Brewhouse efficiency

[kev]

Currently, and for the last 9 brews, my AG setup has given me 60% efficiency. This doesn't really bother me as I bung this number into Beersmith and it ups my grain bill and I end up with the same beer as anyone else would.

As I said, this doesn't bother me really but what did get me thinking recently was looking at other people's setups and brew day reports. For example, a forum member with a setup similar to mine getting 75% efficiency which is quite a big difference.

Now the variables at work are :

Mash temp
Mash tun volume
Mash length
Volume of hot liquor
Grain volume
Sparge liquor temp
Sparge length
Sparge volume

That's all I can think off at the moment.

What variables above would you consider key to increasing mash efficiency??

Ta

K

 

[Wendy1971]

you may find that the efficiency is based on equipment used and no matter what recipe you bung in its always the same. We have had efficiencies of only 52% and the ale has been fine. beer engine lets you work out the efficiency on individual brews so its a bit more true to life

 

[kev]

Yeh that's the point I'm making. I'm happy with my beer and my software compensates for any oddities in my system.

I'd just like to learn more about how I can influence this measurement.

K

 

[Wendy1971]

extracting most of the sugars from the grain is the key to how efficient your brewing. I wouldnt worry too much about it as we went through a phase of worrying about it. We used to fly sparge but changed to batch sparging the effficiency actually stayed the same so not worth worrying about. The only way to really improve is go herms then you should be hitting 85% every time