How to increase your Brew House Efficiencies - Maximize your BHE
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- Опубліковано 4 гру 2020
- How to increase your Brew House Efficiencies - Maximize your BHE
#BitterRealityBrewing #Brewhouseefficiencies #BHE
6 ways to maximize your Brew House Efficiencies!
And yes, EVERYONE's Brew House Efficiencies are wrong to some degree. If you watch #6 you will fully understand why even the largest breweries are still never going to be 100% accurate on their BHE, and as for home brewers, it is even more difficult for us to be anywhere near 100% accurate but that doesn't mean it isn't worth calculating and keeping up with it to help us improve as home brewers and beer brewers in general while maximizing the potential of the malts we are brewing with.
#1 - PH
#2 - Temperature
#3 - Grain Crush
#4 - Flow of the wort
#5 - Measuring the right expected runoff (to the fermenter)
#6 - The Right Malts in your recipe - Diastatic Power!
This is the exact PH meter I use as it is inexpensive and appears to do a great job plus it came highly recommended, plus I'm listing the buffer solutions I use.
DR Meter PH100-V
amzn.to/37B0d5A
15 - pack PH Meter Buffer Solution
amzn.to/3ghsAcY
Grain Crusher I use - Also inexpensive and does a good job.
www.homebrewing.org/Cereal-Ki... - Навчання та стиль
Appreciate the temperature explanation, thank you
This was one of those things where I just went a bit OCD, but our measurements on things like this will always be +/- what we really think they are, so we can only work to get as close as possible.
good stuff here. thanks!
Always bringing the 🔥 knowledge!!
Thank you and that is what of the things I do enjoy about brewing...we all are always learning which is cool.
Great video, great content!
Thank you for the kind words as I practice most of this non-stop but I did a lot of research for this video to ensure I covered the primary items that impact everyone.
Great video. I just started reading Malt by John Mallett yesterday and am know a lot of what you touched on in the video will also be in the book. Like you said, there’s always more to learn which is something I love about the hobby and your channel as well. Cheers!🍻
Thank you and I fully agree as I love sharing what I've learned but at the same time I am always learning. I recently started going through some training videos on brewing that Craft Beer and Brewing magazine offered me for a pretty fair price on Black Friday so I am watching a ton of videos and reading.
Nice one. gonna watch this video a few times more. By far the best BHE video I seen so far. I'm brewing old school style and my avg BHE over the last 20 5gallon batches is only around 62%. So I need to figure out how to improve that. Thanks for making and uploading this video. Cheers from Denmark.
Thank you but Ouch! on the BHE. As for old school style are you talking cooler or BIAB? I'm guessing cooler as BIAB usually is a bit better with sparging. Let me know and I might have additional advice not in the video also double check your grain brands/sources as one brand over another can have a considerable difference in diastatic power that can greatly impact your brew compared to what your program is telling you. That was the big one for me as my LHBS doesn't always keep track of the brands unless I buy the bulk bags which of course have the company on the label.
@@BitterRealityBrewing thanks for your answer. No, not BIAB. But l think i made a mistake in my calculation. I was using the volume of my final product, and not the volume that went in the fermenter.
After l have redone my calculations l hit a avg of 74%..
@@TheEllegaard Don't get too hung up on the BHE but honestly 74% is a very respectful number and even a great number if you were doing a large grain bill where BHE suffers usually in most systems.
Great hands on explanations. I'd appreciate when you could also do a video about the correlations of mash efficiency with water/grain ratio and grain absorption rate - vs thicker and thinner mashes and bigger and smaller grain crushes...
Thank you and thanks for the recommendation as I just added your recommendation to a list of videos I want to do.
I have an anvil foundry 10.5 also. I use the small batch insert on all my brews. Just to increase brewhouse efficiency. Thanks for another great video. Good info in there.
I'm right there with you as it helps and I think that is the key, every little thing done right helps.
That's the first i've heard of it and I have the same. My BHE is always off but i'm fairly new. I knew most of this but it's still off. I got a ph stabilizer/meter so I hope that was it. I'm also always going off of anvil's charts for temp per grain ratio and that may be off from my random recipes I make. I think the main thing is exposure to oxygen racking to the keg. Better every day.
