Conversion efficiency advice needed!

BarbarianBrewer said:
They do if you don't correct for temperature. I even get variable readings on my refractometer as the wort cools on it.
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Yeah, even our very expensive equipment will fluctuate at different temps. My boss bought a brand new brix testing unit and we went over our allowed efficiency because we didn't let it cool enough.
 
you are only allowed to be a certain effeciency? :confused:
 
Minbari said:
you are only allowed to be a certain effeciency? :confused:
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Commercial brewing: Not sure in Oz but here, they have to hit their allowed ABV, particularly if packaging and distributing.
 
+/- 10% the amount on the packaging down here. Miss that and it's relabelling or blending. Either way you'll be the least popular employee for a while.
 
Yup if a pro brewer cant get within a couple points of his/her target well man they get paid to brew I dont theyd better be bloody good at it!
 
I'm brewing another batch tomorrow and will report back on my numbers. Hopefully gain some insights, thanks for everyone's insights!
 
Here's a link to my brew session
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/brewsession/407039

I took a gravity reading while the bag was still in the pot and measured the total volume of wort with the bag still in. I got:

11.75 gal. 1.012. @ 96 deg

I think this is a measurement error because I sampled from the top of the kettle without mixing up the wort more. (Didn't think about that til a friend pointed it out)

I took another reading with the bag out and fully drained. It was

8.75 gal 1.034. @ 98 deg

The first reading results in 27 pct conversion eff while the second results in 47 pct conversion efficiency. I am sure the first reading (bag still in) is wrong (user error) but I am still not clear on which way to measure 'mash complete' when it comes to BIAB. Bag in or bag out?

At the end of the day, the final gravity was 1.065 @ 70 deg with 5.5 gal. So actual brew house efficiency was 53 pct (expected was 60 pct). I'm not too upset with that -- just would like to make sure I'm measuring conversion efficiency correctly for BIAB and get consistent.
 
Michael_biab said:
I am still not clear on which way to measure 'mash complete' when it comes to BIAB. Bag in or bag out?
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Bag out. Mash isn't complete until the grain is no longer in contact with the liquid.

Go ahead and take samples with the bag in, to track progress. But that's not pre-boil gravity.
 
@Michael_biab your brew session has a permission error - likely your recipe is not set to public/shared.
As @Donoroto says, you need to drain the bag and stir up the wort to get an accurate reading of the specific gravity of your mash complete pre-boil wort. Until recently, I was calculating my mash conversion efficiency incorrectly. As I now understand it, you enter the total volume of mash water used to calculate mash conversion efficiency (the volume of water in your kettle before adding any grains).
Here is a view of my latest brew session:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/brewsession/405597
My conversion efficiency is determined using the full volume of mash water and the specific gravity measured after draining the bag and thoroughly mixing/stirring the wort.
My pre-boil efficiency uses the same specific gravity, but the lower volume as some of the mash water is lost to the grain.
My brew house efficiency is derived from the specific gravity measured after the boil is complete (again, the wort is thoroughly mixed/stirred before taking a sample for measurement), and the volume is what is going into the fermenter.

I hope this helps.
 
Michael_biab said:
Sorry, try this one:. https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1056645/irish-red-ale-5-gal
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OK, I can see your recipe now. With 9 different grains, that is a busy grain bill.
However, your brewsession is still locked, so your brew session cannot be viewed.
From your pictures, that is a beautiful beer. I posit that your grain bill needs to be slimmed down to at most 5 grains, but that is only my amateur opinion.
On the other hand, if you like what you brew, then disregard my comments.
 
@Herm_brews something you saw in my recipe made me take a second look and find an error on my part when entering the recipe. I only was supposed to have 5 specialty grains plus the base grain in this kit, so I double checked and corrected the errors. Too much grain would definitely make conversion much lower than expected.

I was also not checking the box to make the temperature corrections for the SG on the brew logs which brought conversion up.

So in the end, my conversion eff was 59 pct and brew house was 60 as was expected. I also discovered the separate calculator for efficiency (conversion, pre boil, mash complete, brew day complete) and the instructions on how to measure water/wort volume were much more clear to me, and reflected the explanation you provided.

Thanks so much for your help!! Next batch maybe illt work on a finer grist and see what that does. (And watch out for user errors too)

Appreciate it!

And here's another link to the brew session (if it works). Not sure where the setting is to share, as I only saw that option on the recipe.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...ould-exploit-breached-t-mobile-user-data.html
 
You can't share brew sessions. You could do something like print the page to PDF and upload that.
 
Unfortunately we can't share brew sessions just yet, but we're working on it!
 
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