constantly aberrant missing sugar percentage from pre-boil to post boil vanished and my numbers made more sense.

Think about it for a sec

We measure a sample of the wort to assess it's density but must cool it to 60/68F to get a true reading. That then is the wort density at 60 or 68F.

We must measure the volume at that same temperature if an accurate mash-efficiency is to be measured. That is an irrefutable truth and not something that is adjusted for in BS.

I actually emailed Beersmith about this issue and started a thread about it when I first realized this. I never got a reply.

 

[Stillraining]

OK now you've gone and done it... Now my head hurts ... I'm just a simple ditch digger after all.

OK I will bite on that Gavin...I have no reason not to... and I too have a couple issues with beer smith although not near so primal in nature.

I transferred all my numbers to the BIAB Calculator and it came out as 83% mash efficiency.

Quite the difference.

I suppose considering my rudimentary brewing system compared to others this seems logically a closer number if all you seasoned veterans are not seeing the numbers I thought I was seeing.

Dang I hate getting wrong information.

So now my question..Why is this called "brew in bag calculator" if I'm able to use it ?

And if your not using it what do you use?

 

[pricelessbrewing]

There's currently some discrepancies for unusual grain bills (high % of adjuncts or wheat or something) that might be present when using my calculator, as it's currently set to assume an average grain yield of 36 points. This isn't super realistic, but until I get the recipe formulation section in place, it's usually pretty accurate. To be honest, I do manually change the yield when I use it myself because I can cheat and manipulate the code. I'll add that as an input on saturday so you can too. Should yield more accurate numbers. There's also one smaller error that's been bugging me regarding estimated post boil og vs measured post boil og predicted using preboil volume and gravity. It's pretty minor, but there's about a half gravity point variance between the two and it's annoying. Probably due to rounding error but not sure.

Re: brew in a bag calculator, because that's what it started out as and I haven't been bothered to think of a new name. It's pretty much an all in one calculator now, on par with several of the big ones in my biased opinion. Once I get the recipe formulation working, I truly believe that it will be the best software package available for homebrewers. There are several more crazy ideas I'm thinking/hoping about implementing once I flesh out the formulas and finish working on other things. There are a couple other homebrewers on other websites that I'm reaching out to that have awesome utilities, that even if they aren't perfect, are really interesting and fun to play with and I hope I'll be able to incorporate some of them into my software. (see Scott Janish' work on hop oil flavor/aroma profiles)

Re: BS2. I don't want to badmouth Brad, since he obviously has done A LOT for homebrewers and his software is incredible for what it accomplishes. I'm not exactly a fan of the user interface, it's unnecessarily cumbersome to navigate and the way it's setup has a steeper learning curve than is really necessary and I know for a fact that a more than small minority of the user base agrees. Very few updates have come out that actually change or update the formulas behind the scenes, I listed out about 10-15 features, but deleted them as it seemed like too much mud throwing. that would be easily implemented/updated given more recent knowledge in the brewing world (see refractometer tool for one glaring impression). I emailed him regarding this as well, as I wanted to help him make BS2 better but since I didn't know the languages he's using it didn't really end up going anywhere.

I'm no brilliant programmer, I'm an amateur compared to what he's done. I just know basic programming, math and am pretty good at coming up with useful ideas.

 

[Gavin C]

OK now you've gone and done it... Now my head hurts ... I'm just a simple ditch digger after all.

OK I will bite on that Gavin...I have no reason not to... and I too have a couple issues with beer smith although not near so primal in nature.

I transferred all my numbers to the BIAB Calculator and it came out as 83% mash efficiency.

Quite the difference.

I suppose considering my rudimentary brewing system compared to others this seems logically a closer number if all you seasoned veterans are not seeing the numbers I thought I was seeing.

Dang I hate getting wrong information.

So now my question..Why is this called "brew in bag calculator" if I'm able to use it ?

And if your not using it what do you use?

LOL, sorry mate.

I use Beersmith. Despite what I previously mentioned I do find it to be a very useful, and overall a very accurate tool. I am a fan. But it's not perfect.

There is nothing magical that happens wort/grain/dissolved sugars by employing a bag as an aid to lautering. Any calculator can be used for any type of brewing.

The math doesn't give a rat's a$$ if you use a bag, false bottom, braid or entwined layers of straw during lautering. It's one of my pet peeve's with BIAB's name, it sems to be billed as this wildly different methodology. It's not, it just uses fewer vessels. The fundamentals are identical.

