BrewBrain Sports Investing

A common topic of discussion among homebrewers is efficiency. That is, how much of the grain sugars we get into our beer. The better the efficiency, the less grain we need to buy to fill out a recipe.

The numbers will vary depending on the grain quality and freshness, grain crush and brewing methodology. From what I see on the internet, around 75 - 80% is fairly common with some getting worse efficiency and some superstars getting better. I’m talking efficiency into the boiler here.

My numbers are pretty consistently right around the 80% mark. Considering I really don’t do much to ensure good efficiency other that attempting to get close to my strike temperatures, I think pretty much everybody should be able to get at least into the 70%+ range without any trouble at all. Of course the commercial guys would probably croak if this was all the better they could do, but for homebrewing in small batches, it is just fine. The important thing is to be consistent so you can rely on your numbers when putting a recipe together. Plan for your average. Brewing is like golf - we all hit a great shot once in a while. If you plan every shot to be your best, you’ll be disappointed more often than not. Besides, your brew kettle is much harder than a driver to wrap around a tree, and you can’t throw it as far.

My plan as of right now is to document a brew day from start to finish on Monday. I have a pale ale I need to get done, and I’m hoping I’ll have time on Monday. What better way to spend a day off work than brewing up a batch of beer! I’ll start with a description of the equipment I use. I have a VERY simple setup with no bells and whistles, so if you have wanted to jump into all-grain brewing, but didn’t know if you could do it without all the fancy equipment, I’ll prove to you that you can. About the only piece of equipment I own that isn’t rock bottom simple is my cooler-conversion mash tun. The mash can be done with two plastic buckets and a blanket, but ……. no.

The one issue I may have is I plan to use crushed grains I’ve had for several months. I want to use them, though, just to see how they do after sitting on the shelf for that long. They have been vacuum sealed, so I’m hopeful they’ll behave just the same as the fresh stuff I get down at my LHBS. If the efficiency is horrible, I’ll just toss it and do the brew-day post some other weekend.