What did i do wrong? Way low SG

This is my second attempt at all grain. First was BM's centennial blonde, and that went pretty well.

Today i brewed a modified clone of ruination..but to my surprise, my starting gravity was only 1.056. It should have been around 1.070 or higher. Recipe uses 14 lbs of US 2-row and 1 lb of crystal...lots and lots of hops.

I'm batch sparging with a 10g igloo cooler. Here is how it went:

heated up 5 gallons of water, doughed in and roughly hit my temp at around 149-150 after having to add an additional 0.5-1 gallons of hot water. Mashed for 60min (left the lid closed, not stirring). After 60min, temp was around 148. Recycled the first couple runnings, then drained about 4 gallons before it dried up. Added 2 gallons of 185 degree water, but only got the temp up to around 152?...stirred, let it sit for 10min and drained a gallon out (didn't run it dry). Added around couple gallons of 185 degree water and brought it to around 158-160, stirred it up and let it sit for 10min. Pulled of another gallon or so....6.5-7.0 gallons total collected.

After a 60min boil, i was left with about 5.5 gallons of beer, then ended up with about 5 gallons after trying to screen the hops out. Took a gravity reading....1.056. The sample was filled with tiny hop particles.

What could have went wrong? This is almost the exact procedure as my last beer, which i ended up hitting the estimated SG.

Well, it just sounds like your efficiency just wasn't that good. In large grain bills, that's very common.

A couple of things that might help- it sounds like you're doing a "hybrid" type of fly sparge. When you batch sparge, you add the water, stir it well, and drain it completely. Leaving the liquid behind means that you left sugars behind as well. All of the liquid you added "pulled" the sugars out into the liquid. Since you only drained 1/2 of it, you left 1/2 of the wort behind. Then, you did it again but left the wort behind again.

Getting the grainbed up to the mid 160s will help get more sugar out as well.

So, next time, drain the first runnings and add hotter water to the MLT for the sparge. You want to add enough (and hot enough) water to get the grainbed as high as 168. In order to do that, my first sparge addition is often over 185 degrees. Stir well, and drain it all. Then, if you have a second round of sparge water to add, do it again the same way. The water will only need to be in the low 170s in the second addition, probably. It's much easier if you have some software to help with the calculations with the amount of water and the temperature of the water.

You might also want to check the gravities pre-boil. If I ever underestimate the efficiency I'm going to get, I can always make it up with an appropriate amount of DME and hit the OG I'm shooting for.

It sounds like you left wort behind in the tun for both of your sparge runnings. Why?

If you added 2 gallons of sparge water, drain the 2 gallons.

Since you drained 4 gallons of first runnings and were looking for 7 gallons preboil, you know the sparge amount needs to be 3 gallons. With larger grain bills, you can't really break that 3 gallons up into 1.5 each because it doesn't really get the sparge fluid enough.

I left some wort in after taking the second running hoping adding a little hot water would "make up" for being so off on the mash out temp, but that didn't work out too well. Next time i'll be sure to completely drain each running.

Gritsak said:

I left some wort in after taking the second running hoping adding a little hot water would "make up" for being so off on the mash out temp, but that didn't work out too well. Next time i'll be sure to completely drain each running.

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Learn from your mistakes and brew on!
You will be much happier with the results you get from all grain once
you work out your kinks.

If your mash temp was below 150 there is a chance conversion was not complete in only 60 min. You probably were done, but it is well worth the couple dollars to buy some iodine and test your mash for complete conversion. It's very simple to do, just draw out a little wort and be sure it has no particles in it (a little as in a few drops), put it on a white plate and put one drop of iodine in it. If the wort turns bluish purple where the iodine is you still have starches present and should continue the mash.
Your efficiency was likely lost where the other posters indicated but an iodine test is a good way to rule out one variable every time you brew.

When you added more water to the third runnings without draining the second completly, you diluted your wort.
Your second runnings would have been higher gravity so it would make your OG higher.