Efficiency testing, missed my target FG

[judasegg]

Hey guys. Recently made a Cascadian Dark recipe, was supposed to end up with 19 litres in FV (I assume, as it was 5 gallon recipe) @ 1.066, but ended up with 23 litres @ 1.050.

This, of course, made me very sad, and I realized I haven't really done any efficiency measures on my equipment or process. I did keep the lid on for a good part of the boil, which I think may have resulted in something like 5-10% loss to evaporation, rather than the 15% I based my sparge water requirements on.

I was hoping someone could provide a checklist I could use, of things to measure/record, in order to measure efficiency at each stage, and get all the numbers needed (for the Batch Sparge calculator) to ensure I can adjust recipes appropriately for my equipment. I actually don't take ANY notes during brews, at this point..

I was thinking it might be worthwhile to make a basic (yet delicious) recipe, with only Maris Otter and some hops, a very average recipe, that I can do and take all suggested measures throughout, so any suggestions there would be good. I have a decent amount of cascade, amarillo, some east kent I need to use, etc.

 

[Hawks]

I would say you have your water right, as 5 gallons is pretty much 23 litres ( unless of course you are in the US with their small gallons? ).

If you download beer engine (for free from here ) then you can put in your recipe and calculate your efficiency which helps with future brews. It took me a few brews of doing this to get mine sorted in the software and could then calculate recipes to hit my target OG. I do find my efficiency drops when I try and go over about 1.055 though and I am sure someone far more clever will pop along and say why that happens, but just worth noting... :hmm:

You could go down the SNPA type recipes which are pretty simple and sounds like you like cascade so should work nicely for you. :thumb: