Really confused!! OG question...

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chungking

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So I just finished my second real all grain batch. Got a peace java coffee stout from Midwest. I mashed for an hour, everything was fine...until the sparge got stuck. So, long story short and struggling to save my beer, I got as much wort as I could out without completely fugging everything up, though I came close. Boiled and did hop additions as required, cooled wort to 68 degrees and took a gravity reading. Measured 1.060, I was supposed to get 1.045! And I got about 5.5 gallons of wort instead of 5! Yes, I stirred and mixed it vigourosly and took two readings.
Is it possible to get a higher gravity from the same amount of grains? It was about 10lbs of malt, and roughly 1.5 lbs specialty grains.

Just really confused, that's way higher then the recipe called for. Not bitching, happy it will be stronger, but I am confused. I thought when you screw up in all grain, you get less efficiency, not higher!
 
Yes. Especially if you were digging and stirring in there. Your gravity points could have gone up. Getting a 1.060 with 11.5 pounds of grains is a possibility.
 
I think those recipes assume a low efficiency- like 68-70% or so if I remember correctly.

Yours just is a bit higher than that. If you want, you could add 1.5 gallons of water, and end up with 7 gallons in the fermenter that would match the recipe. I'd probably just leave it.

When you make your own recipes, instead of kits, you can lower the amount of grain you need for recipes to match your own efficiency. If you're consistently getting, say, 78%, you can just match your recipe to your grainbill and get the OG you predict.

With my system, with 10 pounds of base grain and 1.5 pounds of specialty grain, I would have got 1.062 for an OG.
 
Ok, that's good to know. I just didnt know if there was something like "over mashing" or "over stirring", cause my sparge got stuck and draining everything took way longer then expected and I didn't know if this effected my gravity.
 
You may also find as I have that different grain bills and other variables like crush will vary your efficiency. Many on here claim a "brew house efficiency of x%". Great for them, but my process is pretty consistent, and my efficiency fluctuates. What helps me is using a refractometer so I can check gravity as I go and mashing a little extra grain. This way I just stop the sparge when I have what I need. I waste a little grain this way, but save time by batch sparging and always nail the OG of my recipes. Sure it's nice to go over like you say, but this throws off your hop rate which is certainly less than ideal...
 
1.045 seems pretty low for an expected OG with 11.5 lbs of grain. Your gravity reading seems more in line with what I would expect. Is the 1.045 supposed to be a pre-boil gravity?
 
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