Efficiency according to Brewmate

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GuyQLD said:
I gave up on this thread last night, but since you posted that picture it just get's more humorous.

You've repeatedly stated that the Actual Volume field contains your Wort + trub loss. However in the picture you just posted, you have a post boil volume of 26.5. Since by your definition Actual Volume in Kettle = Post boil - losses to chilling based on your picture it should be 25.5L in the kettle.

In the picture you posted how much wort is going into the cube? Is it 23L or the 21L that you've repeatedly stated. If that 23L you've stated in the Actual Kettle Volume field still includes trub your numbers are 2.5L out.

If in your example that 23L is the actual volume into the cube then what the hell are you arguing about?
Guy, the total batch size for this recipe is 23lt. I will make 23lt of total wort on brew day.
So when I have finished boiling, I will have 26.5lt of wort sitting in my Urn.
It's 26.5 - 2.5 - 1 = 23lt.
The recipe sheet above yielded more than 2.5lt of trub, it was actually 3lt. I set my trub loss to 2.5lt as that's about average for most of my beers but it can vary depending on grain bill & how hard I squeeze the bag. So this recipe yielded 20lt into my no chill cube + 4lt of trub loss ( 1lt is cooling loss ) @ 1.055 so I ended up with 81% efficiency instead of the 80%.
The actual volume in the kettle is the total amount of wort you have produced & calculating brewhouse efficiency is this, in total including all losses.
The amount of wort you get into the fermenter or cube does not go in that column, you have set it up already & accounted for your losses.
26.5lt - 2.5lt - 1lt = 23lt. ( 23lt is total batch size, not the amount into fermenter or cube )

Look at cycleporo bigted's video, he's a member on here & take a look at his actual final volume of wort produced.
In BeerSmith, his 27lt is called measured batch size. In BrewMate, that column is called Actual Volume in Kettle. You will notice his 27lt is not what he has in the fermenter.
He has 22lt into the fermenter + 3lt of trub + 1lt in Braumeister + 1lt in his measuring cup, 27lt total for his 27lt batch. His 27lt batch is not in the fermenter dude, there's only 22lt in there.



Do you understand now?
 
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Can someone else please explain to him that he's counting trub twice?

I have better things to do.
 
Crusty said:
Guy, the total batch size for this recipe is 23lt. I will make 23lt of total wort on brew day.
So when I have finished boiling, I will have 26.5lt of wort sitting in my Urn.
It's 26.5 - 2.5 - 1 = 23lt.
The recipe sheet above yielded more than 2.5lt of trub, it was actually 3lt. I set my trub loss to 2.5lt as that's about average for most of my beers but it can vary depending on grain bill & how hard I squeeze the bag. So this recipe yielded 20lt into my no chill cube + 4lt of trub loss ( 1lt is cooling loss ) @ 1.055 so I ended up with 81% efficiency instead of the 80%.
The actual volume in the kettle is the total amount of wort you have produced & calculating brewhouse efficiency is this, in total including all losses.
The amount of wort you get into the fermenter or cube does not go in that column, you have set it up already & accounted for your losses.
26.5lt - 2.5lt - 1lt = 23lt. ( 23lt is total batch size, not the amount into fermenter or cube )

Look at cycleporo bigted's video, he's a member on here & take a look at his actual final volume of wort produced.
In BeerSmith, his 27lt is called measured batch size. In BrewMate, that column is called Actual Volume in Kettle. You will notice his 27lt is not what he has in the fermenter.
He has 22lt into the fermenter + 3lt of trub + 1lt in Braumeister + 1lt in his measuring cup, 27lt total for his 27lt batch. His 27lt batch is not in the fermenter dude, there's only 22lt in there.



Do you understand now?
You definitely seem to contradict yourself here.

