uk brewer,

It's a nice site and well presented. Good BIAB efficiency is 80 plus percent! Water hardness and mineral content factor in. So does pH, temp and times. BIAB is still better as 3V on it's worst day! But I am a bit biased.

I have had a drink tonight so will keep this brief but the following line is the first thing I read..which is total BS..I will read the rest tomorrow

A big challenge in brew in a bag is extracting satisfactory amounts sugars from the malt.



Yeasty

I certainly hope "dink" means something different in the UK than it does here in the States.

"dink" you need to get your eyes tested Todd sure you read that right

Maybe I'm the one that has been dinking?

thughes wrote:Maybe I'm the one that has been dinking?

(I saw the dink as well Yeasty .)

BobBrews wrote:uk brewer,

It's a nice site and well presented.

I just had a quick look through and totally agree. You can see that some care is being taken there. Good on them! (Does anyone know who actually writes it?)

Yeasty wrote:...the following line is the first thing I read..which is total BS...
"A big challenge in brew in a bag is extracting satisfactory amounts sugars from the malt."

I'd agree with that as well.

[center]Some Thoughts on Efficiency in Honour of BobBrew's Birthday [/center]

Before I write the below, I want to emphasise that I really do think there is some care and thought being put into that site*. Sure, it sells stuff but that doesn't mean that the owner doesn't want to provide quality information. Maybe some of the below will help?

I think the author there is at the stage where they are beginning to question the term efficiency however the terminology used and some of the conclusions being drawn show that they are still at the stage of questioning their brewing process instead of questioning the existing culture and terminology.

The following terms should not be used...

Terms such as 'batch size', 'mash efficiency', 'brewhouse efficiency,' or just plain, 'efficiency,' should be avoided at all costs but how many software programs have you come across that don't use them?

The reason they shouldn't be used is that these terms mean different things to different brewers. In fact, two brewers can even use the same software but define any of those terms totally differently. (There are good historical reasons of why this has occurred which I won't write on here. Most though is due to errors in early brewing software which have been copied or repeated.)

Problems with using those terms...

You can see in the linked article that the author is questioning his/her brewing process because he/she thinks that 65% 'efficiency' is too low. The first question that should be asked is, "What was the original gravity of the brew you were doing?"

Has anyone seen that question asked apart from on this forum? The answer is, "No." Why? Because all existing software has the built in fault of assuming that any type of efficiency you are referring to will stay the same no matter what it's gravity. This is totally incorrect. Small gravity beers are much more efficient than big gravity beers. For example, a big gravity beer can be 30% + less efficient into the kettle than a small one.

The second question that is never asked is, "What efficiency are you talking about?"

If you asked that question, you might be lucky to get the answers, "my mash efficiency," or "my brewhouse efficiency". The only clear, unambiguous answers are however, one of the following. Efficiency into Kettle (EIK), End of Boil Efficiency (EOBE) or Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF).

On an average gravity brew (say 1.050), a 65% EIF is great but a 65% EIK or EOBE is very poor. On a high gravity brew (1.090) a 65% EIK or EOBE would be great.

I can tell from what the author has written and the program he/she is using that by 65%, they mean 65% EIF. That's perfectly acceptable on an average gravity brew (OG = 1.050).

But, understandably and unfortunately, the author has a mindset that there is a problem with their brewing because they are hearing about everyone else getting 80%+ efficiency. The others aren't telling lies. They are getting 80%+ but that is their EIK or EOBE.

So, the author thinks there is a problem in their brewing process when there isn't actually one at all. (Their first test brew had an OG of 1.047.)

What does the author do now? What any good brewer would do - change something. And, this leads to another major problem area. If we think we have a problem in our brewing methodology, we often change it and, if the results reflect favourably, we retain that change after just one brew. If the opposite occurs we discard it. The real truth, especially in the area of "efficiency," is that either a lot of experiments have to be done by many or at least four or five side by side brews have to be done by one. It's not easy.

Going back to our author (who I actually do admire otherwise I wouldn't bother writing all this), he/she has done another brew with a change in the mashing regime but has relied on software that is only telling him/her the EIF instead of the more relevant EIK or EOBE. (EIF is the most easily distorted and therefore unreliable efficiency figure as kettle trub affects it dramatically.) The author though has not completely jumped to conclusions like most of us would. Nice!

How all this confusion can be avoided...

