Measuring Post-boil Efficiency

[katzke]

Unless of course you do what i think you should do (someone above mentioned it too) and dont quote efficiency at all.

Grain in Perentages
Target Specific Gravity
Target IBUs

done - and then nobody has to care what or where you personally measure your efficiency, as long as it works for you.

I thought you died or gave up. Nice to see you posting.

I agree. Just give a hop schedule and a grain bill in % with a target gravity and IBU. If you can not figure out how to give the grain bill in % I can figure it out even if you post it in liters of kittens.

Brewing with extract and grains, no problem as I can figure that out also. Anyone that is dedicated to brewing can figure it out. Lets see, there is 29 times more grain then dry extract and 3 times more liquid then dry. Or have I got that back wards?

All kidding aside, it is not rocket science. Plenty of places to find the conversion from grain to extract. Any half bright school kid can use a calculator to convert kilos of grain to %. I have to convert kelos to pounds and I can do that and end up with % grain bill.

Lets see, you convert kelos to stones and then convert that to pounds. Right?

Have fun brewing, it should be fun. You have to work hard at it to mess it up.

 

[MHB]

The underlying problem is that it has never been clear! There never has been a time when all brewers either home or professional used the same language.
Malts sold in Germany used to have the potential expressed as % of grain not Congress Mash so its about 20% different to from the get go, that has lead to a lot of confused brewers over the years but at least with the German system you couldnt get 110% efficiency which you can with the one we use now..
Like it or not basically all the books we read and most of the software out there looks at what is in the kettle at the end of boil, I have argued for a more consistent and accepted standard for years, ultimately I capitulated its just easier to go with the flow and talk about the end of boil efficiency and as I said before leave it up to the brewer to work out how they divide their wort up, which lets face it isnt all that hard, we should all know how much we are going to be leaving behind, so your target is that plus whatever you want in your fermenter.
M

 

[stux]

Probably the main reason to use efficiency measured in your kettle, either pre-boil or post boil (should be the same figure) is because thats what the brewing magazines and the major recipe books use. They cant use anything else.

X amount of grain at Y efficiency gives you Z liters of wort at W gravity. The books and magazines use that measure because its a point all brewers share in their process.... after that in your system, brewhouse, yeild, package etc etc efficiency is just about how much of that wort you waste between the end of the boil and your bottles or kegs.

Which measure of efficiency you use only matters if you need to communicate your recipe to someone else.... like the books and magazines and (for instance) posters to internet forums do - you have to specify where,what and how you are measuring when you say Y% - and the lowest amount of information you have to convey, comes if you use efficiency measured in the kettle.

Unless of course you do what i think you should do (someone above mentioned it too) and dont quote efficiency at all.

Grain in Perentages
Target Specific Gravity
Target IBUs

done - and then nobody has to care what or where you personally measure your efficiency, as long as it works for you.

So, the question then becomes the hop bill...

Providing IBUs is fine, especially for the bittering charge, but for the flavour and aroma, and possibly the dry hop additions, what then?

Is it best to provide them in g/L? and then with a total IBU you can modify the bittering addition to balance?

Sometimes I see things... like BrewBrite which says "x g per 23L batch"... is that 23L into the fermenter or 23L in the kettle? it would make more sense for it to be a kettle measurement, as we've been going on about trub being up to the brewer... but I dunno

The same applies to g/L hops... is that based on end of boil volume? pre boil volume? mid boil volume or volume into fermenter?

 

[SJW]

True Brewhouse efficiency (efficiency into the fermenter) means nothing to me. Recently got much higher post boil gravity than I wanted. So I had to water the wort down to stay within design guidline for that style, but I still only ended up fermenting 20 litres, enough for a keg. I ended up keeping a couple of litres for atarter then dumped the rest.

 

[bullsneck]

True Brewhouse efficiency (efficiency into the fermenter) means nothing to me.

You seemed to be quite into high efficiency in that YouTube clip

 

[SJW]

You seemed to be quite into high efficiency in that YouTube clip

You bet, but like I said I dont ferment everything I boil, thus the efficiency at the end of the boil is what interests me. I would not call it high efficieny either. Its not like I did anything special to get it.

 

[katzke]

So, the question then becomes the hop bill...

Providing IBUs is fine, especially for the bittering charge, but for the flavour and aroma, and possibly the dry hop additions, what then?

Adjust just like grain if needed. Course we add hops by the ounce or measurable fraction, like half ounces. Hops are not a big issue unless the recipe needs to be scaled by a factor of .5 or 2.

 

[zoigl]

Hi Katzke
Could you give me any tips about scaling the hop additions?
I have been scaling 100 litre recipes for ale to fit my 50 litre Braumeister. I have been using Beersmith. So far I seem to be way over-hopping when I have the hop additions.
Is there a rule of thumb for hop additions that I have missed? I seem to be having a mental blockk and any suggestions or help would be really appreciated.
cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

So, the question then becomes the hop bill...

Providing IBUs is fine, especially for the bittering charge, but for the flavour and aroma, and possibly the dry hop additions, what then?

Is it best to provide them in g/L? and then with a total IBU you can modify the bittering addition to balance?

Sometimes I see things... like BrewBrite which says "x g per 23L batch"... is that 23L into the fermenter or 23L in the kettle? it would make more sense for it to be a kettle measurement, as we've been going on about trub being up to the brewer... but I dunno

The same applies to g/L hops... is that based on end of boil volume? pre boil volume? mid boil volume or volume into fermenter?

g/l - and you are always talking about your post boil volume unless you mean dry hops (or other fermenter additions), when its obviously fermenter volume.

If you make 30L of wort and only get 25 to fermenter - but i make 30L of wort and get 28L into fermenter. If we want the same amount of late hop character in the final beer .. which volume do we look at?

we look at the 30L volume.

Not that it matters all that much unless there is some truly vast difference in efficiencies or volumes.

I suggest that if you find recipes that dont clearly indicate all the information you need to scale a brew to your system - either by specifying volumes and where/how efficiency is measured - or buy using percentages etc in a clear fashion... find a recipe from someone else. Plainly you dont know the brewer and haven't tasted the beer or you could just ask - so at the end of the day its just something that seems to sound good from a book, mag or the web. Find something else that both sounds good and conveys the information you need. Or take a risk and do some experiential learning.

TB

 

[glenwal]

Don't forget about aa% of your hops too, and not just when scaling. While they normally don't vary to much for a particular hop, it can make a difference.

 

[stux]

Don't forget about aa% of your hops too, and not just when scaling. While they normally don't vary to much for a particular hop, it can make a difference.

That's the thing, I suspect (but don't know) that for the late hop additions the raw quantity (g/L) is more important than the aa%.

The aa% of the actual used hops can then be used to work out the IBU contribution from the late hop additions and then the bittering addition can be modified to bring the IBU up/down to the desired level

And this is all done based on End of Boil Volume. What ends up in the fermenter will then have the desired late hop character, IBUs and gravity.

Meaning the into fermenter efficiency doesn't matter as far as recipe formulation is concerned

...

TB, thankyou for clarifying

 

[zoigl]

Thanks TB
The recipes that I am using are from Weyermann's recipe book and I am solely using their grains. So I must be using the incorrect volumes into the fermenter, at least you have pointed me in the right direction to experiment. I probably am getting 38 liters give or take into the fermenter. I will watch the AA% as well as some of the hops that I have been getting have had a higher %. I still have a lot to learn. java script:add_smilie("^_^","smid_3")
Thanks again
Cheers