First All Grain, help me figure it out

So here is what I did:

I preheated my 5 gal cooler with 175 degree water while I heated my mash liquor.

I mashed
7 pounds Bo pils
2 pounds flaked corn

I used 1.5 quarts per pound, rounded to 3 1/2 gal
I used 164 degee strike water
mash stabalized at 153, which was 1 degree higher than the 152 the recipe called for.

After 45 min the temp was 151 degrees.

I mashed for 90 min.

First runnings gravity was 1.080, 2 gal volume.

I sparged with 5 gal of 175 degree water split into 2 equal parts, both allowed to sit for 10 min.

Preboil volume 7 gal, gravity was 1.041

90 minute boil

1 pound rice solids added at 60 min

I lost about 1.6 gal an hour evap, 4.5 gal to the fermenter.

Og to the fermenter was 1.060, I added 1 gal top up water, so final og was 1.040.

Here are my questions, what was my efficency, is my evap rate about right, am I over sparging and what did I do wrong?


Thanks to all of you, reading this site is what made this possible.
Kyle

wyo220 said:

Here are my questions, what was my efficency, is my evap rate about right, am I over sparging

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A real rough effeciency is 65%. If you want a more accurate efficiency, you'll have to input your numbers into a brewing software program or get an excel worksheet.

Your evap rate is your evap rate based on your system. As far as I know, you can only change it by changing your equipment.

In order to figure out if you oversparged, you would have to take the gravity of your final runnings.

wyo220 said:

what did I do wrong?

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What's the problem? Are you unhappy with your gravity? your post boil volume? Your efficiency? Where do you want help?

One degree off in the mash temp is nothing to worry about.

Boil off can vary a lot even with the same equipment depending on the atmospheric and other conditions. I have not qualms about topping off post boil to hit the desired volume/gravity, so don't sweat it. Now that you have an idea of what you are generally loosing, you can plan better next time.

And just by the sparge rule of thumb of 1/2 gallon/lb of grain, you might have been a bit high. The second batch of 175 might have been too hot with the grain bed already heated by the first batch.