PhilT
Member
I've been home brewing for a few months now, and have several batches under my belt. I have never done any brewing with extracts, it has been all-grain brewing since day 1. I have brewed a Brown Porter, an American Stout, a Belgian Wit, and most recently an American Brown Ale. The first batches were recipes I found in a book that was followed very closely to basically learn how to brew, but the last 2 Belgian Wit and American Brown Ale were recipes that I built on my own, after looking at a few base recipes to recipe model.
I recently found the Brewer's Friend Beer Recipe Builder and have been comparing the target results (OG, FG, ABV, SRM, IBU, etc) to my actual results. In this last batch the target OG that it gave me was 1.060 and my actual OG was 1.050. At first I thought I had input the recipe incorrectly, but then I figured out the "Efficiency" box. The default is 75% and after inputting the recipe information for most two most recent batches, I figured out I'm running at a 60% efficiency. Obviously, that is effecting my ABV and I don't want to keep it as high as possible. I could very easily add more fermentables to my recipe to increase the ABV, but I'm using enough that I should be getting better results.
I do not have a large home brew set up. I purchased a basic home brew kit from my LHBS and realized it was mainly for making the extract kits, so I had to piece together all of the other items for an all grain brewing set up. I usually make a 2 gallon batch, b/c it would be difficult to make much larger with the set up that I have. I don't have large enough stainless steel pots for the mash, boil, sparge, etc. Anyway, here is the question, at what stage(s) in the brew process can I increase my efficiency?
If I had to guess, I am not getting all of the sugars from the grain during the mash/steep. I mash/steep for a full hour at 146-152 degrees F. I try to stay 150-152 F, but its difficult on a kitchen stove. The other place I think I am probably losing efficiency is the sparge. I generally try to sparge for about 15 minutes, but that is essentially me manually pouring the wort over the grains again and again. I'm thinking the sparge needs to be at a warmer temp as well.
Very soon I will be upgrading to a better/larger brew system once I have put some more recipes together so that I can try them out on more friends, but for now any insight to increase efficiency would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
I recently found the Brewer's Friend Beer Recipe Builder and have been comparing the target results (OG, FG, ABV, SRM, IBU, etc) to my actual results. In this last batch the target OG that it gave me was 1.060 and my actual OG was 1.050. At first I thought I had input the recipe incorrectly, but then I figured out the "Efficiency" box. The default is 75% and after inputting the recipe information for most two most recent batches, I figured out I'm running at a 60% efficiency. Obviously, that is effecting my ABV and I don't want to keep it as high as possible. I could very easily add more fermentables to my recipe to increase the ABV, but I'm using enough that I should be getting better results.
I do not have a large home brew set up. I purchased a basic home brew kit from my LHBS and realized it was mainly for making the extract kits, so I had to piece together all of the other items for an all grain brewing set up. I usually make a 2 gallon batch, b/c it would be difficult to make much larger with the set up that I have. I don't have large enough stainless steel pots for the mash, boil, sparge, etc. Anyway, here is the question, at what stage(s) in the brew process can I increase my efficiency?
If I had to guess, I am not getting all of the sugars from the grain during the mash/steep. I mash/steep for a full hour at 146-152 degrees F. I try to stay 150-152 F, but its difficult on a kitchen stove. The other place I think I am probably losing efficiency is the sparge. I generally try to sparge for about 15 minutes, but that is essentially me manually pouring the wort over the grains again and again. I'm thinking the sparge needs to be at a warmer temp as well.
Very soon I will be upgrading to a better/larger brew system once I have put some more recipes together so that I can try them out on more friends, but for now any insight to increase efficiency would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