Crusty said:
Guy, the total batch size for this recipe is 23lt. I will make 23lt of total wort on brew day.
So when I have finished boiling, I will have 26.5lt of wort sitting in my Urn.
It's 26.5 - 2.5 - 1 = 23lt.
So you are saying the amount in the kettle minus trub and cooling loss is your total batch size

Crusty said:
The actual volume in the kettle is the total amount of wort you have produced & calculating brewhouse efficiency is this, in total including all losses.
or not?

Crusty said:
The amount of wort you get into the fermenter or cube does not go in that column, you have set it up already & accounted for your losses.
26.5lt - 2.5lt - 1lt = 23lt. ( 23lt is total batch size, not the amount into fermenter or cube )
or is it?

Crusty said:
In BeerSmith, his 27lt is called measured batch size. In BrewMate, that column is called Actual Volume in Kettle. You will notice his 27lt is not what he has in the fermenter.
He has 22lt into the fermenter + 3lt of trub + 1lt in Braumeister + 1lt in his measuring cup, 27lt total for his 27lt batch. His 27lt batch is not in the fermenter dude, there's only 22lt in there.
I think your terminology like 'wort produced' doesn't help.
 
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I get 100% efficiency in all my beers.

They're a bit crunchy though.
 
I think maybe the main confusing this is that 23L above isn't "into the fermenter" when it seems like it should be.

27L actual kettle volume (at flameout?)
- 3L trub
- 1L cooling
= 23L total batch size

Is the reason that you can't account for losses to hops here? If I measure my start boil volume, add a shittonne of hops and measure the actual amount in the boiler when I finish there will be a fair amount of hop volume perhaps skewing the measurement.
 
I think the the term Actual volume in kettle in BrewMate is a little confusing.
In BeerSmith, that column is termed measured batch size so for example, 23 litres.
So in BeerSmith, a 23lt batch size is the total amount of wort that has been made on the day. Making up that 23lt is the amount you have in your fermenter + your trub loss etc.
Brewhouse efficiency, like BeerSmith, is asking for the total amount of wort produced, ie: 23lt. For me that is, 20lt into the cube or fermenter + 4lt of trub ( 1lt is cooling loss ) so after the boil and all cooled down, I have 23 litres produced for my 23lt batch size.
If you put the actual amount of wort you get into the fermenter ( 20lt ) you're not measuring brewhouse efficiency which is what I'm trying to explain.
As in cyclepros video using BeerSmith, he is doing a 27lt batch of beer. He ends up with 22lt into his fermenter + 3lt of trub + 1lt left in the BM + 1lt left in the measuring cup for a total batch size of 27lt. If you look at the figure he puts into beerSmith column, batch size, it's 27lt not 22lt that he has in the fermenter.
I'm not measuring mash efficiency & omitting trub etc, I'm measuring my total amount of wort produced which includes all losses = Brewhouse efficiency.
At the end of the day, Guy can please himself how he measures his efficiency & I mean no disrespect to him or anyone else but the way he's doing it is incorrect if he in fact wants to measure brewhouse efficiency.
The trub loss is still wort so why would you omit 3lt off the 23lt batch. In theory, you could simply dump the whole 23lt of wort made straight into your fermenter. I don't do it but it's 23lt of wort that's been made on the day not 20lt that's gone into the fermenter.
 
Trub is actually sweet so it is robbing you of sugars. So if aiming for a 23l batch into the fermenter you really need to think what trub loss you normally get. For example when I used to do bottles before I went to kegs I needed my 23L to fill the 30 PETs so I did a 25L batch and entered such in BrewMate. Thus my 23L of clear wort was actually derived from a recipe for 25L and the efficiency was based on the 25L, even though I only got 23L at the end of the day.

To me efficiency is just a way of keeping on track from brew to brew in case the efficiency goes to shyte, then I can check my crush and my thermometer, whatever.
 
If brew house efficiency was based on post boil kettle volume, then it would be identical to mash efficiency, wouldn't it? The degree to which wort is separated from trub would seem to be a measure of efficiency, in which case it makes sense brew house efficiency would be based on volume into the fermenter. Bit of a moot point, as long as you consistently apply your own definition.
 
