What Is The Difference Between Brewhouse Efficiency & Attenuation?

[dalpets]

I have come across these definitions. On the face of it they seem to be saying roughly the same thing. Obviously they are not the same thing. Could someone please enlighten me in a way that I am more likely to understand.


"Attenuation refers to the percentage of original extract that has been converted by the fermentation process".

"Brewhouse efficiency is defined as the percentage of potential grain sugars that are converted into sugar in the wort".

Thank you for your help & time.

 

[felten]

Here's another efficiency can of worms opened J/K

brewhouse efficiency relates to the mash, and how much sugar you can extract and convert from your grains.

attenuation is how much sugar the yeast eats. (OG - FG) / OG = attenuation %. IE for a 1.050 OG and 1.012 FG; (50-12) / 50 = 0.76, which is 76% attenuation.

If you want a tip from me, google these questions (hate to sound like a twat telling someone to google something) and you won't only get a wealth of technical documents, but results from a lot of the major homebrewing forums across the world, including here. And if you haven't read howtobrew.com it's the beginners bible to homebrewing, I highly recommend it. (except the online version is only in imperial measurements, the latest version of the paperback has metric conversions IIRC)

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-1.html
http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-3.html

 

[whitegoose]

Attentuation relates to how much sugar the yeast "eats" during fermentation, while brewhouse efficiency relates to how much sugar is extracted from grain suring the mash.

To break it down into simple terms:
Brewhouse Efficiency => How efficient the mash was. Better efficiency = more sugars for the yeast to eat.
Attenuation => How efficient the yeast is at eating the available sugars during fermentation. Higher attenuation = more eating = more alcohol

 

[Effect]

brew house efficiency = the % of the potential sugar you extract from mashing grain

attenuation = the % of the sugar that the yeast eat

 

[white.grant]

Brewhouse efficiency actually refers to the efficiency of the entire system not just the mash. When calculating Brewhouse efficiency you will include losses to trub, boil off, deadspace etc.

The beersmith blog has a good article on calculating brewhouse efficiency http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/10/26/b...n-beer-brewing/

Attenuation is the difference between your fermentation OG and FG.

cheers

grant