Lesson 6 - Wort Separation Process Control
This lesson deals with wort separation process control. The different methodologies of measuring and calculating extract recovery are explained and demonstrated. A methodology is explored, as is how to investigate and resolve performance issues with extract efficiency, wort quality, and cycle time.
Extract Efficiency
This is a key performance indicator. We need to know how we can measure it and we need to know what action to take when it is below, or above target.
We are going to spend some time looking at this, as it is important to understand the potential errors that can occur through this calculation.
Extract is a term we use to quantify the mass of dissolved sugars in our collected wort volume. If we compare this to the mass of extract added to the mash vessel, we can calculate the percentage recovered; we call this ‘extract efficiency’. In this lesson we will determine the extract efficiency of the wort separation device. However, as brewers, we will generally be measuring how much extract we have recovered to the fermenting vessel, taking into account any wort losses from the processes downstream of wort separation. This is what we call our ‘brewhouse extract efficiency’ (or yield).
Point of reflection: Typical extract efficiency numbers are quoted as mash tun – 97%, lauter tun – 98% and mash filter – 101%. How do you account for these differences? How can the mash filter recover more than 100%? Give yourself 5-10 min to think about this and then click ‘Next’ to continue this lesson.