Efficiency?????

Post #1 made 15 years ago
Hi everyone,
I put down my 2nd brew this weekend, an Aussie pale ale.
Grain Bill was 2.2 kg of Traditional Ale and 0.12 kg of Wheat malt. Bittered to about 24 with POR (including the small yeild from my own hop bine :D ).
The thing I'm a little baffled about is my efficiency. My pre boil estimate with the biabrewer spreadsheet and beersmith was 1.031 and I got 1.034, which I thought was good efficiency, I think about 85%, however my post boil gravity was 1.046 with a target of 1.050.
I know the gravity wasn't that far out i'm just trying to figure out why my efficiency went from higher than expected pre boil to lower than expected post boil? :|
Thanks in advance Brad ;)

edit: I was aiming for 11 litres into fermenter and got the target volume.
[center]"All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer."
[/center]

[center]Homer Simpson[/center]
[center]K.I.S.S., B.I.A.B.[/center]

Post #2 made 15 years ago
Congrats on your 2nd brew Brad ;),

It is pretty much impossible to get accurate gravity readings on a single brew. When starting out, we think we can measure everything accurately but you can't. There is a thread on BIABrewer.info here that while still being written is still worth a read and should make you feel a bit more comfortable.

I think The Calculator here has a space to record the measurements on your first five brews. This is a good idea as you will spot any figures that are just wrong as well as get an idea of what averages your equipment will give you.

I've been all-graining now for maybe 5 years I think and still get the occassional odd reading even when sober! The beer always tastes great. Original gravity of a beer is certainly not a critical factor and BIAB is very repeatable so if you are using the right amount of grain to begin with and following the "rules", your efficiency is going to be very good even if your instruments occassionally tell you otherwise.

If you get the same discrepancy on your next brew, then it is worth noting. If you get the same discrepancy three brews in a row then it is definitely worth investigating. On one brew, it is not worth a moment's worry.

So relax and go and make me one of your auto-syphons please :)

;)
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 31 May 2010, 19:04, edited 10 times in total.
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Post #4 made 15 years ago
Just tought I'd update everyone on this, as I have learned something new.
It is not of huge concern if your efficiency figures dont match up perfectly, cause at the end of the day if your getting good beer, who cares :mrgreen:
I just kegged this beer earlier today and am sampling it now. Yummy :)
It fermented out to 1.010 which was lower than the estimated 1.013, but all in all the alc% worked out pretty close.
This seems to be a very nice easy drinking beer and thanks to tony from AHB for the recipe. Original Recipe Here
Cheers Brad :D
Last edited by wizard78 on 11 Jun 2010, 20:29, edited 10 times in total.
[center]"All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer."
[/center]

[center]Homer Simpson[/center]
[center]K.I.S.S., B.I.A.B.[/center]

Post #5 made 15 years ago
PP give good advice. I'd pay attention to the figures, but not obsess over them. As you noted above the beer is good and attenuated lower than expected due to the initial lower gravity reading. Definitely keep your note up-to-date and you'll running good in no time.

If your not dead on every number it doesn't really matter, unless your way off on multiple brews.
Joe

Post #6 made 15 years ago
Yep, like Joe says, keeping notes is a real asset especially when you run into problems and are brewing a lot. I had some subtle problems for well over a year in my beer because I didn't record something. (A friend had pitched some dodgy yeast into one of his fermenters but we often swapped equipment which I never thought of!) Keeping notes of things you think you will remember like when you use a new hydrometer or thermometer or swap equipment etc will help avoid head-scratching down the track. (I must do this more often :))

You must be wrapped that you brewed and less than two weeks later were drinking top notch beer! All-grain is great that with so many easy-drinking styles you don't have to ferment and/or condition the beer for much time at all or even to exact temperatures. A two week turn-around is fine for many beers and you have got me thinking...

Personally, I think I need to get back to brewing a lot faster. These days I am doing too much, "work," (read wasting time) on the beer. For most of the beer styles I really enjoy, this is stupid. It might turn out crystal clear and taste maybe 2% better (if anything) but this also means, purely because of the time spent, the beer becomes, "precious," and so I find myself buying inferior beer. This is totally stupid.

A lot of the beers I brew are done with US-56 and taste great even when fermented at higher temperatures (say 22 C) like I used to have to do before I had temperature control.