Can you see why poor terminology and software has a lot to answer for in our brewing culture? It causes a mass of unnecessary confusion, questions and inaccurate conclusions that can quickly become folklore.

The obvious answer is to create terminology and software that is not poor. This has been done and will be released in the new year on BIABrewer.info from what can be read here.

When that's released, those two questions I wrote about above that never get asked will hopefully get asked because answers and explanations should be able to be given far more easily given these new tools.

New tools are pretty useless though without educators. About 25 years ago, I worked in Australia's first pub/brewery. At that time, there was really only one basic style of beer produced. It was served with no head. If there was any head on the beer, the consumer thought they were being short-changed. That pub was the birthplace of a major company that revolutionised the beer culture and many other cultures here in Australia. Sacrifices were made. Too much whinging about no head... Bugger it, we'll give them 12 ounce glasses instead of the usual ten but with two ounces of head .

That revolution in beer culture here wouldn't have happened without people actively passing on (educating) what they had learned.

*And that's why I like the site that ukbrewer linked. I think the author there would take a lot of time to get things right and educate others given the right knowledge and tools. It's a lot of work for him/her because it means a lot of re-writing etc. Let's see what happens.

For the rest of us, it's not much work, it's just having a read and then writing about or linking people to the right info.

Happy birthday Bob ,
PP

PP,

I know this must be a cut and paste! Holy cow! Well done! I am going to read this again when I sober up? (if that ever happens)

This was a timely post PP as I have been looking at Pat's post linked to above. I started to reply yesterday, but lets just say I was struggling to think straight.

I totally agree that the whole issue of efficiency is probably the biggest area where terminology is misunderstood. When I first saw the site and read those first lines I though "here we go again". When I re-read it today without the beer goggles I realised that its actually a guys blog about his brewing experiences. When you read further and follow a few links he actually improves his efficiency as his method improves. I think he got confused about oxidisation when mashing and therefore probably got a few dough balls that cost him a few gravity points. The main point is that his efficiencies quoted are meaningless as the crucial detail is missing.

He's not alone though, I come across this problem in other forums and try my best to put things straight. It is however a bit of an uphill struggle as the subject itself is a bit confusing and a lot of guys just plod on regardless, so what if they only get 65% chuck more grain in its only a few extra pennies.

Thats where this guy has done himself some credit, he knows he's down on efficiencies so he's took it on himself to try and find out why. If he's talking EIF he hasn't got that much work to do as 65% is very acceptable. Its just a pity that our craft (I'd say hobby but I include the big boys here) hasn't got itself organised and sorted this out sooner. As a case in point I go dinghy sailing and when learning the ropes you get to know what all the different parts of the boat are, what does what and what to do. Everthing and every action has a name or term, when you go to the bar after sailing and have a chat everyone speaks the same "technical" language. This isn't true in brewing.

The terminology chart in the link above should go a long way to alleviate this problem, it is probably one of the best I've seen and is worthy of being published in any book. It may not make any sense the first time you see it, (like alot of things in brewing) but with a little bit of study it should fall into place very easily. If we all had the discipline to use these terms everytime we posted I'm sure they would soon become second nature and the new guys would start off on the right foot. (Thats Starboard you land lubbers )



Yeasty

Here is all I know about efficiency. I will just jot down a few words from my memory

Brewhouse efficiency is a term that causes some confusion for first time all grain brewers. I previously covered how to improve your brewhouse efficiency, but we frequently see questions on our discussion forum from brewers who don't understand what brewhouse efficiency is or how it is used in recipe design.

Brewhouse efficiency is defined as the percent of potential grain sugars that are converted into sugar in the wort. Typically this includes losses for a given brewing setup, and these losses are taken in aggregate rather than accumulated individually. It is therefore a measure of the overall efficiency of your brewing system.

Brewhouse efficiency is a key input when designing all grain recipes, as it determines your estimated original gravity. If you don't have an accurate brewhouse efficiency number for your particular equipment, your original gravity estimates will be way off and you will miss your target gravity.

Every grain in an all grain recipe has a potential yield, listed as the dry grain fine yield on the malt sheet. The dry grain yield is determined in laboratory conditions, by powdering the grain and extracting as much as possible and then extracting maximum potential from the sample. Yields vary from 50%-87% depending on the type of grain used. You can also express yield as a potential such as 1.038.

