Efficiency

[achy02]

Hi all,

Fairly new to AG. Just wondering if anyone can give a simple explanation of brewhouse efficiency. Ive seen it referred to and on Beersmith but am not entirely sure what it means and how important it is for someone just starting out.
Thanks
aches

 

[manticle]

I believe it's just the difference between the potential extracted sugars and the actual extracted sugars. How efficient your system and processes are will determine how close to 100% of potential sugars will be converted and extracted into your wort.

if it's something else then I've got it tits up

 

[Screwtop]

Hi all,

Fairly new to AG. Just wondering if anyone can give a simple explanation of brewhouse efficiency. Ive seen it referred to and on Beersmith but am not entirely sure what it means and how important it is for someone just starting out.
Thanks
aches

Brewhouse efficiency as used in Beersmith is a combination of mash efficiency (efficiency in to the kettle) and kettle efficiency.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[buttersd70]

That's basically it, manticle.

Achy, there are several types of efficiency. Brewhouse efficiency is what you end up with in the fermenter, accounting for all losses.

It's based on the theoretical amount of sugar you can get from the grain. This is expressed by the yanks as ppg - points per pound per gallon, or in the metric world as HWE - hot water extract. The efficiency into the kettle is the percentage of the theoretical that you can actually get, so it's how well you convert the starches to sugar, and how effective you are at getting that out of the tun and into the kettle. You then have brewhouse efficiency...this accounts for other losses, such as deadspace in the kettle and loss to trub. So, if your conversion isn't very good, your efficiency suffers. If your sparge is poor, same thing. If you have a big deadspace in the tun, or in the boiler, same again.

It's not something to be overly concerned about imo. It's something you should be aware of, but not lose sleep over....and imo you shouldn't go chasing mythical ultra-high efficiency numbers. There have been posts that suggest that too high an efficiency is as detrimental, if not moreso, than lower ones. The only thing that really concerns me about my efficiency is a/ being consistant, so that I have a target for planning recipes, and b/ using it to see if anything drastically out of place has happened.

When starting, look at 70% as a starting point. Then tweak it from there.

 

[Scruffy]

My 2c; it's how much sugar you can get out of your grain and into your brew. Your brewhouse efficiency figure should help you determine, sorry estimate any recipe's OG.

You can take a grain of ale malt (maybe a few), post it to a lab and let them extract as much sugar as science can do in 2010 - this is called the dry grain yield - the label on the bag might say this grain will produce 1035, then consider each step of your system (and head brewer) with the losses to trub and deadspace, mash efficiency, hitting your volumes (and colour of bag?) - you're only going to get a percentage of the dry yield. This percentage of the potential, as measured across the whole system into the fermenter, is the brewhouse efficiency.

I don't think 'mash efficiency' is included in Beersmith...

HTH

Edit - standing on the shoulders of giants... :huh:

 

[buttersd70]

I don't think 'mash efficiency' is included in Beersmith...

Not in the main veiw. But if you click on ''brewhouse efficiency", the efficiency into boiler is there. It has a calculated value, based on equipment and the overall brewhouse efficiency (in other words, it works it out backwards), but it has fields for the actual volume/gravity into boiler, which then works out the actual efficiency into kettle.

 

[Sammus]

It's based on the theoretical amount of sugar you can get from the grain.

I've heard differently: that the potential extract is based on a standard lab test, and with fandangled new age methods it's actually possible to get higher than what the standard lab test does, giving you >100% on paper.

 

[Adamt]

Yeah, it's based on a standard lab test. Coopers can get ">100% efficiency" with their mash filter.

 

[buttersd70]

what I meant by 'theoretical amount of sugar you can get from the grain' was the amount of sugar you could get if you had all the lab equipment that they use to calculate the hwe values. Not that it's a magical mystery number plucked out of thin air.

 

[Scruffy]

Next topic = Witchcraft and alchemy versus science: What's in your kettle?

 

[jayse]

The equipment loses in beersmith don't seem work properly, you need to set the loses in your equipment to zero and have the batch size set to the end of boil size or it does not calculate properly. When set like that what it gives as brewhouse efficiency is mash efficiency. This confuses many brewers but if you have a play around with it you'll see this is the case.


slighlty :icon_offtopic: One of the ways bigger breweries can get extra efficiency is sparge to the bitter end and save the final runnings in a weak wort tank, the weak wort can be used to sparge the next brew, doing this they eek out every last bit of extract.

 

[Zwickel]

.... there are several types of efficiency.....Snip

It's based on the theoretical amount of sugar you can get from the grain. This is expressed by the yanks as ppg - points per pound per gallon, or in the metric world as HWE - hot water extract. The efficiency into the kettle is the percentage of the theoretical that you can actually get, so it's how well you convert the starches to sugar, and how effective you are at getting that out of the tun and into the kettle. You then have brewhouse efficiency...this accounts for other losses, such as deadspace in the kettle and loss to trub. So, if your conversion isn't very good, your efficiency suffers. If your sparge is poor, same thing....snip

thats how the yanks are reckoning the efficiency, lead me always to some misunderstandings

Just out of interest let me explain how we count efficiency.

For us here in Germany, the statement: "It's based on the theoretical amount of sugar you can get from the grain" is far too theoretical, nothing you can touch.

