I’m not sure how to calculate actual brewhouse efficiency vs. calculated. Of course I’m not all-grain so it’s a bit subjective.
BUT:
My recipe calculated my OG to be 1.069 at 70% efficiency. My hydrometer with temperature correction is 1.074.
Can anyone help me take a stab at it?
EDIT: If I just keeping changing the efficiency in Brewtarget until I show that 1.074 OG, it’s 84%. Is that correct? I’d be pretty satisfied. Of course half the grain bill was from DME so it’s not entirely accurate. Next time I’ll take a boil SG because I do not add top-off water the boil.
[quote=“johnbrain”]
I’m not sure how to calculate actual brewhouse efficiency vs. calculated. Of course I’m not all-grain so it’s a bit subjective.
BUT:
My recipe calculated my OG to be 1.069 at 70% efficiency. My hydrometer with temperature correction is 1.074.
Can anyone help me take a stab at it?
EDIT: If I just keeping changing the efficiency in Brewtarget until I show that 1.074 OG, it’s 84%. Is that correct? I’d be pretty satisfied. Of course half the grain bill was from DME so it’s not entirely accurate. Next time I’ll take a boil SG because I do not add top-off water the boil.[/quote]
do you steep grains with extract? or partial mash? you don’t need efficiency with extract batches.
you probably top off with water (adding water after the boil to hit your desired volume). so your hydrometer sample was too concentrated. no amount of mixing would fix this. and it isn’t an issue because fermentation will do a better job at mixing than you can. If you ended with the correct volume, and used all the extract. then you hit your expected OG. your hydro sample was just too concentrated because the top off water wasn’t 100% mixed (again… that not a problem. and is extremely common).
OR
you ended with less than the anticipated volume creating a more concentrated wort
Okay. Partial mash. Not steeped grains. hit my calculated volumes pretty damn close
I.e. 4 gallons from mash tun into kettle.
Close on boil off rate and loss to kettle rate. 2.3 gallon approximately top off in carboy.
All right I’m line with the values/volumes calculated in my recipe.
Next time I’ll take the pre boil gravity since that contains zero extract for me.
I want to figure it out so my recipes are closer in line with my output. I suppose i could top off with slightly more water but 5.5 total gallons gives me Enough head space I’m my carboy.
Is my thought process correct?
P.S. If I have a heavier grain Bill, would you suggest a smaller qt/gallon msg so I could get a little bigger/looser sparge? DISREGARD this. I think I’d be fine full boil but this would be really concentrated for 4G of wort and not worth doing.
I did just this although I used a higher qt./lb to “try” and have equal runnings. 1.9 qt/lb. My recipe in brewtarget showed my pre-boil gravity at 70% should be 1.041. My actual was 1.050. So I kept adjusting the efficiency % in the software until it show 1.050. What do you know. 85%!
I adjusted my hops based on the actaul SG. Let’s see how it all turns out.