The actual brewhouse efficiency is measured for an entire system. Unlike the dry grain yield or potential measured in a lab, real brewers achieve only a percentage of the ideal number due to real considerations such as efficiency of the mashing process, and losses due to boiling, deadspace or trub. This percentage of the potential, as measured across the whole system into the fermenter, is the brewhouse efficiency.

A related term is mash efficiency. Unlike brewhouse efficiency, mash efficiency measures only the efficiency of the mash and sparging steps. Mash efficiency can be through of as the percent of potential fermentables extracted during the mashing process that actually make it into the boiler.

Calculating Efficiencies
Programs such as BeerSmith will calculate the brewhouse efficiency from a given recipe, volume and original gravity. However it is important to understand what's going on under the hood. Lets look first at how to calculate the total potential of the grain for a batch of beer:

(potential_pts) = (grain_pts) * (weight lbs) / volume_gals

Each grain has a dry grain potential, which you can find from our grain listing or from the malter's web site. The grain_pts is calculated from the grain potential by subtracting 1.000 and multiplying by 1000. For example, a grain with a potential of 1.035 becomes simply 35 points. 5 pounds of this grain in a 5 gallon batch would add 35*5/5 = 35 potential points to the beer. If we sum all of the potential points from the various grain additions we can get the overall potential. If we had no losses in the system, the 35 points above would give an ideal starting gravity for our beer of 1.035.

I mentioned that the potential points represents the gravity under ideal conditions. In practice one gets much less than this, usually around 70-80% for brewhouse efficiency overall. Therefore the actual original gravity is determined by the potential points times the gravity:

(batch_pts) = (potential_pts) * (brewhouse efficiency)

So if we consider a recipe with 40 potential points, and a 75% brewhouse efficiency we get 30 batch points or an original gravity of 1.030. This is how original gravity is estimated.

Reversing the calculation we can calculate the efficiency from an ideal recipe potential estimate (potential_pts) and actual measurement (measured_pts).

(efficiency) = (measured_pts) / (potential_pts)

So for example if we had a recipe with potential_pts of 80 and measured the wort into the fermenter 1.050 we get an efficiency of 50/80 = 62.5%. Note that this assumes we hit our target volume. If we don't, we need to consider the target and actual volume as follows:

(efficiency) = (measured_pts * target_vol) / (potential_pts * actual_vol)

The formulas above give us the overall brewhouse efficiency, but can also be used to calculate the mash efficiency into the boiler. For efficiency into the boiler we simply use the boiler volume and measured boil specific gravity into the boiler as opposed to the fermenter. In BeerSmith you can click on the "brewhouse efficiency" button in any open recipe to perform more detailed mash or overall efficiency calculations.

Now you know how to calculate the two key all grain efficiencies: brewhouse and mash efficiency.

wow

Bob You've been holding out! Looks like maybe a beer geek has come out of the closet.

If you say Gullible very slowly it sounds like Oranges

You guys are Gullible if you think I wrote that!!

I received a newsletter from my pal Brad Smith. I cheated and copied it. So much for BobBrews being smart!

http://beersmith.com/blog/subscribe/ I don't know where the old newsletters are? I just read and delete!

He sends me a personal newsletter each month. I think it's only me because my name is on the email To Bob: anyway I guess he will send you one too if you go to the above old newsletter and click on something or other?

Cheers

Edit: Go here to see past info (right or wrong) http://beersmith.com/blog/beersmith-home-brewing-guide/

Beer Smith is a good example of what I talked about above - two users having the same program but using it in totally different ways. You will find that some users of Beersmith treat, "Batch Size" as 'Volume into Fermentor' whilst others treat it as 'End of Boil Volume'. Similarly, some users treat, "Brewhouse Efficiency" as "'Efficiency into Kettle," or "End of Boil Efficiency," whilst others treat it as, 'Efficiency into Fermentor'.

Unfortunately, last time I looked, there were only two recipe reports (not often used) on BeerSmith that let you know what 'language' the recipe author is using. More unfortunately, as Yeasty well knows, this info is critical to scaling or copying a recipe properly. (Very few brewers in fact, are even aware that a real problem actually exists. They naturally think that everyone uses the same language.)

I think there are two simple but important things we can do when talking to each other as brewers...

1. Avoid using the term 'batch size' - Use Volume into Fermentor (VIF) or End of Boil Volume (EOBV) instead.

2. Use clear efficiency terms - e.g. Efficiency into Kettel (EIK), End of Boil Efficiency (EOBE) or Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF).

Bob, please write to your president today and, for a birthday present, ask him to bring these terms into law.