Extract efficiency calculations

I've always been curious about my extract efficiency. I dug around and read several articles about it. A lot of them are just flat out confusing. I found a pretty basic one, that explains the breakdown like this:

1. Multiply the amount of grains you used by the potential maximum extract from your grain. You can find them online, here's a list of some popular grains (click here), I didn't see my Maris Otter on there, so I just googled "maris otter extract potential" and several sites came up.

2. Once you have these numbers, multiply them by the amount of grains you used. So, with my most recent IPA i brewed, here's the breakdown:
20 lb Maris Otter x 38 = 760
4 lb Munich x 37 = 148
2 lb Crystal x 34 = 68
===============================
976

3. Take this final number, and divide it by the number of gallons of wort you collected, in my case, I collected exactly 12 gallons. 12/976 = 81.3 points

4. Next, and this part is tricky, but bear with me: Take your specific, pre-boil gravity number, mine, was 1.072. Take the last two numbers, and and divide your total points from step 3 by this. So: 81/72 = 88%

I'm guessing this is how it's done. After reading several articles, I think I have this all together right. Correct me anyone, if this is wrong.

But 88% sounds pretty good to me. I was wondering how I was doing in this area. I know there are a lot of factors that can effect the efficiency. Using a refractometer, crushing the grain better, proper sparging temperatures, etc. Here's a thread with some interesting tips on boosting your extract efficiency - (click here).

Finally, my first all grain IPA

Last Friday I took a vacation day and brewed a 10 gallon batch of IPA. I split the batch in two - here's what I did:

20lbs Marris Otter
4 lbs Munich Malt
2 lbs British Crystal

I split the batch because I wanted to try out some homegrown hops I received (Willamette I believe). In the first batch, I added 1 oz. Summit (60), 1 oz. Ahtanum (15), 1 oz. Simcoe (5), and will be dry hopping with 1 oz. of Argentine Cascades. The other 5 gallons, I added 1 oz. of Summit (60) and a bunch of the fresh dried home grown hops (15).

California Ale yeast - starter made a couple days before.

This brew went surprisingly well. I started at 5 a.m. and things went like clockwork. My mash tun was filled to the top when I put the lid on. This time I put towels over the top of it, thanks to a tip from a Beer Advocate member - it really helped keep the heat in. After an hour I started draining the wort into the split batches.

I boiled and followed the hop additions as seen above. I really need to get something for my keg boil kettle, a screen or something at the bottom, because the whole leaf hops got all stuck when syphoning the wort out.
Anyhow, I'm going to dedicate the fresh hops batch to Leon Blackburn, who's wife donated a bunch of their hops to us. Leon passed away in June of 2007. He grew some amazing hop vines a while back and this year the crop was huge! I'll be doing a post on the MiBeerBuzz.com blog when the beer is finished.

Hoppy Fall IPA: Pre boil gravity - 1.072
Post boil gravity - 1.082

Blackburn IPA - Pre boil gravity - 1.076
Post boil gravity - 1.084

The difference in the gravity between the two was a mistake on my part. I was doing one pitcher in one boil pot, then another in the second boil pot. Well, I did two in a row in the Blackburn IPA.. oops! My other mistake was coming out a bit under 5 gallons on both of them. The Hoppy Fall IPA came in around 4.5 gallons, the Blackburn IPA was just under 5. I didn't top them off with water, I feel that kind of messes with the whole batch by doing that - but I did learn, a 6 gallon boil will reduce to a 4.5 gallon wort after an hour - so, I'll probably shoot for 6.5 gallons of wort to boil next time.

Anyhow, the room these carboys are in smell freaking awesome. I can't stop walking in there every few hours and smelling them. I'll be racking the Blackburn IPA to a secondary for a week or two of settling and the same with the Hoppy, but I'll be dry hopping that one at some point. mmm. Hops. Oh yeah, the odd hops I used were the ones free from the AHA rally I went to. Somehow I wound up with 3 bags of hops. The Summit hops were the only ones I had to purchase. This whole batch cost about $55.00.

