Brewhouse Efficiency Calculation
Brewhouse efficiency calculates how much sugar you pulled from your grain compared to how much was available. Every malt comes with a lab-measured number that says how much extract it can give. When you add up the weight of each malt and its yield, that’s your potential extract. On brew day, your volume/gravity numbers will give you an efficiency calculation up to that point in the process (use pre-boil volume/gravity for mash efficiency, or transferred volume/gravity for brewhouse efficiency).
The ratio of those two numbers is your efficiency. If it’s low, check out our webinar on brewhouse efficiency for tips.
What’s normal?
Small craft : 75–85%
Production craft : 78–88%
Large regional/macro systems : 90–95%
Equations used in the calculator below:
Extract in Wort = (Plato ÷ 100) × Volume (gal) × 8.345
Potential Extract = Σ (Malt Weight × (CGaS ÷ 100))
Brewhouse Efficiency (%) = (Extract in Wort ÷ Potential Extract) × 100
