Brewhouse conversion efficiencies

[Robbings]

What sort of conversion efficiencies do people generally experience for 3 BBL systems? Ball park figures would be great - I want to ensure that .

Is there much of a difference between 3, 7 and 15 BBL systems?

I want to validate my estimates for my business case. Any insight would be appreciated!

[dick murton]

I suspect that the efficiency is dependent on more than the size of the plant. At the moment at a 6 hl brewery I am involved with we are getting approx 80 malt extract efficiency, but if the mashing in liquor was mixed with the grist AS we mashed in, not mixing after ponding themash tun with hot liquor, then we would get a much better conversion. The sparge system is not particularly wonderful either, so I expect an improvement could be made there as well. If we could use a finer grist, then this would also help extract efficiency - far more than the sparge

oh yes, and finally, the gap between the false floor and the true floor of the mash tun is too big, so we lose volume available for sparging

Hope this helps a little

[gitchegumee]

The fixed geometries of mash tuns (like the distance Dick mentions) vs. the variable size of mash tuns make smaller ones less efficient. Of course that depends, too. Dick, I think your foundation water could be less of a detriment if you vorlauf the last 15 minutes of your mash rest. Kind of like a pre-sparge. Don't see any reason that it would be recommended against. Keep the splashing down and watch for HSA. For any small brewery, the efficiency goal should be close to 95%. False bottom style, mashing procedure, water chemistry, grist composition and sieve analysis, and other variables play into efficiency. Might take a year of brewing to dial in the perfect efficiency while maintaining your beer profile and quality. Beware of astringency creeping up with increased yields. So, for a business plan start with 80% and then beat it with practice. Good luck!

[dick murton]

We tried vorlaufing the first brew I saw on this kit, for exactly that reason. However, because of the physical layout of the plant and the quality of the hosing / connections / manual handling implications / time lost and very little gain in extract, we haven't done it since. The main reason for extract loss is poor conversion, but exacerbated by the sparging system. So we have a fair bit of work to do on this front, when I manage to escape for a few days from my current main contract. I agree about the extract performance though. We should be able to achieve well over 90 % with an improved setup.