Troubleshooting Brewhouse Efficiency Rather than listing all the
factors that can affect the brewhouse efficiency, this article
is intended to provide a systematic approach to identify and fix
low efficiency related to mashing and lautering. Determining the
brewhouse efficiency Before we can look for the causes of low
efficiency we need to determine it. Since a number of different
definitions exist, it is possible that the actual efficiency is
in an acceptable range but was calculated based on a different
efficiency formula which returned a lower result. Other error
factors are incorrect gravity, volume or weight measurements. In
this analysis we will focus on the efficiency into the boil
kettle. The efficiency doesn’t change during the boil as no
extract is lost (except for the precipitation of a fraction of
the proteins in the wort). Efficiency shortcomings after the
boil (i.e. transfer to the fermenter) are obvious as they are
proportional to the amount of wort that is lost. For a list of
various efficienc