What's a normal brewhouse efficiency?

I bottled an all-grain batch today with 24 500ml bottles. Beersmith estimated I should have had 16L (and even allowing a litre for trub that leaves me 3L short).

I put 22L litres though my mash tun with a batch sparge and got about 17L pre-boil, and then 13L into the fermenter. That gives me a brewhouse efficiency of 50.3% which seems a bit disappointing.

Beersmith said I should have 18.5 out of the mash tun, but when I checked there was next to no liquid left so it wasn't a stuck sparge. Was it because I was using full leaf hops which absorb more liquid?

muckypup said:

I bottled an all-grain batch today with 24 500ml bottles. Beersmith estimated I should have had 16L (and even allowing a litre for trub that leaves me 3L short).

I put 22L litres though my mash tun with a batch sparge and got about 17L pre-boil, and then 13L into the fermenter. That gives me a brewhouse efficiency of 50.3% which seems a bit disappointing.

Beersmith said I should have 18.5 out of the mash tun, but when I checked there was next to no liquid left so it wasn't a stuck sparge. Was it because I was using full leaf hops which absorb more liquid?

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Your grains absorbed it, full leaf hops won't absorb liquid. They absorb far less than pellet hops.

muckypup said:

I bottled an all-grain batch today with 24 500ml bottles. Beersmith estimated I should have had 16L (and even allowing a litre for trub that leaves me 3L short).

I put 22L litres though my mash tun with a batch sparge and got about 17L pre-boil, and then 13L into the fermenter. That gives me a brewhouse efficiency of 50.3% which seems a bit disappointing.

Beersmith said I should have 18.5 out of the mash tun, but when I checked there was next to no liquid left so it wasn't a stuck sparge. Was it because I was using full leaf hops which absorb more liquid?

Click to expand...

Greetings muckupup - It sounds to me like you need to work with your Equipment Profile and adjust it based on your actual efficiency.  I agree, 50.3% does seem quite low and quite disappointing.  You might consider posting your full recipe, including your various profiles.  Simply Right Click on the recipe and from the drop down menu, select Export Selected.

Full recipe attached - I have not done much with equipment profiles. The resulting beer I am very happy with, just need to work out how to get  better throughput.

muckypup said:

Full recipe attached - I have not done much with equipment profiles. The resulting beer I am very happy with, just need to work out how to get  better throughput.

Click to expand...

I loaded that recipe, wow nice red color to that one, that's a nice looking recipe;

Took a look at your equipment profile and mash profile for this recipe. Most of your losses were: Lauter Tun loss, boil off, loss to trub and fermenter loss. You really need to enter all of the information  to be able to accurately predict your final volume among other things.

Also. I would strongly advise using at least 1.25 qt./lb water to grain ratio and keeping your starting mash temperature above 152 unless you're sure you have adequate calcium in your water and sure your thermometer is accurate.  Check your mash temperature at the end of the mash and, if you're losing more than a couple of degrees, increase your starting mash temperature to the amount of the temperature loss plus 150 degrees.  Example: Starting mash temp. 152. End of mash temp. 148. Increase you beginning mash temp. to 154.

Once you get your process dialed in and are sure of your equipment you should get more predictable results as well as considerably higher brewhouse efficiency.

Water chemistry is not something I have looked into yet: It's on my todo list 

Thanks for the advice though. Planning an IPA at the weekend so will look into my water-grain ratio and and start my mash at 67c /152.6 as I typically loose 2c over the hour from my insulated tun.

This was always going to be an experimental brew as it will be the first time I will dry hop with pellets (always used leaf in a hop sock previously).

I think Bob357 has a good bead on your your problem, especially with the low water to grain ratio for your initial infusion.  You need at least 2.7 l/kg to get good wetting, solubility of the starches and conversion.  Since you are batch sparging, take your total water (21.56 l) and subtract the amount retained by the grain (3 l) and divide the result by 2.  Now add back in the 3 l of grain retention and you get an initial infusion of 9.28 + 3 = 12.28 l.  This will give you approximately equal runnings from your mash and sparge which will help optimize the extraction of the sugars.

