![]() I've always explained that for a new brewer, extract brewing is about learning the process of brewing, particularly fermentation. My advice to an extract brewer would be not to sweat the efficiency, at all. BeerSmith skips over a lot of the consequences of extract brewing. That pretty much calls for its own set of software options, which would be pretty cumbersome and I fear, quite confusing and frustrating for a new brewer. That's going to create more than a few "square peg - round hole" scenarios.Įxtract has its benefits, mostly convenience and simplicity, but the process really has to be compartmentalized based on the brewer's choices. Programs and calculations are based on all grain, full volume boils. That was a few more than one, Scott! That set of issues is a great example of the differences between extract and all grain brewing. So, for those that do the late addition of extracts, they really can't take a preboil gravity reading that would have a lot of value. This made my hop additions not work very well, IMHO. I now believe it was because I was doing high gravity boils (all of my malt sugars concentrated in a 2.5 gallon boil. When I was an extract/partial mash brewer, one thing that bothered me was that my IPA's never scored well. SRM can be adjusted somewhat, once a brewer is familiar with how much darkening a high gravity boil will cause. Carmelization can be good or bad, depending on the style. It's also been reported that high gravity boils lead to darker than anticipated brews and carmelization. It's been shown that hop bitterness efficiency is greatly (and negatively) affected by high gravity boils. It also reportedly leads to less darkening and less carmelization of the malts during the boil. This allows them to have a lower gravity boil, even when only doing a partial boil, thus increasing the efficiency of their hop additions. Most extract or partial mash brewers now add only about a third of their extract in at the beginning. In years past, all of the extract was added in at the beginning and all of the extract was boiled for the entire boil. I foresee one difficulty in taking a preboil gravity reading. If you are finding that Beersmith is under or over estimating your gravities for "Extract" recipes, you can double click the Extract and change the "Yield" or "Potential" up and down until the recipe matches up with the Original Gravity that you actually got. ![]() Again, this is because Beersmith assumes all extract will give you 100% "efficiency". When using an "Extract" recipe in Beermsmith, the Mash Tab is unavailable and the brewhouse efficiency value does nothing. ![]() Beersmith combines whatever your mini-mash efficiency is with that 100% extract "efficiency" to calculate your overall Brewhouse Efficiency.Īlso, note that what you would call "Partial Extract" Beersmith calls "Extract". So, in effect you would be working with a "hidden" value which is what your mini-mash efficiency is. The extract is going to always give you X amount of sugars. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. One thing to note is that Beersmith assumes you will get 100% "efficiency" with extract. It would be nice to get some confirmation on this. I believe this is how it would work, anyway. Note that equipment profiles are just as important here. You could then use the same method I describe in this video to figure out your brewhouse efficiency. This gravity reading obviously would be rather high since all those sugars are concentrated. You would also take a pre-boil gravity reading after you add all of your liquid/dry malt extract. ![]() You would take a pre-boil volume measurement, which would be like 2.5 gallons for a 3 gallon pot, for example. The numbers will look a little bit strange though compared to an All Grain recipe. Here was my response to him:Īlthough I have never done a mini-mash, I believe that you can calculate your brewhouse efficiency with what Beersmith calls "Partial Mashes", or what I know you would call "Mini-Mashes". he asked, can this be done with Partial Mashes. I received an interesting question from a viewer. I recently made a youtube video explanation of this super awesome post on how to use BS to calculate your Brewhouse and Mash Efficiencies ().
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