Hops

I just inherited some hops and they smell awesome. I can't stop playing with them. Anyhow, tomorrow I'm going to begin sealing them up for freezing and giving away. Here's a pic of them.. they smell wonderful, I wish I could blog smells, but, Google hasn't invented that yet. I should register googlesmells.com so when they invent that technology, they'll be able to buy the domain off me for TONS of $$ .. :)

Oktoberfest @ The DRB

The DRB is about the size of one of those tables.. haha. But yeah, we are having an Oktoberfest bash on Sept. 20th. The weizenbock came out to a solid 10% abv. The dunkel was alright, but I decided to add cherries to it. I had originally planned on having both on tap at once, and didn't want two similar styles on tap at the same time. It turns out I will only have the cherry on tap. The weizenbock I ended up bottling, but will be doing a tasting of it around 8pm the night of the party. I plan on getting a regular beer for the masses. I was going to spring for a german keg, but holy wow are they spendy. I just got word too, we'll have live music, in the form of an accordion player! Crazy fun will be had next weekend. :)

Weizenbock and it's dark offspring..

Saturday morning I got up pretty early and began brewing a weizenbock. Here's the recipe:

10 lb. wheat
5 lb. pilsner
2 lb. munich
.5 lb. special B
.5 lb. crystal
.25 lb. chocolate malt

1/2 oz 6.2% Hallertau
WLP 300 Hefeweizen Ale

Mashed in @ 152 degrees. Boiled for 90 minutes.

I had read several things about people brewing this style and quite often they commented on how active the fermentation was - some joked about the airlock blowing off. I ignored the stories and stuck with an airlock.. sure enough, Sunday morning the airlock was filled with fermenting beer and was hissing. I ran to the hardware store and picked up some tubing and quickly made a blow-off tube. Here's the video:



So - let me back up a bit. After I had about 7 gallons of run off from the mash tun, I threw some dark carafa grains into the mash tun and continued sparging. The carafa added some darker color to the wort. I managed to get another 5 gallon @ 1.016 pre-boil gravity. I added 3 lbs. of wheat DME to the boil, and a 1/2 oz of 6.2 hallertau hops. After boil, I ended up with about 4.5 gallons of wort and pitched a basic wheat yeast into it. The fermentation hasn't been as crazy as the weizenbock, but still took off that evening.

I also bottled 5 gallons of saison and 3 gallons of the apricot wheat. Was a busy day at the DRB!

Apricot Wheat

7 lbs of Bavarian Wheat DME and 1 oz. of Saaz hops.

This recipe is as basic as you can get, and makes for a great base for doing a summer fruit beer. I was ready to rack to the secondary, and needed some quick fruit. I was looking for raspberries, but the local grocery store didn't have them in the form I was looking for (in heavy syrup - canned). I studied the fruit for a while and thought about doing a blackberry, however it was like $4 a can! I found apricots, which were like a $1 a can, and ended up with them. 2 lbs of Apricots in heavy syrup dumped in the bottom of a bucket. Wheat transferred on top of it to sit two weeks.

Original gravity was 1.062, final ended up at 1.018: 5.9% abv. The fruit bumped it up just a bit. I noticed more activity in the airlock shortly after adding the fruit.

I ended up bottling half of this batch and kegging the other half. When I did my gravity reading, I tasted it.. and didn't taste much of an apricot taste. Maybe after it's cold and carbonated it'll come out more.. we'll see! Speaking of.. I'm going to go carb that keg now, maybe have a pint later today. :)

Dayton Road Brewing's logo

I used to have an eagle on my garage, before the siding was redone. When Dayton Road Brewing came about, I thought about putting a big ol' star on the front - since the eagle disappeared when the new siding went up (I bet the siding guys stole it - it was sweet). Anyhow, a star is better than an eagle. The idea behind the star is more for the "image" of the DRB. Every bottle will look the same, but different colors. There will be a star in the middle of each bottle - with Dayton Road Brewing at the top - and the kind of beer below the star. If I ever make labels that is.. for now, at least we have a logo or mascot, or whatever it may be. :)