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Calculating Extract Efficiency

philm63

Grandmaster Brewer
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Jul 6, 2012
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Plain City, OH
I am wondering if I am calculating my Mash Extract Efficiency correctly. I just did a partial mash IPA today and instead of soaking the grains in socks in the boil pot at 158F or so (as I'd done on my last brew) I chose to do the mini-mash in a small pot with a 5-gallon nylon paint strainer and 4 Lbs of grain (3 Lbs pale 2-row, some biscuit, caramel, and carapils).

I milled my own grains in a BC set at .039, used 1.5 quarts of water per Lb of grain, held it at 154F for 60 minutes, pulled the bag out and let it drain in a strainer suspended over the pot for a while. I then poured a few pitchers of 168F water over the grain very slowly and let it drain completely.

Then I transferred the bag to my boil pot with 4 gallons of water at 168F and dunked it several times letting it drain slowly (suspended strainer again) each time until the gravity coming out was just below 1.020 (using a refractometer). I then added the mini-mash wort in the smaller pot to my boil pot and topped up to 6.5 Gallons.

After topping up I took a reading to see if I could figure my efficiency and measured 1.020. When I plug the grains, boil volume and measured SG into an on-line calculator (Brewer's Friend - they call it Brewhouse Efficiency) it tells me I could get as much as 1.024 and tells me I've got an efficiency of 89%!

Am I doing this right? Could I really have gotten 89% EE? Is this typical for a mini-mash?
 
My off-the-cuff number that I use is 5 pts per pound of base grain at 75%, so 1.015. 

A few points more from hitting 89%, plus those other grains, sounds feasible.  Sounds like you sparged at 168F thoroughly, so you got a lot from it.
 
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