Mash efficiency survey

[wahoo]

Beersmith calculates and uses both. The OG for the total batch, of course, uses brewhouse efficiency-- because it has to.

[kcbeersnob]

@Slothrob

[quote=“Trapae”]The only reason I care about brewhouse efficiency is because that is what beersmith uses in its design program. I wish there was a way to switch to mash efficiency in the program.

Really? That seems like a pretty large oversight. How do you predict your OG for a mash? You should try contacting him to get that fixed.[/quote]
Maybe what he means is that Beersmith does not allow you to independently adjust the predicted mash efficiency. The only way to adjust that is to adjust brewhouse efficiency. I’ve always found this to be an annoying feature.

[grainbelt]

@Slothrob

[quote=“Trapae”]The only reason I care about brewhouse efficiency is because that is what beersmith uses in its design program. I wish there was a way to switch to mash efficiency in the program.

Really? That seems like a pretty large oversight. How do you predict your OG for a mash? You should try contacting him to get that fixed.[/quote]

it calculates both. So do numerous other software I have used.
Brewhouse is ussually the main one because you have to know all your losses throughout the whole process to figure out OG’s

[trapae]

Yup, it does calculate both, but as stated you have to use brewhouse efficiency when designing or scaling recipes. It requires you to put in your measured batch size which is hard for me since I used a conical (cry me a river). Oh well, as long as you have consistency it doesn’t really matter.

[grainbelt]

@Trapae

Yup, it does calculate both, but as stated you have to use brewhouse efficiency when designing or scaling recipes. It requires you to put in your measured batch size which is hard for me since I used a conical (cry me a river). Oh well, as long as you have consistency it doesn’t really matter.

if you are not measuring your batch size how are you even coming close to figuring out efficiency

[trapae]

With pre boil volume and gravity, I get mash efficiency. I know my boil off is between 1.5 and 1.75gal/hr depending on the day, and with cooling ratio, I estimate batch size. I have no markings on the kettle or conical. Maybe I should put some marks on the inside of my kettle. Anyway, all I know is that if I start with 8gal of pre boil volume, I get about 5 gal in the keg at the end (after kettle loss, and fermentation loss) and all my numbers work out. That is until I recently adjusted my mill gap!

[slothrob]

@kcbeersnob

[quote=“Slothrob”][quote=“Trapae”]The only reason I care about brewhouse efficiency is because that is what beersmith uses in its design program. I wish there was a way to switch to mash efficiency in the program.

Really? That seems like a pretty large oversight. How do you predict your OG for a mash? You should try contacting him to get that fixed.[/quote]
Maybe what he means is that Beersmith does not allow you to independently adjust the predicted mash efficiency. The only way to adjust that is to adjust brewhouse efficiency. I’ve always found this to be an annoying feature.[/quote]
Yes, Brewhouse Efficiency is a convoluted way to predict OG, because it includes losses due to transfers that have nothing to do with OG. If you have 5.5 gallons of 1.050 in your kettle, and draw 5.5, 5, or 2.5 gallons, it is still 1.050.

Mash efficiency should be an independent variable, since it directly determines your OG by including conversion efficiency and lauter efficiency, but only those factors.