sparging

So I'm new to all grain brewing and have only done batch sparging. I am only getting gravities of 1.004-1.005 with 10 lbs of grain. Would different sparge techniques get me higher gravities or do I need to increase grain quantity?

The mash temperature and time has the highest effect on gravity. What temp and time are you mashing at?

At what stage are you getting these gravity readings?? What's the batch size? 10# of grain, in a 5 gallon batch, if you didn't screw up on an epic level, would give you significantly higher OG numbers. FG could be that low, depending on other factors. Without knowing more of what you're actually doing, it's virtually impossible to say.

Both times I targeted 155 F and got pretty close. Left it in the cooler for an hour.

It's impossible to get an OG of 1.005 with 10 pounds of grain, even if you didn't crush the grain. Well, maybe if you didn't crush the grain, you could get that. But otherwise, it's just not possible.

Could it have been 1.050?

Oops I got an extra zero in there. Should be 1.04-1.05. I am taking the gravity reading after cooling the wort prior to pitching the yeast. Both batches had 10 lbs of grain for 5 gallon batches.

Whats the temp after an hour? If u lost massive heat and its down past sacc then u would get those gravities. What batch size?

Ignore my last message lol

I am new to it too. I would check out the all grain forum. There are some stickies that really helped me. I got lower OG than I wanted (1.043 vs. 1.054) the last batch. Then again I didn't hit my strike temp and had to raise it. There are heaps of helpful articles here and on the web. Good luck! Its defintiely a learning curve.

Edit... I thumb type too slow

That extra 0 is critical... HUGE difference between 1.05 (or 1.050) and 1.005...

You need to run at least a few batches through your setup in order to get a baseline for efficiency. That will tell you how much grain you'll need to reach a target OG. It's in the stickies I believe, or plastered in enough places in the all grain section to find it easily.

noobs...

Remember that using 10 pounds of grain in a 5 gallon batch and getting 1.050 as an OG gives you an efficiency of 70% or so. That's not bad.

This sounds crazy, but in order to increase that %, you should try to hit it again and again first. Because you don't want to hit 88% next time, and 62% the following time. It's better to hit 70% at least three times so you know your system and are consistent. And then make small tweaks.

Most often, the cause of a lower efficiency is simply a poor crush. If you don't have your own mill, you sort of have to just live with that. But make sure you get your grains (and the crush) at the same place. Look at it before you brew, to see if it looks vastly different.

Once you have the crush fixed either by your own mill, or a consistent crush at the LHBS, then you can consider the next possible cause of poor efficiency. Technique may be part of it, but I think it's more likely to be water chemistry and it may be time to think about that.

The differences in efficiency between fly sparging and batch sparging are really not that significant. I get about 2% difference when I fly sparge vs. batch sparge. That may make a difference to some, but generally it's pretty negligible.

The very first thing to do would be to take a preboil reading, to check your mash efficiency. Take a sample of your wort, after stirring well in the boil kettle. Cool it to under 90 degrees, and then use a conversion table to get the preboil efficiency. Also, make sure you know exactly how much volume you have. A difference of a quart or two is huge when determining your mash efficiency! So either measure the runnings, have a sight gauge, or another method for exact volume. That would help you know where your efficiency losses are.