Total Eff vs Est Mash Eff

Ok folks I'm stuck at the moment...can't get past this one thing.

Trying to determine my Brew House efficiency for my brew equipment.  My last brew I set it at 68 % in the equipment profile.  I got
Estimated Mash Efficiency : 68%
Measured Mash Efficiency: 67.9%
Total Brew House Eefficiency of 68%
Measured Total Brew House Efficiency : 71.1%
I think these numbers came from:
Estimated batch size of 5.25g
Estimated OG 1068
when I actually got:
Measured batch size of 5.0g
Measured OG 1075.

I liked how my numbers came out with this equipment profile, yet maybe alittle squiwed due to the measured batch size.

SO----
Todays brew is confusing. For some reason I thought I could achieve a 70% total brew house efficiency, so I increased it fro 68% to 79%. Unfortunately I also added a second change.  Changed loss to trub and chiller to 1.5g compared to 0g in previous equipment profile.

Estimated Mash Efficiency : 94.5% (where does this number come from??)
Measured Mash Efficiency: 62.5% (didn't even get 68%)
Total Brew House efficiency of 70%
Measured Total Brew House Efficiency : 52.2 (What??)

Estimated batch size of 5.25g
Estimated OG 1096
when I actually got:
Measured batch size of 5g
Measured OG 1080

My mind is so blown with numbers right now. But first of all where does the estimated mash efficiency number come from and how do I change it?
I also think I should leave my brew house efficiency at 68%??

Any help would be appreciated in an attempt to work through this.

Thanks.

This will explain it in detail.
http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html

ihikeut said:

This will explain it in detail.
http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html

Click to expand...

Thanks ihikeut!
R, Slurk

Yes, obviously these articles are helpful and its my fault for skimming through them a year ago...must be why i can't nail down some consistency. However, I have a related question. It's probably obvious,  but got to here it from someone else.
The article refers to measuring the gravity of the beer "from your fermenter".  If I take a gravity reading from my kettle at end of boil, before cooling through the chill plate and into fermenter, it should give me the same measurement (using a ATC refractometer)...correct?  I just need to consistently measure loss to kettle and volume into fermenter.

Thx for your continued support!

GoodisBeer
I hear you
when you decide you want to really get down and figure out your system and tune it up, you have to take a lot of measurements and do a lot of figuring.
and then you can even get more anal than that
you are learning to brew beer by science, which is how the big boys do, except they have studied how to do all of that.
And they take samples of all the grains, water, do volume measurements etc etc etc
with brewsmith you can imitate a lot of the stuff they do, but that means doing as they do. Measurements and more measurements
Mash eff is simple. it is the ratio of potential  into to  actual Sp Gravity out of the mash tun.m that is a simple calculation you do not need BrewSmith to determine, just info on grains and a mash then a hydrometer, after that divide your reading by your potential and bingo
total brew house efficiency takes into account of every little thing in the brew house and all of them need to be measured
It may take a few brews to get it down or

You can just brew artfully and not worry about that stuff

PS, 68%mash efficiency is good for a new all grain brewer, did you actually figure that out or is that just an arbitrary number you punched in?

There is going to be some cooling shrinkage between post boil SG and cool wort in the fermenter.

GoodisBeer
what was your grain bill going in and how big was the batch coming out of the mash and it's SP grav?

ihikeut said:

There is going to be some cooling shrinkage between post boil SG and cool wort in the fermenter.

Click to expand...

Therefore, with cooling shrinkage I should expect higher gravity and decreased volume (some).

That would be correct. I have never check to see what the exact shrinkage is with my equipment. Beersmith default is 4% and I've left it at that.

GoodisBeer said:

ihikeut said:

There is going to be some cooling shrinkage between post boil SG and cool wort in the fermenter.

Click to expand...

Therefore, with cooling shrinkage I should expect higher gravity and decreased volume (some).

Click to expand...

Slightly decreased volume, yes. Increased gravity is not usually true. The expansion/shrinkage is just a relative volume from heat and is not the same as evaporation. You still have the same concentration of sugars pre and post chill. Any change is going to be due to cold break coming out of suspension.