Ask The Experts Mash Efficiency In Brewing System

What is the difference between wort and brewhouse performance in all-grain brewing, and how can I improve my performance?
I’ll start by describing the efficacy of wort. Return is a percentage that represents the percentage of the weight of grain that can be directly converted to sugar under optimal lab issues.

A real-world brewing system that goes beyond the research lab does not achieve this ideal number. A normal brewing system is just going to get 80-90% of the possible sugars, which suggests that 80-90% of the return will certainly be achieved in operations that come directly from your saccharification tank. The “best” part of the number your system gets throughout the mashing phase is called mashing performance.

Of course, saccharification itself is only one action in the brewing process. After saccharification, we may include adding water, boiling, cooling and moving the wort, each of which results in some additional losses due to lees loss, cooling and transfer to the fermentor. These additional losses result in a lower initial gravity of the wort entering the fermenter than we would have accomplished in the wort tank.

The total effectiveness of the system, from the gravity factor in the saccharified grains to the fermenter, is called brewhouse effectiveness. It represents the degree to which the entire brewing system converts the potential sugars in the raw grain directly into the initial gravity factor (sugar) in the fermenter. This number is consistently lower than wort effectiveness because of the additional losses in these later actions and is typically in the 65-75% range for many homebrew systems.
Many new all-grain brewers deal with reduced effect numbers, resulting in their beers having lower initial gravity than expected. These deficiencies can be remedied with experience. As you become more accustomed to all-grain brewing, your performance will certainly be enhanced.

One more remedy is to simply reduce the offer of the brewhouse or mash effect you use for your dishes. This will successfully allow you to use a little extra grain in your dishes, but must enable you to reach your initial gravity with only a dollar or more of additional grain included in each group.

I would suggest that if you are really experiencing reduced performance from your kits, then the next thing to look at is your grain crush. Grain crush can have a big impact on the effectiveness of your brewing system, as you will certainly see. In fact, I’ve had situations where a very erratic working, usually shop-pressed, grain would result in lower gravity numbers.

Great grain presses are really quite great. The grains need to be pressed internally into very large grains, but you still need to have large chunks of the grain shell unbroken to act as a filter bed. It’s a delicate balance, however, because if you press the grains very finely, you’ll get a “stuck overflow” which will certainly mess up your mash-tun filter and also stop the proper release of water.

If you have effectively pressed the grains, then the next thing to look at is your refilling/grinding procedure. Make sure you are refilling with warm water at the correct temperature level. The refill water should be at least as warm as your last mash, although it is unusual to refill with a little hotter water in order to improve the thickness of the wort throughout the refill and also to get more sugar.

In some cases, the style of mash can can play a key role, preferably with a mash filter that covers the entire bottom of the can so that the wort is drawn in evenly and also to prevent guidance in the grain bed. Wort underneath the mash canning tap, in your refrigerator during transfer, in the residue left in the central heating boiler, as well as in the pump or piping, represents shed sugar and also will certainly decrease your overall efficiency.

The portion of the “right” number that your system removes throughout the saccharification phase is called saccharification performance.

The general effectiveness of your system from saccharifying grains to the gravity factor in the fermenter is known as brewhouse effectiveness. If you are really experiencing reduced performance in your kits, I suggest you take a look at the following product, which is your grain crush. The crushing of the grains has a big impact on the results you will certainly see from your brewing system. In some cases, the style of the wort tank can also play a key role. Typically, you want the wort filter to cover the entire bottom of the tank so that you can attract wort evenly and also prevent carryover in the grain bed.