![brewhouse efficiency beersmith brewhouse efficiency beersmith](http://beersmith.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Tips200-150x150.png)
Most brewers will fork over an extra buck or two for the additional grain, but complain endlessly about having to deal with a mash tun which will not drain.Īnything after the wort goes into the fermenter is not used in calculating the brew house efficiency. Most supply shops keep their crush a bit on the coarse side to prevent customers from complaining about stuck sparges. I've found that preconditioning the grain with a light spray of water before you grind (if you are grinding your own) will give you more intact husks, a slightly finer crush, and less flour. You don't want to grind the husks up too much, as that will impede the drainage of your mash tun, but you do not want to find many (or any) uncrushed kernels in your grains. If you are not grinding your own grains, you may ask that some or all of them get reground to attain a slightly finer particle size of the inner kernels. Personally, I have found that if you have stirred in the grains well and dispersed them with the mash water, additional stirring really does not gain you much, if anything, and leads to additional loss in temperature which can result in inconsistent fermentability of the wort. This is followed by: good wetting of the grains in the mash water, water chemistry and mash pH and everything else, including stirring during the mash. the top five things that help with mash efficiency are: grind, grind, grind, grind, and grind. Losses to trub and chilling, pump hold back, losses in lines which don't drain fully all add up to cost you in volume and sugars. If you can recover some by tipping your mash tun (I do it when I use my mash tun) and as long as you can do it consistently to the same extent each time, that will help. If you are all over the place in how you use your equipment and how you measure your water, you will never really know if you are making a change for the better.įirst, any losses in the brew house.
![brewhouse efficiency beersmith brewhouse efficiency beersmith](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/brewingproceduresbmv4-140530004111-phpapp01/95/brewing-procedures-bm-v4-13-638.jpg)
The key in all this is to be methodical and consistent in your process. OK, so here is where to look to minimize your losses and improve your efficiency:
![brewhouse efficiency beersmith brewhouse efficiency beersmith](http://braukaiser.com/wiki/images/c/c7/Header_efficiency.jpg)
Yes it may cost me a little more in grain, but that is a small price to pay for a home brewer wanting clean, good tasting beer and a hassle-free workday. The way I see it, as long as I know what my losses are, and what the efficiency is, then I can put that number into BeerSmith and it will scale the recipe accordingly. Is there anything else I can do to improve efficiency? The fermenter has a drain spigot I use and that leaves ~0.5g. The kettle has 0.87g of deadspace, and I like to leave that and the trub so it doesn't get into the fermenter. If I was desperate for some extra wort, I guess I could tilt the mash tun, and drain that, but I do not like to do that. Is this a good approach?Īs far as brewhouse efficiency goes, there are a number of equipment losses that I cannot do a lot about - the mash tun has 0.75g of deadspace. The next batch I make, I will stir a couple of times during the 60 minute mash to bring more sugars out, and I think I will measure the wort drained from the mash tun and adjust the quantity of sparge water accordingly so I do not end up with extra wort. I am using the two stage batch sparge method with roughly equal volumes from the mash and the sparge.
![brewhouse efficiency beersmith brewhouse efficiency beersmith](https://d2n6lg24rx372u.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Brewhouse-Efficiency-Equipment-Profile.png)
#Brewhouse efficiency beersmith drivers
I have read on this forum the drivers behind Brewhouse efficiency and I think I have a handle on it. Closer to 0.56 so I ended up with an extra 0.6 gallons out of the mash tun which I am sure hurt my numbers which came out at 76% Mash efficiency. Yesterday, my most recent batch had for some reason mush lower grain absorption than the default BeerSmith value of 0.96 Fl oz/oz. I am currently getting between 75-80% Mash efficiency and 60-70% Brewhouse efficiency (as indicated by BeerSmith). Now I use BeerSmith and have built an equipment profile and my own mash and fermentation profiles. This started with brewing five gallon batches and only ending up with a little over four into the bottles. Being an engineer at heart and a bit of a geek, I am trying to get my head around the numbers in BeerSmith and understand what my losses are.