![]() To “dial in” your brewhouse efficiency you simply bump it up a bit if your original gravity from a batch comes in high, or lower it a bit if your original gravity comes in lower than expected. Practical Applications of Brewhouse Efficiencyīrewhouse efficiency generally remains constant from batch to batch when brewing on the same system, so once you dial in your brewhouse efficiency you can use it to build future recipes. So brewhouse efficiency is simply a measure of the overall efficiency of the brewing system encompassing both the efficiency of the mash and lauter process as well as losses in the system during boil, transfer and volume lost to trub. Using a system with 72% brewhouse efficiency we come up with a potential of (74* 72%) = 53.2 points which is an original gravity of 1.053. So again using the example from above, our 10 lbs of malt gives us 74 points under “ideal” conditions. Since brewhouse efficiency includes mash, boil, transfer and trub losses, it can be applied directly to the “ideal” number we discussed earlier. Brewhouse efficiency is typically a number in the range of 72% for most home brewing size systems. The number that captures all of these losses plus the mash efficiency is called the brewhouse efficiency. Each of these will further reduce your original gravity into the fermenter. These includes boil off, deadspace during the boil and transfer and trub losses (the gunk left after the boil). Brewhouse EfficiencyĪ real world brewing system has additional losses after the mash process is complete. However, since the mash efficiency only includes losses occurring during the mash and lauter process, it will give us an estimate of only the boil gravity and not the original gravity of the beer. Using the example above, 74 points * 80% gives us 59.2 points or a gravity of 1.059 going into the boil. If we take the “potential” points of the grains, and multiply it by this percentage we get the points extracted from the mash. It is typically a percentage in the 80% range. Mash efficiency is simply the percentage of “potential” sugars that are extracted from the grains during the mash. Now that we understand how to calculate the “ideal” potential points for a recipe, we can talk about the difference between mash and brewhouse efficiency. Losses in each step of the brewing process occur, and the difference between the “ideal” gravity and “real” gravity represents the efficiency of the system. However, in the real world, no brewing system is 100% efficient. This is what would be produced if a brewery were 100% efficient. If we then divide by the volume of the recipe in gallons, we can directly estimate the recipe’s overall potential gravity points for ideal conditions.įor example, if we had 10 lbs of 1.037 malt in a 5 gallon recipe, the overall potential would be (37 * 10 / 5) = 74 points, which would under perfect laboratory conditions give us a beer with an original gravity of 1.074. ![]() We then can sum these up for all grains in the recipe to give an overall potential number of points. By taking the number of pounds of malt and multiplying by the potential points for each malt we get a contribution for a given malt addition. ![]() We use these point contributions to directly calculate the potential sugars for the entire recipe. So a pale malt with a 1.037 potential contributes 37 points per pound of grain. Typically to estimate original gravity we take the potential of a grain (1.037 for example) and convert that to points by dropping the 1 and multiplying by 1000. ![]() A pale malt might have a potential of 1.037 for example. The potential is a measure of how much sugar a given pound of grain can contribute. When we add grains to our all grain beer, each grain has a potential associated with it. Lets start with a discussion of the basic idea of brewing efficiency. Understanding the difference between mash and brewhouse efficiency is also important – as it also drives the grains required. Your system efficiency determines the original gravity of the beer as well as how much grain is required to develop a given recipe. Follow is an important number to understand for all grain beer brewing. ![]()
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