Hi everyone. 1st post and I hope it is in the right place.
I just started fly sparging and tried my new system out the other day. I'm still pretty new to brewing in general, so I don't really know what I'm doing yet. Anyway, my target starting gravity for this all grain batch was 1.053. I used estimates for efficiency and evaporation and what not, and calculated that I needed 6.2 gallons pre-boil at 70% efficiency in order to hit my target starting gravity in 5.5 gallons post-boil. After continuous sparging, I ended up with 6.5 gallons of 1.047 wort (temperature corrected). My total gravity was thus a little bit higher than I needed so I calculated that I needed to shoot for a post-boil volume of 5.7 gallons instead of 5.5 gallons to hit my target gravity. During the boil, I noticed my evaporation rate was slightly higher than I had estimated, so I added .25 gallons of water. In the end, I hit my target post-boil volume pretty much spot on (5.7), but my specific gravity turned out to be 1.062 (again, temperature corrected) instead of 1.053. How could that have happened? Did I make a mistake in my calculations? The only thing I can think of is that I am not measuring my volumes accurately. I am using a measuring stick which I calibrated to my boil kettle using incremental volumes of water. I'm not sure what else the problem could be. Any ideas?
Thanks guys, this place is an incredible resource.
I just started fly sparging and tried my new system out the other day. I'm still pretty new to brewing in general, so I don't really know what I'm doing yet. Anyway, my target starting gravity for this all grain batch was 1.053. I used estimates for efficiency and evaporation and what not, and calculated that I needed 6.2 gallons pre-boil at 70% efficiency in order to hit my target starting gravity in 5.5 gallons post-boil. After continuous sparging, I ended up with 6.5 gallons of 1.047 wort (temperature corrected). My total gravity was thus a little bit higher than I needed so I calculated that I needed to shoot for a post-boil volume of 5.7 gallons instead of 5.5 gallons to hit my target gravity. During the boil, I noticed my evaporation rate was slightly higher than I had estimated, so I added .25 gallons of water. In the end, I hit my target post-boil volume pretty much spot on (5.7), but my specific gravity turned out to be 1.062 (again, temperature corrected) instead of 1.053. How could that have happened? Did I make a mistake in my calculations? The only thing I can think of is that I am not measuring my volumes accurately. I am using a measuring stick which I calibrated to my boil kettle using incremental volumes of water. I'm not sure what else the problem could be. Any ideas?
Thanks guys, this place is an incredible resource.