Our way to count the efficiency is, how much sugar you get out of your grain,
in numbers:
if youre using 10kg of any grain and youre able to get 7kg of sugar out of it, then your efficiency is 70%
That way, you never can exceed 100%

That makes things much easier, even if youre using potatoes or mais or rice, it doesnt matter.
We just count the weight of the grain and the amount of sugar one can get out of it.
Thats the reason why the wort is not counted in gravity over here, we count in Plato or percentage. Percentage means percent of sugar, its nearly Plato.

Just an example:
Im going to produce 30litres of wort at 1048 by taking 5kg of grain
a FG of 1048 is equal to 12Plato=12% sugar
12% sugar of 30l of wort is 3.6kg of sugar
3.6kg sugar out of 5kg of grain = 72%

makes sense, doesnt it?

as Ive said, thats just to clears the term "efficiency" when it comes to international recipes.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[matti]

Zwickel, you are worth your weight in sugar

 

[Zwickel]

Zwickel, you are worth your weight in sugar

hmmmm...that would be good for 600l of beer :icon_chickcheers:

 

[davewaldo]

So just to clear up one little thing.....

When I'm looking at recipes and it states 75% efficiency. I assume this is the mash efficiency, not brewhouse efficiency?

Cheers

 

[raven19]

So just to clear up one little thing.....

When I'm looking at recipes and it states 75% efficiency. I assume this is the mash efficiency, not brewhouse efficiency?

I would propose that if you are looking at recipes here on AHB, that the efficiency % is actually brewhouse efficiency.

However if you plug the recipe back into Beersmith (or similar program), then you can see if the % given aligns with the estimated SG. NB: This will also depend though on your equipments as discussed above!

 

[Screwtop]

So just to clear up one little thing.....

When I'm looking at recipes and it states 75% efficiency. I assume this is the mash efficiency, not brewhouse efficiency?

Cheers

Who knows, as Beersmith is most likely the most popular software in use it would be reasonable to assume efficiency quoted as BHE. In any case ME and BHE are usually no more that about 5 points apart.

Enter the recipe at the BHE supplied then use the Scale tool in Beersmith to change the BHE to say 70% as a starting point for your system as has been pointed out above. If you have your Beersmith options set to metric it is also possible, if your recipe is in Gallons pounds ets to enter this into Beersmith and the amounts will be converted. Remember also that many US recipes are for 5 gallon batches (19.93L) and not many here use this batch volume (I use 24L for a single batch volume). Simply enter the recipe as per the efficiency figure in the recipe and the volumes and weights as per the recipe batch vol enter as 5Gal then malt amounts as lbs, this will be converted to Kg and hops as ozs which will be converted to grams. Then use the scale tool to change to your desired batch volume and your BHE figure.

It is more important to know what OG and IBU is contained within your recipe. If your OG is out after setting your BHE then use the gravity tool to change the OG this will adjust your malt amounts. Also adjust each hop in your recipe to the AA% for your hops as this changes crop to crop. Change the AA% then alter the weight until you have the same IBU contribution as listed in the recipe for each hop addition.

Hope this helps and is understandable :blink:

Screwy

 

[Sammus]

butters: noone was claiming its a magical number plucked out of thin air. I think it's reasonable to assume that theoretical or potential extract is exactly that, how much suger is it possible to extract from the grain, doable or not. This would presumeable involve some kind of calculation of how much of the grain is starch or whatever that gets converted to sugar.

jayse: yeah beersmith sucks like that, it seems to think anything left in lines or chiller or deadspace at the bottom of your kettle/mash tun is pure water. It's like you can add a deadspace of 100000L and even though it'll bump up your boil volume so you can get the right amount into the fermenter, all your IBU and gravity readings stay unchanged. I don't understand how they could have overlooked this. Easy enough to work around though, set all your losses at zero, and just add them to your 'batch volume' setting.

zwickel: that method of calculating eff seems more logical, though I'd prefer it if it were somewhere in between your method and the yanks method. So theoretical maximum extract was exactly that, the maximum amount of sugars you could possibly get if 100% of the starches in the grain were converted to sugars.

others: I believe all efficiency should be stated as brewhouse efficiency. No good quoting how efficient half your process is. My mash efficiency is in the mid 90s every batch, but since I loose some wort to kettle deadspace, trub, lines and chiller, the brewhouse efficiency is closer to 80.

efficiency should never be given by itself, its more of a bragging right than anything useful. If I had my way, recipes would be given in percentages of ingredients and weight/volume for finishing hops, along with ibu estimates for bittering and OG/FG measurements so you can adjust yours to line up with your own BHE.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Come on Sammus, you would have to be some freaky maths nut to care about all those things.
Go have a beer, mate!

 

[davewaldo]

Thanks Guys,

Screwy, the process you outline is basically what I've been doing as I figure its the grain ratios (grist %) the OG and the IBUs are what actually determine a recipe (and hop schedule). I use BeerAlchemy on a Mac so I basically enter all the details then I scale the grist up or down to get the desired OG and likewise with the hops. BeerAlchemy only tells me Mash efficiency (but it does take loses into account correctly to determine gravities).

Thanks again, I just wanted to make sure my process/thinking was correct.