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Beerhouse efficiency for a Braggot

mr_beer

Grandmaster Brewer
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I have just finished a bragot and the Beerhouse efficiency is in the low 30% range.  The ABV based on OG and FG indicates it is about 6.9% ABV.

The product tastes OK but I am puzzled why the efficiency is so low.  Does it have to do with the addition of the honey after the wort has cooled or ??
 
Try exporting a .bsmx file of your recipe with brew day data and we will try to troubleshoot it.  Otherwise, there is not much to go on.
 
Thanks for offering to see what I flubbed this time.    :)
 

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  • SmokedBraggot.bsmx
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OK, walk with me through this.  You ended up with about 1.5 gallons extra after the mash.  Your volume after mashing is recorded as 6.5 against a target of 9.2 gallons.  Where is the extra 1.5 gallons?

Next your mash gravity reading is 1.010?  Are you sure, because your pre-boil mash is then 1.046? 

With the ending batch size being 7 gallons versus the target of 5.7, and the increase in OG from a target of 1.043 (without the honey) to 1.062 (is this with the honey?). 

Assuming that your OG was taken with the honey (thus your comment about the addition of honey bringing you to 7 gal in the fermenter).

Gravity points check:  (1.098 - 1)  * 1000 *5.7 = 559

Gravity points check w/o honey added: (1.043 - 1) *1000 * 5.7 = 245

Actual readings: (1.062 - 1) * 1000 * 7 = 434, it would make sense that this is before you added the honey.

Of course, BeerSmith does not give you a place to put your actual volume before the honey was added, so that makes it difficult.

So you have some bad reading in the system somewhere.  Let's throw out your post mash reading and put in your pre-boil measurement of 1.046 which would put your measured mash efficiency at 84.5% which is not unreasonable.  Your measured brewhouse efficiency then becomes 41.2%, but I am figuring that your initial gravity reading does not include the honey. Am I correct so far?

So adding the gravity point the honey should give you, this gives you approximately 51 more gravity points and the additional volume would dilute this somewhat.  Your note about adding an additional quart to top off the fermenter gives some clue. 

It appears that since you ended up with a bit more sugar from the mash and less volume than anticipated, this ended up as a higher gravity going into the fermenter but with less volume.  Because the program does not have a spot for recording the volume before honey addition, and it was not in your notes (which help by the way), I cannot comment too much further with out going into a lot of speculation.
 
First let me thank you personally for looking at my situation.
Helping folks understand how to use the software is great but helping them unscramble their brewing fumbles goes beyond the expected.

So, here is what I determined?.
? I was not familiar with how to use the Session tab.
? I did not understand the importance of accurately measuring the pre-boil volume and gravity.  As I have previously explained, I am a non-skilled user of the software and the entire brewing process.  The data in the session tab is yellow because I did not record any data for those measurements. 
? The 1.062 was the measured SG with the honey at the 7 gallon level in the primary.

And now I know more than previously and thank you for your help.
 
Not sure if you've noticed, but if you hold your mouse over the top of each space for a reading it will tell you what that reading should be, and when it should be taken in essence. I was a hair confused about some of these when I first started using the software as well- things like "measured post mash gravity" and "measured pre-boil gravity" confused me at first, but when you hold your mouse over the tab it tells you what it is. So your "measured post mash gravity" would've been the full wort gravity after you've mashed, but before you boiled or added any honey/sugar etc to your wort and started the boil.

there's some great tutorials on the beersmith website you might want to check out to figure out some of your number and measuring concerns too!

side note: you're way outside the color of a braggot. ;)
 
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