What did you learn today

[camsaway Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close camsaway]

OK - So to add to the conversation, my understanding;
* Mash Efficiency = how much of the potential sugars did you get out of the malt
* Brewhouse Efficiency = how much of the potential sugars in the malt did you get into a package (keg/bottle)

Mash Efficiency looks purely at how well you convert the starches in the malt and extract as sugar into your wort. It is the measure of amount achieved / total potentially available and is a specific focus on how well you perform the Crush, Mash and Sparge part of your process.

Brewhouse Efficiency looks at how much of the potential in you malt makes it into your final beer. In this case losses in your brewing process as well as mash efficiency affect your BH efficiency. It's important here as it covers all aspects of wastage and you need to understand all the places that you could be losing sugars - either to reduce it or use it making your calculations more accurate.

One of my pet peeves is that BeerSmith (and I'm sure other) programmes ask you to enter BH efficiency as a starting point and you have to reverse engineer Mash Efficiency when it makes more sense to work it out the other way round. If I change my volumes for a batch, my mash efficiency doesn't change (much) but my BH efficiency does (as my absolute losses don't change, but their % of the total does).

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

+1 as nicely explained here by Dan ... this is exactly how I setup my software and it working perfect for my setup

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Thanks for the explanations guys! Think I'll start looking at other calculators in the future so I can maybe get more accurate descriptions of my numbers for myself then. To date I have used exclusively the BrewersFriend Brewhouse Efficiency calculator, and used those numbers.

[RudiC Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RudiC]

Wow, I learned that I have a load to learn. This discussion about brewhouse efficiency and mash efficiency. Wow, I have a lot to learn.

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Don't forget about zymurgy, water profiling, hop isomerization and grain profiles

Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

If you look at dilution calculators, they basically work on the basis of 'gravity point litres before'='gravity point litres after'. So doubling the wort volume by adding water should halve the points. And same with boiling away water.

And this is why I still don't grasp the concept efficiency going up by boiling away the wort. Because it implies that once you have boiled it to 100% efficiency, further boiling would give you 101%, 102% etc. In science, and the whole definition of efficiency, that is impossible, unless there is a fundamental flaw in the way efficiency is calculated in brewing?

To throw a spanner in the mix, because of my method and set up, I add another 'efficiency' that I loosely call 'beerhouse efficiency'. Because I don't have any additional losses 'into the fermenter' , my brew house efficiency is identical to my mash efficiency. All my losses are only seen at bottling stage

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Yeah I've taken to stop worrying about the different types of efficiencies, and I focus only on one - gravity vs volume in the fermenter. That's it. When I measure the gravity of the total wort into my fermenter, I enter those numbers into a calculator along with the grain bill, and that efficiency is the number I focus on. That number is varying between 76.83% (or something like that) and 77.33% (or something like that) over my last few batches, so I'm really happy.

[hopingmadinZam Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hopingmadinZam]

If you look at dilution calculators, they basically work on the basis of 'gravity point litres before'='gravity point litres after'. So doubling the wort volume by adding water should halve the points. And same with boiling away water.

And this is why I still don't grasp the concept efficiency going up by boiling away the wort. Because it implies that once you have boiled it to 100% efficiency, further boiling would give you 101%, 102% etc. In science, and the whole definition of efficiency, that is impossible, unless there is a fundamental flaw in the way efficiency is calculated in brewing?

To throw a spanner in the mix, because of my method and set up, I add another 'efficiency' that I loosely call 'beerhouse efficiency'. Because I don't have any additional losses 'into the fermenter' , my brew house efficiency is identical to my mash efficiency. All my losses are only seen at bottling stage

Hi Lang,
Hopefully I can assist, I'm not much of a brewer but I'm not bad with science. so specific gravity is the density of your wort, based around the amount of sugars in your wort, right? as the yeast coverts the sugars the gravity drops giving you a way to calculate ABV, so if you have x amount of sugars in 10l of water and add another 10l of water you halve the amount of sugar concentration in your wort (not your gravity reading), giving you lower starting gravity.

if you start with the same initial 10l and then boil away 2l you increase gravity as the is a greater concentration of sugar giving a higher gravity in those remaining 8l of water.

Boiling water down doesn't increase efficiency in only increases concentration of sugars so that once you ferment you will hit your desired ABV.

"So to work out your brewing efficiency you need to work out the maximum potential yield of your grain then compare it to your yield.let us say we have a maximum potential yield of 83 (Original Gravity of 1.083) we can then calculate for brewhouse efficiency.
an original gravity of 1.058 for our example recipe. We can take this, compare it to the maximum potential yield, and come out with an overall brewhouse efficiency:

58/83 = .698 or .7

So, a brewhouse efficiency of 70%, which falls right in line with most homebrewing efficiency numbers, which are usually between 65 and 80 percent."
Source https://learn.kegerator.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

If you are managing to get over 100% of efficiency then you are managing to get more sugars out of you malt then what is considered maximum yield. therefore you are either a malting wiz or maybe potentially have a number wrong in your calculation.
Hope that helps.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

^ That is exactly the way I have it as well. Efficiency shouldn't increase as you boil off water, although I do admit that you will possibly get a higher efficiency if you sparge to bits and then boil back down to volume. THAT makes sense to me, but the efficiency will never be over 100%.

[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

So after not liking pouring almost boiling wort into plastic containers I was taking a kettle full of boiled water to the pot to sparge with when I realized. My freaking kettle is plastic and I boil water in it many times a day.
Sometimes I'm just slow! There is no need to worry about pouring boiling wort into ldpe cubes.

[BackOffMyBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BackOffMyBrew]

^ Yup, I set my mind at ease as well this weekend with my first no-chill brew

[PaBz0r Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaBz0r]

Where are you guys getting cubes for no-chill?

[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

Got mine from plastic land. But any waters shop should have some 2

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

I had a mate who worked for **shall not be named** appliance company, who told me the clear plastic water level windows in kettles are 'dodgy as all hell'. Made me just thing twice about how safe we think things are without second guessing it! Yet I still have a kettle with a clear plastic window.

PaBzor, I got a nice round one from Westpack the other day. I think sixty something rand which I didnt think was too bad. I bought it for ice and actually thought it was 10 or 15L. Didnt realise 20L was actually so compact

[PaBz0r Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaBz0r]

I had a mate who worked for **shall not be named** appliance company, who told me the clear plastic water level windows in kettles are 'dodgy as all hell'. Made me just thing twice about how safe we think things are without second guessing it! Yet I still have a kettle with a clear plastic window.

PaBzor, I got a nice round one from Westpack the other day. I think sixty something rand which I didnt think was too bad. I bought it for ice and actually thought it was 10 or 15L. Didnt realise 20L was actually so compact

Thanks! Will have a look