Is this possible??!

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Dave37

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Ey guys I brewed a galaxy SMaSH ale earlier today. I recently purchased the bayou classic SQ14 propane burner and this was my 2nd time using it. The first time I did not use it to its potential and only cut my total brewing time by about 15 minutes compared to using my indoor stove. But today I decided to let the new burner rip.

First off my expected OG according to beer smith with a house efficiency of 72% was 1.056 I used 11lbs of Maris otter. I had a pre boil volume of just over 7 gallons in my 8 gal kettle. I was cruising this time around getting my mash and Sparge waters up to temp very quickly with the burner cranking. I used a 90 minute boil with 7.1 gallons of wort at the start and at the end of my boil into my fermenter I only had a little over 4.5 gallons! including all of my hop break material. I guess what I'm asking is, is a ~40% evaporation loss common with these burners or is this unusual? also my expected OG was 1.056 and ended up at 1.072 I'm not sure if my efficiency was just much better coming in at around 85% or if this has to do with the extreme evap loss.

Any insight would be appreciated. I was shooting for a 5.4 gallons into the fermenter btw. I guess I'll have to be happy with just 4 gallons of hopefully hoppy delicious "supposed to be APA" low IBU high ABV IPA? Don't eevn know how to classify this one :mug:


Cheers and Merry Christmas

Dave
 
Yeah buddy I have one of those big burners too and STILL have trouble managing my evap. Made a double IPA recently that started out with 7+ gallons and ended up with only a little more than 4.5 in fermenter. Been trying to control flame a bit more...and keep an eye on wort level in the kettle. Start slow and crank it up towards the end if I need to evap a bit more. Practice makes perfect!
 
I have that one and can get maybe 1.5 gallons boil off in 90 minutes. I crank it but not full blast. 2.6 gallons doesn't seem that crazy though.
 
LAbrewer said:
I have that one and can get maybe 1.5 gallons boil off in 90 minutes. I crank it but not full blast. 2.6 gallons doesn't seem that crazy though.

Ok i guessbecause it was the first time it happened it seemed so outlandish to me. I will just be sure to try and control the flame on my next brew. Thanks.

Any idea about the much higher than expected OG?
 
Ok i guessbecause it was the first time it happened it seemed so outlandish to me. I will just be sure to try and control the flame on my next brew. Thanks.

Any idea about the much higher than expected OG?

You said 72% efficiency. How did you get that? What was the SG at preboil? My guestimate 5.4 equivelant gravity to the measured 4.5 gravity of 1.072 is 1.067 which is not that far off from the 1.072, so it's possible that you mismeasured a little on the volumes (probably the kettle).
 
Winter time dry air in the Northeast will add to the evap rate. The air wants to suck up the moisture.

If you boiled off more than expected, your OG will be higher. Too lazy to do the math, but that is a big jump for the extra boil-off (since your brewhouse efficiency in beersmith would have accounted for some boil off). You may have had a higher mash efficiency into the kettle.

If you update the recipe in beersmith to show the evap rate you saw, it'll correct the gravity for your expected 72% efficiency, and you can see how close you were to that.
 
I use an SP-10, but basically the same idea. The trick is to blast it up to temp, and then dial it way down. I keep my boil rocking with the gas turned down very low. I lose about 1gal/hour in a 10 gallon Bayou Classic 10 gallon kettle average.

My guess is that you had higher than anticipated efficiency and then boiled off extra and that's how you got to the high starting gravity.
 
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