@@killswitchh I only have 15 brew in on my Anvil Foundry as I came from using a Grainfather and before that lots of pots doing BIAB so I can understand the dialing in part as I'm still constantly refining my processes with it and still occasionally having issues I didn't have in previous batches. I use the water to grain ratio from Anvil also but usually hold back 1.5 gallons for sparging. As for doing closed transfers to a keg I have a pump system I use that isn't perfect but it is as close to as I've been able to achieve from a carboy to a keg without using a spigot on a plastic carboy which is always an option. Check out this video about closed transfers as it might help or at least give you some ideas. ua-cam.com/video/R5c8-pCJAAs/v-deo.html
nice tips. my wort starts at a ph of 11, which i bring down to 5 using lactic acid. if i forget, the enzymes fail.
Something is seriously wrong with you pH meter. Your tap water (not recommended), spring water, or even distilled water should all be really close to a pH of 7. When adding the malts, your wort should drop to around 5 +/- and usually lower based on the malts. I would strongly recommend checking this out as it is a great deal at $45 (with a $15 coupon) plus it includes 3 pre-made liquid ph solutions for testing and calibration,. Amazing deal as that 11 really scares me. - amzn.to/461fvP2
Good luck.
@@BitterRealityBrewing ah, bless your cotton socks. i have a use a high base pre-process for my wort, hence the pH. Digital meters break. i am old school litmus paper.
Even with the new style I am getting 60% on the nose. This was no sparge, no lifting, just bag in the basket. Next I am doing the same but with a 2 gallon sparge.
Sorry to hear that but have you tried no bag, and 1 gallon sparge? Also you do have the recirculation pump? If not, try moving some of the beer a few times from the spigot to the top during the mash to create a manual recirculation. The lift will usually give you a full point due to the dead space on the sides that simply doesn't get recirculated.
@@BitterRealityBrewing I tried just adding a sparge this last brew and it went up to 66% with no other changes. I do have the recirculation pump. One thing I did notice was it constantly seemed to be overshooting the mash temp even down to 35% power on 240. It was as stable if not more so at 60% power. I do wonder if I was recirculating too fast.
Gold mine video
Its my official cut'n'paste video now for any questions regarding BHE. 😀
@@BitterRealityBrewing Did you drop it in the FB group. I think it deserves to be tagged at the top for a while.
@@davideclark5431 I put it in the Anvil Foundry, Brewer's Edge, and of course Bitter Reality Brewing groups and have asked permission from David Heath to post it in his group. I also got to award from Reddit under Homebrewing sub-reddit for being helpful and of course posting a popular topic which was huge for me as I've never gotten awards from them as I didn't know they existed. Thank you for the support as I made this to help others as I've seen so many questions about BHE over the past month and almost every single day that I deep dove into it and did some research to ensure I wouldn't miss anything but when I was ready to make the video I was actually kind of shocked that technically speaking no one can ever be 100% on this so the focus really needs to be on processes and to use BHE as a tool to help each of us as home brewers to simply get better at our crafts.
Hi. What is your malt suggestion and mesh temperature to brewing a New England IPA with 8.5% alcohol?
That is a big question, but this site does a great job covering the essential parts of a NEIPA, even if you want to make it an Imperial NEIPA. bisonbrew.com/how-to-brew-neipa/
I would highly recommend any of the liquid English Ale Yeasts recommended. I personally have used Imperial Juice A38, which does just what it says and helps the beer taste very fruity beyond what the hops can do on their own. Keep in mind that although if you were around 6%, I'd say kick the mash-up to 154 F, but with you shooting for 8.5% I'd probably stick to the 152 F as the higher abv will add more perceived sweetness, and 154 F might make it seem too sweet.
@@BitterRealityBrewing Thank you so much. I will read the post, brew a new batch and let you know the results. But I have another question: My last batch had mash at 152ºF and the original gravity 1.054 and using the BrewFather app, the OG should be 1.098. To get the low gravity I got the cause could be how the grain was milled and so much sparge water? What do you think? Thanks.
Greetings from Mumbai. Great video on a topic that's not easy for a new brewer to get his/her head around. I never bothered with BHE or MASH efficiency for the first couple (or more) months after starting ... Realized over time that BHE is a sum total of many parts and processes that you've outlined wonderfully here.
I like Anvil products and have my eyes set on the Foundry 6.5G. That will have to wait until I'm able to fly again. Any reason you switched out of GF to Anvil, despite admitting to its many efficiencies? Cheers.
Thank you and happy to have you, welcome. Thank you for the nice words as I worked hard on this video when I realized that we all might be chasing our tails a bit and that it is impossible to get a perfect number but it is a great tool for measure against your previous efficiencies with like recipes and grains. So if you brewed the same beer twice but fell you improved on your processes, your efficiencies would probably reflect that with better numbers.
