The Ultimate Guide to Maximizing Home Brewing Efficiencies
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- The Ultimate Guide to Maximizing Home Brewing Efficiencies
This video covers Mash Efficiencies and Brewhouse Efficiencies and how to maximize those numbers. Remember, it isn't a competition, but increasing efficiencies can help reduce your grain costs.
BeerSmith - beersmith.com/
BrewFather - brewfather.app/
Home Brewing Calculators - www.brewersfriend.com/stats/
Links to products discussed in the video:
(Most links are affiliate links at no extra cost to you.)
Brewland Grain Mill Pro - 3 rollers - amzn.to/3ss4FSx
Nice Inexpensive 2 roller grain mills - amzn.to/3Qmu4F9
Great, low-cost pH Meter from DR Meter - amzn.to/3QiafyS
SS Spoon for string grains - amzn.to/46Utupb
Inexpensive Mash Paddle - amzn.to/3SlaADC
Find a fancy Mash Paddle - etsy.com
Bitter Reality Brewing Amazon Shop - www.amazon.com/shop/bitterrea...
Brewing America Hydrometers -
155 F - amzn.to/3QlZnAc
Triple with temp - amzn.to/3FFxxtL
Activewear and Cool T-Shirts from Into the AM - intotheam.com/BRB10AM
10% Off Discount Code: BRB10AM
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
5:08 - Pre-Brew Calculations
7:00 - Grain Selection
8:48 - Verify your ingredients vs your recipe
10:41 - Grain Crush
12:26 - Into the AM
12:45 - Speed of your crush
13:46 - pH
14:58 - Brewing Salts
15:33 - Water to Grain Ratio
16:53 - Mash Temperature
17:39 - Mashing In
19:09 - Grain Bed Rest
19:38 - Rice Hulls
20:21 - Rice Hulls Again
21:09 - Grain Bed
22:06 - Mash Time
23:13 - Check your mash
23:53 - The Flow
25:16 - The Lift
27:45 - The Drip
28:24 - The Plate
29:08 - Squeeze the BIAB
29:23 - Right Sized Bag - BIAB
30:02 - Stir when sparging - BIAB
30:26 - Recirculation
30:56 - Sparge
31:43 - Brewhouse efficiencies
35:30 - Thank you - Навчання та стиль
Thank you for this one! Awsome video!!
Thank you for the feedback and appreciation. I'm all about maximizing my grain bill whenever possible. Thanks again.
I love the driving a mini cooper going nuts Comment. Great channel by the way.
I use a foundry and have found that “the lift” as you call it has had a huge impact on my gravity numbers. Getting that dead space water mixed in is key.
I usually get a solid point or more every time. Just lift very slow and only enough to free up the dead space.
I'm nerding out on another one of your great process videos Mike. Second time I've watched it.
Thank you
Thank you, very much! Feel free to share the next time you here someone ask how to increase theirs. Have a great weekend.
I've definitely used the plate trick in my malt pipe. I use the BrewBag in my Anvil now with no sparge and squeeze the hell out of it and I usually get about 80-82% efficiency.
Very nice! I wish I knew the plate trick a while ago.
Hi!
I’m new to the home brewing world and to your channel.
Keep the good work that you do!
I like your videos, very interesting and instructive.
Thanks!
Thank you for the kind words. I'm looking to do some more entry level stuff early next year to name only a few of many videos planned. Thank you again.
Thanks again. I seem to learn something new every video
Thank you and I'm constantly learning myself. Between learning, playing mad scientist, and enjoying a home brew, I can't think of any more rewarding hobby.
I took Denny Conn's advice to heart,I don't stress about efficiency like most homebrewers do. For me plus or minus 5 gravity points is fine with me. I'll only be worried if I'm off by 15 gravity points.
100% agree!! First few months using my all-in-one, I stressed about BH efficiency. After getting to know my system and how much time I wanted to spend, now brew days are stress free.
It was a chat with Drew Beechum & Denny Conn and they were both extremely friendly and down to earth which was amazing. Plus of course they were extremely informative too.
I'm OCD, so I'll always stress a little but I agree with @jafarym77 when my OG is way off, I stress out a lot more, thinking what did I forget.
Great list Mike!
Lately I’ve struggled to hit my OG and this will help!!!
Thank you for the feedback. I can understand as I struggle from time to time, usually when the equipment is different.