Yep Brad, you have got me thinking for sure. About time I stopped being so priggish about the beers I really like and started enjoying them far more often.

Thanks mate and congratulations,
PP
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Post #7 made 15 years ago
I just put a brew into the fermenter and got a wild efficiency reading.

I made a Speckled Hen clone; 4.6kg maris otter, 0.56kg dark crystal and 0.85kg golden syrup. 3 hop additions to 38 IBU's.

The previous brew I made with this recipe gave me 78% which I was more than happy with. The golden syrup was added at the start of the boil. Yesterday I added the Golden syrup for the last 5 minutes of the boil, to see how it changes the flavour profile, and got a whopping 88%.

Could it be that the later addition of the golden syrup would increase the amount of fermentables in the wort, or is it just one of those things?
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #8 made 15 years ago
I'd be guessing it is just one of those things hashie :). Theoretically there should be no difference - especially that much!

I think the occassional odd reading is pretty common for any number of reasons, the simplest and usually the hardest to check being a grain weight error. I remember getting one brew with 102% into kettle efficiency :). This was in my early days of brewing but I couldn't see anything I had done wrong :roll:.
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Post #9 made 15 years ago
Cheers Pat, I was thinking it was just one of those brews.

I weigh the grain myself, so all good there. I just can't think of any other variable that might have caused such a difference.

Maybe it was the high atmospheric pressure on the brew day?
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #10 made 15 years ago
LOL! Yep I know what you mean.

Weighing the grain yourself is no excuse though ;). I once had a guy that sent me a lot of correspondence on why his one brew got some shocking efficiency figure. I went through the usual suspects and he had weighed the grain himself as well. It had me really dissapointed and totally confused until a few weeks later he wrote back and had found the plastic container full of carefully weighed out base malt that he had forgotten to add to the brew! (It was not all the base malt but about half of it.)

I must say that we brewers make a lot more mistakes than we think or aware* of and this is understandable as there is a lot of measurement etc involved. I love the brewers who publish when they make a mistake as it teaches us all.

* I often brew with a fellow brewer. I reckon that about ten percent of the time we pick up on an error that the other brewer would have sworn they had correct and this is during the sober part of the proceedings!!!

Those of us who measure our own grain should probably have a double-check system but none of us do!

One great thing about BIAB is that there are less ways to bugger it up. The efficiency is very good very good as your figures and many others show. If you have a good recipe, good cleanliness and a good thermometer then it is very hard to get a crap beer :).

I realise now that no matter how confident I am, my own figures on a single brew are totally unreliable. I now know though my averages and am very confident in them. If I weigh my grains somewhat correctly and have my correct initial volume I am assured of a great beer thanks to mates whose recipes I have stolen :).

In other words hashie, don't worry about finding causes to explain one measurement oddity on a single brew. If the same thing happens on the next two brews then I am all for an investigation!

Cheers to you hashie,
PP

P.S. I think I wrote on here a while back about us all contributing/combining our figures. I probably should start a new thread on that???
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Post #11 made 15 years ago
PistolPatch wrote: .....
In other words hashie, don't worry about finding causes to explain one measurement oddity on a single brew. If the same thing happens on the next two brews then I am all for an investigation!
Unfortunatley I wnat to know why and will analyze it to death.
Last edited by bigjoe on 24 Jun 2010, 22:51, edited 10 times in total.
Joe

Post #12 made 15 years ago
Thanks for the kind words Pat, I'm not really too fussed, but it would be nice to know.

The other strange thing that happened on my brewday was I had, for the first time, lots of dough balls. This could be because of the high humidity and low temperatures on the day. I spent ages trying to get them all smashed up, but when I gave the spent grain to the chooks there were still some dough balls there.

To me, this should have resulted in lower extraction.

I'll stop now, it's starting to make my brain hurt :)
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #13 made 15 years ago
Sorry about the slow reply hashie - kept getting side-tracked :) and I didn't know what to write!

I have never had dough balls!

I'd like to hear more from people who had but that will probably jinx me - lol. The only advice I can offer is again to not worry about the figures on a single brew. I wrote a post a minute ago about how us brewers often start to rely/depend on our eyes instead of our mouths. I think I am only just starting to get out of that trap.

Are you in it now?

LOL,
Patch
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