The article I linked earlier was written with a view to clarifying what really should be very simple conversations about efficiency. In my massively biased and shameless plugging opinion, it's worth a read.

____________________________________

Mash efficiency: How good a job did you do at getting sugars from the grain into your kettle.

Brewhouse efficiency: How good a job did you do at getting sugars from the grain into your fermentor.
________________________________________

That's it. Once you know where you're at each brew it's much easier to brew the intended beers, not ones dictated by measurement error or our systems' inefficiencies. You're the brewer, take control of your beer.

*steps down off beer-filled soap box*

 

[Stillraining]

Thanks Mate!

 

[Stillraining]

There's currently some discrepancies for unusual grain bills (high % of adjuncts or wheat or something) that might be present when using my calculator, as it's currently set to assume an average grain yield of 36 points. This isn't super realistic, but until I get the recipe formulation section in place, it's usually pretty accurate. To be honest, I do manually change the yield when I use it myself because I can cheat and manipulate the code. I'll add that as an input on saturday so you can too. Should yield more accurate numbers. There's also one smaller error that's been bugging me regarding estimated post boil og vs measured post boil og predicted using preboil volume and gravity. It's pretty minor, but there's about a half gravity point variance between the two and it's annoying. Probably due to rounding error but not sure.

Re: brew in a bag calculator, because that's what it started out as and I haven't been bothered to think of a new name. It's pretty much an all in one calculator now, on par with several of the big ones in my biased opinion. Once I get the recipe formulation working, I truly believe that it will be the best software package available for homebrewers. There are several more crazy ideas I'm thinking/hoping about implementing once I flesh out the formulas and finish working on other things. There are a couple other homebrewers on other websites that I'm reaching out to that have awesome utilities, that even if they aren't perfect, are really interesting and fun to play with and I hope I'll be able to incorporate some of them into my software. (see Scott Janish' work on hop oil flavor/aroma profiles)

Re: BS2. I don't want to badmouth Brad, since he obviously has done A LOT for homebrewers and his software is incredible for what it accomplishes. I'm not exactly a fan of the user interface, it's unnecessarily cumbersome to navigate and the way it's setup has a steeper learning curve than is really necessary and I know for a fact that a more than small minority of the user base agrees. Very few updates have come out that actually change or update the formulas behind the scenes, I listed out about 10-15 features, but deleted them as it seemed like too much mud throwing. that would be easily implemented/updated given more recent knowledge in the brewing world (see refractometer tool for one glaring impression). I emailed him regarding this as well, as I wanted to help him make BS2 better but since I didn't know the languages he's using it didn't really end up going anywhere.

I'm no brilliant programmer, I'm an amateur compared to what he's done. I just know basic programming, math and am pretty good at coming up with useful ideas.

OK, Thank you for the Honesty...I will Split the difference between yours and his measured mash efficiency calculations in the mean time... Which comes out to 88% in this case......................It makes me feel better if nothing else

I look forward to the new and improved version of both calculators ....carry on. ...Are you listening Brad?..

 

[BobBailey]

I mashed a wheat beer last night and got 83% efficiency according to beersmith.

Do you guys ever target your efficiency so that it's predictable? I'm just wondering if you ever worry that your efficiency is better than you predicted causing your ABV to potentially be higher than you originally planned.

Mine is very consistent at 78%. I use a 10 gallon round Igloo with a hose braid that spans the diameter. I could probably gain a couple of points by using a copper tube to drop the outlet end of the braid lower, but I'm lazy. I generally don't target efficiency, but it is nice to consistently meet the expected numbers.

 

[Ski12568]

80-83% mash efficency with a 10 gallon igloo, a bazooka tube, batch sparging.

I now want to shoot for above 90% after reading some of these posts.

 

[specharka]

Mash efficiency: How good a job did you do at getting sugars from the grain into your kettle.

Brewhouse efficiency: How good a job did you do at getting sugars from the grain into your fermentor.

Not to splice hairs here, but technically speaking, brewhouse efficiency should be measured to the keg/bottles rather than to the fermenter. Otherwise people who filter trub prior to the fermenter are at a loss compared to those who dump everything into it.

I typically achieve mash efficiency around 80-85%, but since I filter the trub prior to my fermenter, my brewhouse efficiency is around 75-80%. However, I only get around a quart of fermenter losses, versus a much higher value for those who don't filter the trub out prior to getting there.