How do you calculate brewing efficiency

By taking the number of pounds of malt and multiplying by the potential points for each malt we get a contribution for a given malt addition. We then can sum these up for all grains in the recipe to give an overall potential number of points. For example, if we had 10 lbs of 1. However, since the mash efficiency only includes losses occurring during the mash and lauter process, it will give us an estimate of only the boil gravity and not the original gravity of the beer.

A real world brewing system has additional losses after the mash process is complete. These includes boil off, deadspace during the boil and transfer and trub losses the gunk left after the boil. Each of these will further reduce your original gravity into the fermenter. The number that captures all of these losses plus the mash efficiency is called the brewhouse efficiency.

So brewhouse efficiency is simply a measure of the overall efficiency of the brewing system encompassing both the efficiency of the mash and lauter process as well as losses in the system during boil, transfer and volume lost to trub. Brewhouse efficiency generally remains constant from batch to batch when brewing on the same system, so once you dial in your brewhouse efficiency you can use it to build future recipes.

Ideally, you should also meausure your volume into the fermenter, as small variations in volume can throw off your estimates. This is due to the fact that you are brewing with a much higher proportion of grains to total water used. As a result, you should lower both the brewhouse and mash efficiency when building a high gravity recipe. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or my podcast also on itunes …and youtube …and streaming radio station for more great tips on homebrewing. Also check out the How to Brew Video series I shot with John Palmer if you want to learn more about all grain brewing.

Tagged as: Beer , Homebrewing , brewhouse , brewhouse efficiency , brewing , efficiency , gravity , homebrew , lauter , mash , original. Beersmith frustrates me because it forces me to dial in the Brewhouse Efficiency, then derives the Mash Efficiency from that.

Everything else is just a straight deduction of x litres to get from from the pre-boil volume to arrive at the volume I end up bottling. Those are all constant deductions of volume, Mash Efficiency is the ratio that determines the OG of the beer. I have two questions…. Is this value provided by the malt supplier? If not, how do you determine this value? How would I go about calculating an actual mash efficiency for my specific equipment?

Like others, I am confused by this article as well. The reasons why post boil losses should not be included in BHE have been made abundantly clear, in many discussions on many forums, some of which you have knowledge of. It hard to know where to start in attempting to address the inaccuracies in this post. There is no efficency component to boil-off, it merely determines how much the SG increases in reaching the OG of the beer.

Post-boil losses are merely simple volume losses of full OG wort. You were probably trying to convey the PPG losses and SG decrease due to dilution to make up volume, but all those confusing to you concepts are only there because you are looking out at the problem from inside the fermenter. The difficulty you are having explaining it is merely a symptom of that viewpoint. Move inside the kettle, and things become much easier, both to explain, and understand. There is so much wrong with this section.

You will have to stay in the PPG world, as confusing as that is to everyone, you included, otherwise you make no sense. Or, you could start making things easier for everyone, you included, and remove post-boil losses from your efficiency metric. It really is as easy as treating post-boil losses as a simple increase to the target kettle volume.

Of course, kettle target and fermenter target also work. For a detailed analysis of the math and algorithms involved, maybe. Much more useful is to talk about efficiency and SG, like you were doing although incorrectly ; although, this would mean abandoning the inclusion of post-boil losses in any related efficiency metric. If we look at the maximum ppg numbers from Table 9 for each of the recipe's malts, we can calculate our actual mash efficiency:. In this case, our mash extraction of 1.

How to Brew By John Palmer. Featured Links. Chapter If we look at the maximum ppg numbers from Table 9 for each of the recipe's malts, we can calculate our actual mash efficiency: Malts OG based on Max. PPG 6. All contents copyright by MoreFlavor Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

View Cart Checkout. Toggle navigation. Starter Kits. Kegerator Conversion Kits Homebrew Commercial. Sake Making. Food Processing Equipment Ingredients. Bar Tools. New Products. Sign up to receive exclusive deals, tips and tricks, special coupons and much more Sign Up. MoreWine Pro! MoreBeer Pro! Our History Staff Bios Testimonials.