Why did I switch from GF to Anvil, I get asked that a fair amount. Here is a quick summary as it can get complex but my first GF had a lots of issues after the first year and my reseller was quick to replace the connect modules (kept dying, it had just come out as they had recently changed from the old manual system) and then the whole system kept triggering a reset and wouldn't go over 140 F. They replaced the entire system but once I got the new system they had changed their app which was plagued with connectivity issues and if you had an issue you had to start over as there wasn't an easy way to resume or start over and jump forward. They have since fixed most of these issues but mine was 120v so it was slow but extremely efficient and I use to brew a lot of beers with wheat and still do with rye which seemed to easily scorch on the bottom during mashing and even worse during the boil no matter what I tried. The GF still has high density burners which sounds good but that means they are concentrated in a small area and generate a lot of heat each time they try to cycle the temp up even a few degrees. The Anvil and the newer Brewzilla (3.1.x) both have low density burners which greatly reduces the chances of scorching on the bottom plus the Anvil has that awesome 120/240 switch as here in the U.S. we use 120v everywhere and 240v outlets are a luxury and not the standard. With 240v I'm able to heat up my water at almost twice the speed as 120v allows. So ultimately I was really frustrated and after a nightmare brew day I decided to do a ton of research and buy something that worked better for me with a lot less frustration.
@@BitterRealityBrewing great. glad Anvil Foundry is working for you. Their products are good. Wondering if you want to do an episode on hardware options in electric brewing for small-batch folks like me. At a later date.
@@ravilshirodkar1901 I am actually looking to do a handful of small batch beer brews this year but in reference to electric are you referring to a stove or something like the 6.5 gallon Anvil? I don't own the smaller one but could make recommendations based on facts. Normally I do small batch brews on the stove or sometimes on a propane burner outside. I use to own a 3 burner propane setup once and with my stand alone I could have up to 4 - one gallon brews going at a time and did that pretty regularly.
@@BitterRealityBrewing Great. Looking forward to those. Would also be great to know if there are any affordable E-brewing options for small batch guys.
@@ravilshirodkar1901 I will do some reached on the e-brewing solutions beyond just the small batch Anvil unit.
Any tips on reducing water usages
If you only do a 30 or 60-minute boil, it would reduce your total water needed for the brew based on your boil-off. Supposedly 30 minutes is more than enough, according to a lot of brewers nowadays. The biggest water savings is how you chill your beer right after the boil. If you are lucky to have ice-cold groundwater, a plate chiller is probably the best solution for chilling and reducing water usage. Personally, I prefer an immersion chiller for too many reasons, which can either use a ton of water or, if you have a large pot, you can easily drop a sump pump in it (like this one that I bought on Amazon used for $40 in early 2020 - amzn.to/43rjT7g) and keep ice packs or frozen water bottles in your freezer to be used in your chilling water (You need a lot of them). I live in Florida where we are prone to hurricanes so about every other shelf in two separate freezers we have ice packs as it helps keep our food good for a few extra days if we lose power.
Which taste will be happen if I mash pH around 5.8-5.9 ?
Personally I don't know as I haven't tried a comparison but I would suspect it could lead to a slightly lower mash efficiency and could lead to less minerals in the fermentation but if you are using a yeast nutrient it probably won't matter. So at the end of the day probably nothing noticeable but as I said I'm not 100% sure as I have done a test with a PH that high yet but it would make for a great video.
I have been consistantly been getting 85% BHE on my current 3v system. I am about to start using an anvil foundry. . .I'm interested as to how much my BHE will be effected.
I will say that most people see a dip in their BHE the first few times they start using the Anvil Foundry until they get everything dialed in but there are plenty of brewers hitting in the 85% range as I do frequently but once you get a bit over 14 lbs on the grain bill it does seem to suffer a little.
Haha. Found you on another HB video. Cheers Beast!
What's your brewhouse efficiency and mash efficiency on your anvil foundry? You mentioned that you use a very fine grain crush (under 1mm?). I would be worried about stuck mashes when my grain bill looks like powder... According to the brewfather app I'm having a brewhouse efficiency of 81% with a mash efficiency of 87% on a 1.3mm crush with my grainfather.