I used a different drill when milling my grains and got a much better efficiency on my last brew
Awesome! I've considered a little motor, but the Ryobi is doing pretty good for me as long as I remember to set it correctly.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
5:09 - Pre-Brew Calculations
7:01 - Grain Selection
8:49 - Verify your recipe matches your ingredients
10:46 - Grain crush
12:52 - Speed of your crush
13:46 - pH
12:58 - Brewing salts
15:33 - Water to grain ratio
16:33 - Mash temperature
17:39 - Mashing in
19:09 - Give your grain bed time to rest
19:38 - Rice hulls
20:16 - Rice hulls again
21:09 - Grain Bed
22:06 - Mash time
23:13 - Check your mash
23:54 - Mashing in on an All-in-one (Flow)
25:15 - Mashing in on an All-in-one (The Lift)
27:44 - Mashing in on an All-in-one (The Drip)
28:24 - Mashing in on an All-in-one (The Plate)
29:23 - BIAB (Right sized bag)
30:06 - BIAB (Stir when Sparging)
30:56 - Sparge
32:51 - Brewhouse Efficiencies
35:15 - Outro
Thank you, I did put those into the video to make things easier as it was a long video.
I definitely do not chase efficiency. I'm around 70% mash efficiency every single time and I'm happy with that. I'm way concerned with consistency than I am efficiency.
I you are able to stay close to 70% on different brews, that is awesome! I agree, if you are able to stay consistent, it is a lot easier to repeat those brews that turn out amazing! Some people, like me, love to tweak it, while others struggle to ever see that 70% mark.
@@BitterRealityBrewing every year I brew a monster stout that change the adjuncts that beer is more like 60% efficiency due to the ridiculous amount of grains but I can live with that too. If I were more motivated I would do a parti-gyle brew afterwards but I have yet to it.
Great video Mike! Thanks for making it. I just used software (Brewfather) for the first time last weekend for brewing a porter. I also in that batch for the first time added brewing salts as recommended by the app based on our local water profile. Slowly trying to up my game and better understand the many variables! :)
I really need to take a deeper dive into Brewfather, but wish it had a way to import things like Water Profiles. You are doing exactly what I did, baby steps, with one major change at a time. Truly understanding brewing salts in great detail can take a while, but simply copying or modifying water profiles based on what you are trying to achieve like an IPA, Porter/Stout, or other beers can be really easy as you are finding out. If you need a good IPA water profile, either copy the West Coast IPA from Green Flash, or like.
thank you
Thank you and I hope something in the video was helpful.
This is perfect timing, on my last two brews my efficiency is down to 60%, where as I normally achieve around 80%
I can relate as I'm usually around the 70's hitting in the very low 80's on rare occasions. but when I got the new Anvil Foundry my first brew was around 66%. I've been getting back to my roots and was easily able to push it back up to respectable numbers.
@@BitterRealityBrewing as a result of looking over my process I am up to around 80 again
For me it was not enough sparge water.
So for now I keep my water/grain at around 3 to 1
I have a (cheap) pH meter and I used to use it for a while but it turned out that the software I use (Brewfather) is very good at calculating the pH so there is no point using it anymore and dealing with the hassle of cleaning and calibrating it. 5.3-5.6 is a huge range and it's not hard to hit so use go with what the software says, there's no need to buy expensive pH-meters.
I agree, as my DR pH meter was less than $30 (I think I paid $26) and a few I'm looking at as a backup are around the same price, all with a 0.01 accuracy. I usually hit pretty close but maybe I should try to see if Brewfather is more accurate compared to Beersmith. I have a paid account on Brewfather.
Mike ~ what’s your rule of thumb for rice hulls? Say you were to brew a beer with 75% wheat and flaked oats on your Anvil Foundry 10.5 gal, how many solo cups of rice hulls would you put in with the mash?
That is a great question as I don't feel there is an industry standard as it is one of those things that a lot of people say "What works for you". With that being said, from my original research I've seen a lot of people agree with no more than 5% of the total grain bill, but in my opinion that might be extreme as rice hulls are extremely light in weight, I've even seen some crazy people say up to 20%. You can either do it by weight, 1 to 5 % which I would agree with or visually which is how I usually do it when dealing with a new recipe. I will blend them up in the grain bill ensuring I see a fair amount of rice hulls mixed in. At 75% wheat, especially if there is a lot of flaked wheat, I'd add a lot more than I usually do. I joke about my SOLO cup as that is what I've always used to scoop rice hulls into my mash (by site, not weight). When I'm dealing with 1 to 2 pounds of a malt, like wheat, or rye a scoop or two is fine. When I'm dealing with flaked grains of any kind, or crushed like golden oats, I will almost always double that. I'd go weight my SOLO cup but I'm out of rice hulls at the moment. (My local LHBS made fun of me many, many years back when I didn't realize how light rice hulls were and ordered 20 lbs of them. It took me over 2 years to go through all those.) I now usually pick up 4 to 5 lbs at a time.
@@BitterRealityBrewing Thanks for the answer! That is exactly what I was looking for. Now I have a good idea what I need to do.
I'll email tomorrow. I got locked out of my account 😢
Fully understand. Can you imagine when you were like 4 or 5 years old being told when you became an adult you'd have like 40 to 50 passwords to remember.