all grain efficiency

help me figure this out plz

i can't seem to get above 60-65% on my ag brews
did a oberon clone today
6# 2 row
4.5# wheat
.75# carapils
.75# munich
.67 oz hallertau 60min
.9 oz hallertau 35min
.33 oz hallertau 5min
1 oz saaz 5min

mashed in with 15 qts @166* used 1 tbs of 5*2 ph stabilizer
temp 155-154 over 1 hr
batch sparge twice w 1.7 g of 168*
initial drain was 1.060 first sparge 1.020 second sparge 1.010
ended with 5.5 gal into fermentor @ 1.050

What is your preboil volume and gravity? This will help us figure out your mash efficiency.

What is your post boil total volume? ie what is in your brewpot when you turn the flame off.

How is your grain crushed? - the most common cause of poor efficiency.

GT

There are several big factors.
If you get everything right all the temperatures, volumes, PH, time etc.

Then the thing that you can't change once you've done it is the cruch ov the malt and the potential of the malt.

I have had a 20% decrease and it's purely down to the malt and the crush. There is nothing I can do about it so I just adjust my recipes for it. It took me 3 recipes before I got it correct and I'm now back to getting my OG within a point or so.

The first two recipes I just boiled for longer to compensate an ended up with a lower abv but the correct OG and FG for the recipe.

One thing is what was the temp of the wort when you took the reading? A 1.050 reading with wort at 100ºF has an actual gravity of 1.056.

Also did you sparge with a total of 3.2 Gallons? how long did you let it flow through? The slower the better, I typically sparge once for 45min to 1hour.

I did a little calculation too and with a grain to water ratio of 1.25 (12lb/15quarts) that you used, you should have used 3.75 Gallons @ 170ºF to mash and 4.8 gallons of water to sparge , for a 5 gallon batch.

Hope that helps, I'm new to this too. I have about 20 AG batches under my belt and I'm finally getting above 80%

all gravities were taken @ 72*
pre-boil vol. @6.5 gal
no ph test(not capable at this yime)
crush looked good but did forget to adjust for whaet kernels:cross:
what do you set your gaps at for wheat?

Erik - your numbers don't add up. I calculate you had 6.5g of 1.036 wort to start so would have ended up with 5.5g of 1.044 wort for pitching. Have you calibrated all your gear?

GT