Now, with that said, you didn't fill in the actual values you got for wort from the mash and pre-boil gravity.  Without these numbers, it is harder to diagnose where your losses are actually coming from: the mash or other losses in your process.  You collected 17 liters from the mash with 22 liters in.  This means that you lost 5 liters in your grain and should update your grain absorption in the program to match your actual value.  That right there makes up the difference between 17 liters collected versus 19 liters expected.

Odd - the numbers are entered, but must have been stripped out at export time.

Pre-boil was 1.049 and post boil was 1.053  - Target pre-boil was supposed to be 1.042 and target OG was supposed to be 1.049.

I should probably done a second batch sparge until my pre-boil was down to what it's supposed to be, or added some boiled cooled water to the fermenter which according to the beersmith tool would have given me another 1L back (which is probably better as my kettle is only 20L)

I have updated my mash profile with your suggested 2.7L/kg and will try that on my next brew.

Given those gravity numbers, I have to ask if you had any trub left over in the kettle once you transferred the wort to the fermenter.  Otherwise, your numbers don't work out.

If you follow the gravity points, you collected 17 liters of wort at a gravity of 1.049, which gives you 833 gravity points (17 * 49 = 833).  Post boil, if you had 13 liters at a 1.053 gravity, then you had 689 gravity points (13 * 53 = 689).  You should not lose any gravity points during the boil as the amount of sugar you start with should equal the same number you end with -- only the volume changes.  Either you had a significant loss in trub or one of your readings is off.

There was some trub left in the kettle, full leaf hops and other bits. Those hops seem to have a lot of seeds in them. Also my kettle isn't marked so that reading might have been a bit off. I need to make myself a dip stick with markings on.

Setting up your own equipment and mash profiles is super important in using Beersmith. The profiles that come with the program are good starting points and you can pick one that is close but your system will be unique and has to be customized. With all due respect to Brad and the Beersmith team, I found these videos more helpful in setting up my profiles...

https://youtu.be/QmW7pwQP5mQ

https://youtu.be/CZ0TFtMnzxs

Those were useful videos. I have made some equipment adjustments and will see how the next batch comes out. Thanks.

Well... after making the adjustments I did another brew today and got.... 13L (3L short again)

One area I think is I don't think my mash efficiency is up to scratch. I basically sparged until I reached the target pre-boil gravity. I guess this was about 16L - There was about 2L more which I didn't add. This accounts for 2 of those 3L. I had better start checking my PH value I think (The water report for the area says average PH is 7.3).

I don't know if beersmith takes into account full leaf hop absorption? I put in about 70g of dried full leaf hops. When cleaning up I scraped all the hops out of the bottom of the boiler and weighed them. nearly 2kg.. These have taken on a lot of liquid. I think i will resort back to the hop sock where I can pop in into a sieve and collect what drains out.

You are correct in your assumption of the brew house efficiency (actually mash efficiency which leads to the brew house efficiency) being too high.  Your water pH from the water report means nothing.  It is the mineral content which dictates the ending mash pH along with the affect of the grist -- types and quantities of the grains used. 

When it comes to water absorption by the hops, BeerSmith does not calculate this at all.  It is supposed to be taken into account by your 'loss to trub and chiller' in your equipment profile.  I carry a 1 liter trub loss for my 10 liter batches which accounts for any amount of hops I may add.  For my 20 liter batches, I use a value of 1.5 liters.  Brewing with a set amount helps me achieve consistent volumes varied only by the amount of grain absorption. 

From here, you can look at and adjust your brew house efficiency to match what you actually achieved (it is calculated on the 'session' tab).  This is the first step in 'dialing in' your process in the software which will make the program predict your values more accurately.

According to our experience, the brewhouse efficiency normally at 60%-70%. It should be related with malt quality, brewhouse configuration, mashing method for example infusion or decoction.
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