What is my efficiency?

[delcosansgluten]

A recipe I brewed on Saturday called for a target original gravity of 1.050. My OG was 1.054.

Surely this cannot mean i have achieved over 100% efficiency?

 

[Vinman58]

A recipe I brewed on Saturday called for a target original gravity of 1.050. My OG was 1.054.

Surely this cannot mean i have achieved over 100% efficiency?

No it's not over 100 percent. Not even 100. Someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in and explain. But ya done good.

 

[seilenos]

If it was an extract recipe then your final volume was lower than the final volume that the recipe called for; your wort was a little more concentrated than the recipe and should have had some extra top off water.

If it was an all-grain recipe then it could have been either your final volume was lower than the recipe expected or your brewhouse efficiency was greater than the recipe's author. For example, they assumed a 75% BH efficiency and your system is 77% (made up numbers).

EDIT: In either case, unless you are trying to dial in your process (as opposed to just make beer), I'd consider a difference of just .004 a success.

EDIT2: There is a third case which I will just call "miscellaneous" ... meaning that there's no way to really tell unless we knew the parameters of each step, how you measured them, and what you were expecting.

 

[balrog]

Measurements can be a tricky thing. The hydrometer has error, including reading error. The markings on mas produced containers for volume have error. The process for converting starch to sugar, scraping extract from containers, stirring *COMPLETELY* to homgenize all sugars in solution, the thermometer. Little errors, all over the place, and they all stack atop one another to get to the final answer.

I agree with @seilenos , .004 is unworthy of any worry. Take notes. Do it again 20 times. Oh, and enjoy.

 

[dmtaylor]

As far as brewhouse efficiency goes, volume is typically the most crude part of the measurement. If you were to brew say 5.5 gallons of wort, but actually ended up with 5.1 gallons because you boiled too hard or didn't use enough water or whatever, then your efficiency will appear high by a factor of 5.5/5.1 = 108%, which might explain an original gravity of 1.054 instead of 1.050 all by itself, just because you didn't measure volume accurately. This might not be the answer in your specific case, but I think it's the answer in a huge majority of cases.

 

[Jag75]

You have to calculate all the grain and get a ppg then theres some calculations you do . I have the steps somewhere.

 

[grampamark]

Unless you’re one of those folks who are obsessed with numbers (and some homebrewers are) consistency is more important than efficiency.

If you are consistently within a few gravity points of the predicted numbers, you’re doing it right, IMO.

 

[kh54s10]

If it was an extract kit with top up water, just forget about efficiency. There are too many variables as stated above. If you use all the ingredients and collect the right volume you can use the OG the instructions targeted. But even that would have an error margin that you are really within.

 

[Jag75]

If it was an extract kit with top up water, just forget about efficiency. There are too many variables as stated above. If you use all the ingredients and collect the right volume you can use the OG the instructions targeted. But even that would have an error margin that you are really within.

Yes exactly . With extract kits the efficiency was already done .

 

[delcosansgluten]

first of all let me thank everyone for your help, this is really incredible. To add some details, the brew was all grain - its a gluten free california common lager. Its fermenting nicely. Regarding the hydrometer error, i was unaware of this, that may explain the issue more.

 

[Rackrunner]

To echo what others have said first - measuring efficiency is highly dependent on getting accurate gravity and volume measurements, and +/- .004 is pretty darn close - nice work!

When you're following a recipe, it's usually making some assumptions about your overall efficiency (usually called brewhouse efficiency) being somewhere in the 70%-80% range. So assuming gravity and volume were measured perfectly, it would mean you exceeded their 'guess' at your efficiency by a few %.

Overall, efficiency is a measure how much potential sugar made it into your wort. Grains will have an extract potential value which is what you would get at 100% eff. For example, Beersmith lists basic US 2-row pale malt with a 1.036 potential, or 36 'points'. This value is a measure of points per pound per gallon. In this example, if you used 1 pound of 2-row to make 1 gallon of wort at 100% efficiency, it should come out at a gravity of 1.036. (1 lb x 36 points) / 1 Gal = 36, or 1.036 SG.

Lets say you dump another gallon of water in there - you would get (1 lb x 36 points) / 2 Gal = 1.018
Boil it back down to 1 Gal and you should be back at 1.036.

The idea is that, unless you somehow gain or lose more of the sugar, your total gravity points per gallon stays the same

Now lets say you actually go and do this experiment (1 gal of wort from 1 lb of 2 row) and you get a gravity of 1.027 or 27 points. Your efficiency is simply 27 / 36, or 75%

There are LOTS of things that can influence efficiency, from grain crush, to dead space losses, to mash PH and water chemistry, but it all boils down (no pun intended) to how well you were able to get all of that potential sugar into your soon-to-be-beer.