![]() However, this is assuming 100% efficiency. When we add up all of the potential gravity points from all the fermentable grains and adjuncts in the recipe, we obtain the total expected potential gravity points. The weight and volume units can be metric or imperial units, but must be kept consistent in both the numerator and denominator. ![]() For example, if a pale malt has a potential gravity of 1.036, its grain gravity points are taken as 36 for this calculation. Grain gravity points: is usually acquired, by using only the last two digits of the potential gravity of a grain. To begin determining your brewhouse efficiency for a given batch, start with calculating the total potential gravity to be obtained from all grain in the recipe: Potential gravity points = (grain gravity points * weight) / volume The actual formula for efficiency usually looks something like "input/output". A poor grain crush, bad PH and temperature management all can lead to a lower than expected efficiency Calculating Brewhouse Efficiency An important thing to keep in mind is that lower expected efficiency usually means you will need more grain to hit your target gravity than a brewhouse higher overall efficiency, unless there are improvements that can be made to your equipment and/or processes. If you are working to improve your efficiency, change one thing each brew-day so you can better track how it affects your numbers. The key is to maintain copious notes about your methods, equipment and ingredient selection that all could have impacted the overall effects of your brew, and whether you hit your target gravity and target volume. Things that affect efficiency are the quality of your grain crush, better temperature or PH management, or might have done a number of other things to help improve the extraction of fermentable sugars from your grains and with the desired post-boil volume. In both of these scenarios, your overall efficiency in the brewhouse would be a measurable number, but you might not always know how to identify where in your process that greater output was achieved. ![]() Or, you might obtain an equal gravity measurement between two batches, but would have used less grain in one of the batches, also yielding a higher efficiency in the batch with less grain than in the batch with more grain. All else being equal, you might have extracted more fermentable sugars (and have a higher starting gravity) with the same amount of grain as in the other batch. In a brewing setting, when comparing two batches, a higher efficiency in one batch might indicate a greater yield per unit of grain. In other words, you might say it measures "how much bang for your buck". It is usually represented by a percentage, with higher values indicating greater output. The general definition of how efficiency is measured, no matter the context, comes down to approximating the best estimate possible of how much return we get from the energy or cost put into the producing of a certain product or result. Your brewhouse is all the equipment used to make and wort. Because losses can occur at any point in the wort production, calculating the amount of gravity obtained in the final volume, post boil, is the main idea behind calculating brewhouse efficiency. This extends beyond just the mash it includes all pumps, hot liquor tanks, boil kettles, grants or anything else you might use to produce the wort. The term brewhouse usually is intended to refer to the equipment used to produce wort. ![]() To really tackle this question I want to first break down the phrase into its two components individually, and take a moment to better understand them. This may appear in an article, blog post, recipe, or even your favorite brewing software that is offering to calculate something for you. Then you land upon the term “brewhouse efficiency”. « Back to Questions How to Calculate Brewhouse EfficiencyĪt some point in your homebrewing career, you are likely to take a gravity reading during a brew session, and think, "what the heck went wrong?" If you can be bothered, you search through the vast halls of the university of homebrewing that lives on the Internet.
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