Liam_snorkel said:
I've kept a record of the last 18 brews and plotted my pre-boil efficiency & into-frementer efficiency against grain bill size. I brew in a bag, squeeze, & mash out. Never sparge.

Aside from a couple of outliers, there is a definite downward trend as the grain bill goes up.

average mash eff = 86%
average into fermenter = 76%
I might have missed this but what water volume?
 
Changes for each grain bill - for a 4kg about 31 litres. I use brewmate to work it out based on a 22 litre batch size.
 
For what it's worth I get 68% into the fermentor everytime using BIAB, however my water to grain is only 4.7, always mashout gives an extra 2 to 4 points.
 
Liam_snorkel said:
Changes for each grain bill - for a 4kg about 31 litres. I use brewmate to work it out based on a 22 litre batch size.
ok got you, so almost 8 to 1 then reducing from there based on grain.
 
TSMill said:
If brew house efficiency was based on post boil kettle volume, then it would be identical to mash efficiency, wouldn't it? The degree to which wort is separated from trub would seem to be a measure of efficiency, in which case it makes sense brew house efficiency would be based on volume into the fermenter. Bit of a moot point, as long as you consistently apply your own definition.
I agree, logically. Logically, brewhouse efficiency should be the ability to convert grain into the finished, bottled/kegged product.

How the industry standard view it may or may not be the same thing. I mostly want to make sure I'm using my software how it's designed and get a proper grasp on what others use when they say x% efficiency.
 
Parks, pro tip.

Eff using my interpretation = eff using Crusty's method (as far as wort actually collected as x amount of sugar per kg of grain). I mearly present mine as the default mode brewmate uses based on my observation.

frankly couldn't care less what method you use as long as you're consistent you'll get the results you're after.

That's the stupid part of this whole thing.
 
GuyQLD said:
Parks, pro tip.

Eff using my interpretation = eff using Crusty's method (as far as wort actually collected as x amount of sugar per kg of grain). I mearly present mine as the default mode brewmate uses based on my observation.

frankly couldn't care less what method you use as long as you're consistent you'll get the results you're after.

That's the stupid part of this whole thing.
I really only care because

a) I want to know I'm using Beersmith correctly
b) It's nice to compare apples to apples.

Further to b) I really mean it would be nice to know we're comparing the same thing. It probably is a dream though seeing as the range of equipment with losses to Mash Tun dead space and design, Kettle dead space & chiller / line losses are so varying.

I appreciate the discussion too as it gives me insight into what others may use under the blanket of "efficiency".
 
Crusty said:
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So where BrewMate says "Actual Volume in Kettle", it means "Actual Volume in Fermenter"? Is this right? (Confused...)
 
Crusty said:
Guy, the total batch size for this recipe is 23lt. I will make 23lt of total wort on brew day.
So when I have finished boiling, I will have 26.5lt of wort sitting in my Urn.
It's 26.5 - 2.5 - 1 = 23lt.
The recipe sheet above yielded more than 2.5lt of trub, it was actually 3lt. I set my trub loss to 2.5lt as that's about average for most of my beers but it can vary depending on grain bill & how hard I squeeze the bag. So this recipe yielded 20lt into my no chill cube + 4lt of trub loss ( 1lt is cooling loss ) @ 1.055 so I ended up with 81% efficiency instead of the 80%.
The actual volume in the kettle is the total amount of wort you have produced & calculating brewhouse efficiency is this, in total including all losses.
The amount of wort you get into the fermenter or cube does not go in that column, you have set it up already & accounted for your losses.
26.5lt - 2.5lt - 1lt = 23lt. ( 23lt is total batch size, not the amount into fermenter or cube )
I'm confused.

I've finished my boil and there's 26.5lt in the kettle. Minus trub, gives me 24lt, minus cooling losses (1lt) gives me 23lt. Why on earth wouldn't I put the whole 23lt into the fermenter? What's left to come out?
 
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