original gravity way lower than expected
 

so I brewed a recipe I had written today for an imperial ipa recipe...according to my calculations and hopville assuming 70% efficiency it came out to 1.100 or so original gravity. When we chilled the wort and got it to reading temp, it came out 1.050. The grain bill is as follows:

17lbs row 2 pale malt
1 lb Crystal 40L malt
8 ozvictory malt
8 oz Wheat Malt
1lb 8oz corn sugar

Anyone have any idea what may have caused this...if it's something we did wrong or maybe just read incorrectly...The wort appeared to be packed with sugar through the entirety of the boil. It is pretty packed with hops at about 6 oz too...could that potentially affect it?

Hops wouldn't impact OG. What efficiency do you normally achieve?

Crush is the most likely cause... are your thermometers calibrated?

Sounds like an incorrect reading...that would mean only 35% efficiency.....cant be right.

Did you stir wort before taking sample.......you may have pulled the lower gravity liquid off the top and got lo reading.

I did this once on my first all grain.....pulled sample for OG reading and it was WAY lo.....posted on here.....and someone pointed this out...i stirred...took another sample and was right on.

Its called stratification....lower gravity liquid settles on top cause lighter.....u need to mix it up a little to get a homogenous liquid

Its a possibility.....

Was your volume at the end correct? If it was, I'd say you read it wrong, didn't mix it up well, or perhaps have a thermometer that is off, and a hydro that is off..

That grain bill is large enough that you should have gotten higher.

What was the pre boil OG? What about the 1st runnings... what was the gravity of that coming out?

This was our first all grain brew, however we know what we're doing. The wort appeared to be packed full of sugars. Original gravity calculation was 1.102. Since this was the first time brewing this recipe, we were unsure of several factors such as how much water the grain would take on so we fell a little short of the estimated final volume and did fill. We're thinking maybe that late addition water could have affected the reading. Also, I took a sample from the top and tested that. Perhaps it was a problem with the wort from the top.

I'd lean in the direction of multiple of factors... bad volumes (my calculations come out to .13 gallons/lb of grain absorbed), poor crush, and if you added a good amount of water to compensate for the final volume. As the other person said, measurement was wrong due to unmixed wort/water.

If you don't use software like beersmith (I don't) then mash calculators are your friend.

If by this statement you meant that you used top off water in the fermenter to get your proper amount then you probably had imcomplete mixing and were much closer to you intended OG than what you read.

Get yourself a copy of Beersmith.....go to their sight and download it...there is a free 21 day trial. It will help you with your volumes, temps, etc.....

:confused:

Was it a single infusion? What was your mash temperatures and times? Did you sparge? What type of lauter tun?