My Grainfather always had high efficiencies and when I first started using my Anvil Foundry my initial efficiencies were between 65 to 72 which killed me so I got focused on everything that could help boost it. I agree 0.0375 of an inch (just under 1 mm) is small but it was a recommendation from Brulosophy and if I'm not careful I can easily get a stuck or packed mash but I'm also playing around with wetting grains before the crush which the first time I did it, I had one of the clearest worts ever with decent BHE around 78 or 79 from what I remember. Currently I am between 75 to 86 BHE keeping in mind the Anvil Foundry is only designed to hold 16 lbs of malts and when you are at 14 to 16 lbs all efficiencies suffer but 14 or less with the small batch adapter and everything else hitting on the right marks such as PH and keeping my mash temp at around 152 (for most brews) I easily hit over 80. 86.6 is the highest I've ever seen so far and am more than happy with it but I'm still working to get more consistent BHEs so I can estimate better at where I will land while building the recipe as I have a habit of under estimating my BHE so when I exceed my conservative estimates I end up with a bit more abv then I originally was looking for.
@@BitterRealityBrewing Another hint with the Anvil, the water which is between the mash basket and the side wall of the Anvil is very passive in the mash. There is a little diffusion of sugars into this water, but it is very little. Taking measurements the past two brews, my wort in the mash and being recirculated was (for the last brew) 11.6 Brix and the water half-way down the mash basket was at 0.8 Brix. The net once the mash basket was removed ended up at 10.0 Brix.
So the last two brews, I raised the mash basket up approximately half way through the mash to get the water trapped along the side of the mash basket mixed into the process. Net result was an increase in mash/lauter efficiency of around 6% in both cases. It does not take long, I did not fully remove the basket, and I need to go back and remeasure the gravity at the end of the process, but it makes a big difference. This morning's Dunkel clocked in at 87% mash/lauter efficiency.
The other thing to consider when looking at Brew House Efficiency is that this value is tied to process losses. I typically brew 10 liter batches and finish the boil with 11 liters. My BHE automatically takes a hit of ~9% just from the wort left behind. When looking to improve your BHE, one of the first things to check is how much are you leaving behind and are there ways of minimizing that volume. This is one of the reasons I primarily track Mash Efficiency vs BHE.
@@oginme716 WOW! I was just thinking about the part you mentioned in your first line while I was making breakfast and drinking my coffee to wake up. Almost all Electric All in One brewing systems have their advantages over another but I touched on this when I did the video "The perfect All-in-one Brewing System". The Grainfather's malt basket in the grain father has two major advantages one it leaves very little dead space compared to the Anvil that has a ton of room all around it. Plus the Grainfather's malt basket by design forces the flow from top to bottom without any extra holes that could reduce efficiencies. My question is how did you measure the the wort half way down? I would have expected it would get recirculated but from those measurements it sounds like it really just sits there with very little circulation which is very concerning.
First you had me at Dunkel (my favorite dessert beer of all time) but WOW!!! I'm not sure how to test this unless I simply do a test like I did with the 2 IPAs with one using the small batch adapter and one without but I wouldn't have expected such a massive increase that is awesome and thank you for giving me another video to do in relation to experimenting which are my favorites as I am a bit of a mad scientist by nature. That is amazing to imagine simply lifting the grain basket half way up to force the wort to mix up a bit more is all that was needed to get things moving around better.
I did bring up part of that in my video in regards to when measuring your BHE you must compare apples to apples and you can't create a recipe with an expected run off (wort to fermenter) of say 5.25 Gallons and then only get 5 gallons and say your BHE was really high or in the other direction and end up with 6 gallons and say your BHE was really low as you have to adjust for that and compare apples to apples when trying to do a measurement not to mention figuring out why you had too much or too little wort to fermenter based on expectations and calculations available. I would agree that I haven't been paying attention directly to my Mash efficiency compared to my focus on my BHE but I do need to start looking at it closer so I can compare as I have a lot of reasons for loving this hobby but the constant learning is definitely one my primary reasons right up there with experimenting which ties directly into learning and helps me manage stress by giving me something to focus on that I truly enjoy doing.
Thank you for the insight and information as I will take it to heart and have added the testing of increasing efficiencies by lifting the mash basket up half way for a future video. I would suspect when I lift the basket I don't have to hold it for any period of time and can simply set it back down shortly after lifting it as the goal is to simply disturb the wort/water hiding in the dead space around the malt basket?
@@BitterRealityBrewing I missed your question about measuring the wort half way down. I have a long pipette which can reach down about 12 inches. So I put my finger over the top, plunged it down the side until I was approximately half way from the top of the mash to the bottom of the basket and let my finger up just a bit to allow a small amount of wort to enter the pipette. It takes a lot of time in the lab to get good at this ;). I should also have mentioned that I have the 6.5 gal Anvil, so the issue might be a little greater with the 10.5 gal unit.
@@oginme716 Either way 6.5 or 10.5, I am going to be looking into this as it has peaked my interest a great deal. Thank you for the insight.