So Important to Keep Track of Your Brew Day Stats

I'm a number's guy. From the time I was a kid I always loved organization and keeping statistics. I'm not talking like hardcore college level crazy stats that drive you mad, just basic stuff like keeping the baseball stats of all of my friends when we played in the street or keeping a list of my baseball cards. Yeah, I know kind of weird, lame, nuts and maybe even a little scary.

Now that I'm a brewer, keeping my brewing stats has become a bit of an obsession. I'm slowly building out the tabs on my spreadsheets with new calculations. I've really only been keeping good stats for the last 4 batches or so (I'm 14 batches into the hobby). Batch 8 was my first AG batch and my first few AG batches I was so focused on process that I didn't really care if I hit my numbers. I just wanted to not screw it up and make drinkable beer. Now that I feel comfortable with my equipment and process I'm really trying to do a better job about keeping good stats so I can learn from each batch and include that knowledge in the next batch.

My last two batches I've come up a little short of 5 gallons for the fermenter. I see now, its due to trub loss. I choose not to put all of the "junk" into the fermenter just to make volume. I account for trub loss when I calculate what I need for pre-boil volume. But the trub lost from this last batch was higher than the trub loss from the previous batch. I also used an ounce and a quarter more of hops, so I'm going to watch this situation to see if the amount of hops I put into the boil dictates how much trub loss to anticipate. It won't be perfect, but it should be better.

To get better volume estimates in my kettle (aluminum 7 gallon pot with no marks), I bought stainless steel BBQ skewers from Lowes. They are 24" long, cost like $5 for 4 of them and fit perfectly into my kettle. I just measured out the volume and marked them with a permanent marker. I used to us a wood stick, but I found I was missing volumes and I think it was because the wood would expand as it absorbed some liquid.

I'm also finding my efficiency is coming up lower than I'd hope for. So I need to adjust for that and see if I can improve there.

Again, I wouldn't know if I could improve my process and quality of product if it wasn't for keeping good brew day stats. For those of you that don't care, that's fine. Just wing it an enjoy like you are doing. For you folks that are very process oriented like me and want to know why you may or may not be hitting your numbers (OG, volumes, etc), I urge you to keep better track of your stats and learn from it.