Long boil and batch sparge question.

Yesterday I brewed my first wheat AG brew. It was 50% wheat, and I did add some rice hulls to avoid a stuck sparge. Sparging was not an issue. I did run into an issue when I batch sparged though. I over shot my water because I thought it would still absorb a bit. This demolished my efficiency for a 7 gallon boil, so I did an extra long boil. Boiled a gallon off and added the rest from my batch sparge. My OG came out a little high. My efficiency was about 83%. I was supposed to be at 1.050 and I ended up at 1.058, so it didn't end up as bad as it could have lol

Will the longer boil affect my beer negatively though? And when I batch sparge, do I just add the amount of water needed to hit my boil size? It didn't seem like there was any grain absorbtion, which makes sense since the grains were already saturated. 1 too many Rasputins and Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stouts lol

Yeah, grain absorbtion will be nill for the batch sparge...software helps here
When you have to do extended boils you should stick with your hop schedule as close as possible....that's easier to do with a hop bag or spider because you can pull it out if you need to boil longer. Otherwise, there should not be any impact...With pilsner malt I always do 90 minute boils. If your boil time starts getting out toward 120 minutes or more you will get some additional Maillard reaction adding darkening melanoidins (a desired effect in some beer styles).

helibrewer said:

Yeah, grain absorbtion will be nill for the batch sparge...software helps here
When you have to do extended boils you should stick with your hop schedule as close as possible....that's easier to do with a hop bag or spider because you can pull it out if you need to boil longer. Otherwise, there should not be any impact...With pilsner malt I always do 90 minute boils. If your boil time starts getting out toward 120 minutes or more you will get some additional Maillard reaction adding darkening melanoidins (a desired effect in some beer styles).

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Awesome. Thanks for the reply. I realized I was going to be doing a longer boil so I boiled off and then stuck to hop schedule as intended, so I should be good there. Funny you mentioned the maillard effect. I don't know if it was the lighting or what, but once I had everything in the fermenter the beer did look a little dark. Almost like a dunkelweizen, but when I tested OG in tube it was pale and cloudy like it should have been. Guess we will see!