OG consistently too high

I just started AG 7 batches ago and the last few times I brewed my OG is much higher than what I thought it would be. I've been using AG kits and recipes I find here. I haven't dialed in my efficiencies yet but it looks like they run in the low to mid 80's. For instance, I made a cherry stout kit yesterday and preboil at 7 gals was just shy of what my OG should have been.
So, I guess there are many questions in this. Do I pull more for preboil, and just make a bigger batch? Do I add water after the boil to get the OG where I need it to be. Do I just let it fly as it is and see where it ends up? What I've been doing up til now is just letting it fly and the final gravity seems to be ending up pretty close. I haven't gotten as far as a taste test though. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

you'll probably have to post a recipe so we can tell you what the plugged in numbers tell us. Do you use software? I can tell you many kits I have bought have very rough estimates compared to what the plugged in numbers are.

In the end, if you find you have higher OG than the software is telling you, well you could either make a slightly larger batch if you have a fermenter that big or scale the grain bill back a bit. Collecting more wort will probably just give you higher OG.

OH, BTW, if you do calculate your efficiency, then you could play with the ingredients in Beersmith to get you to the correct OG.

check your thermometer. You may be mashing at a lower temp than you think.

powderbock said:

check your thermometer. You may be mashing at a lower temp than you think.

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It was my understanding that lower mash temps won't necessarily give you a different OG, but rather a greater percentage of the wort would be fermentable. In other words, you'd be getting the same amount of sugars from the grain, but more of them would be fermentable than if you had a higher mash temp.

Or am I thinking wrong?

Maybe he's just got crazy efficiency.

smackythefrog said:

Do I pull more for preboil, and just make a bigger batch? Do I add water after the boil to get the OG where I need it to be. Do I just let it fly as it is and see where it ends up?

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Most of the recipes I've done assume 70% efficiency and I've been getting 75-80% as I tune my process. What I do to "hit the numbers" is to take a pre-boil gravity (BG) reading. If your recipe does not list that you can figure it out with brewing software or Excel. Knowing how high I am on my BG reading I make a decision to either add water to make a slightly bigger batch. OR to add water and remove wort to get me back to the volume and BG I need.

The deciding factor is how much hops I have. I buy my hops one brew at a time so if I need 2.2oz of hops in the recipe but I had to buy 3oz then I usually just brew a little more. If I have and need exactly 3oz then I dilute the wort to get back on target.

Of course you could always just "let it fly" and you'd likely still end up with something delicious. I measure the numbers because I'm a math geek and I'm going for consistency. If you are going to obsess about the numbers like me, then it is better to add the water you need before the boil because the bitterness and gravity work together to give you balance. If you boil at a higher than intended gravity and don't adjust the amount of hops you will theoretically get less bitterness from the hops.

Cheers,
Dan

I use Beersmith to keep track of my recipes. Even when I plug ingredients into that it shows a higher OG than what the kit sheet tells me but I end up easily higher than that also. I don't think it has any thing to do with a particular recipe since it has happened a few times now. I brewed again yesterday and had the same issue. I did a Moose Drool Brown clone which the kit sheet said should come in at 1.053 with 5.25 gals and Beersmith calculated at 1.054 with the same amount according to the 75% efficiency. Preboil with 7 gals had me at 1.051 and my OG with 5.25 gals brought me to 1.068 without adding water. If this is right I have a 90ish% efficiency which seems odd as hell.
As far as adjusting the grain bill, it's easy for recipes that I find here or throw together but the kits come all packed into one bag and I do still like the convenience of the kits until I can find a place to store excess grains.
Powderbock: I mash @ 153 and I use both a digital and regular? thermometer because I had been having problems with the digital one lately. I fly sparge @ 175.
Again I'm still very new to this and still learning a ton everyday and I surely don't realize everything that may make a difference. I'm not sure what to do when my OG is that high.

Looks like you have a good efficiency and you just need to figure out what it is and dial it in for future brews. As was said before, most kits are based on 70%

smackythefrog said:

I did a Moose Drool Brown clone which the kit sheet said should come in at 1.053 with 5.25 gals and Beersmith calculated at 1.054

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A one point difference between the kit and Beersmith is no big deal. It could easy happen from the kit using a different software package or even using Beersmith but changing some of the grain ingredients "gravity contributions".

smackythefrog said:

Preboil with 7 gals had me at 1.051 and my OG with 5.25 gals brought me to 1.068 without adding water.

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Are you doing a 60 or 90 minute boil? 1.75G boil off in 60 minutes is about half a gallon higher than what I get in my process with a 60 minute boil (as a reference point). That would concentrate your wort more.

From your numbers it could be that you are getting higher efficiency than the kit and also boiling off more than planned in the kit.

I was playing around with Beersmith setup the following dummy recipe for an experiment...

Possible Kit Assumptions:
12.5# of US 2-row (arbitrary ingredient to get to the right gravity)
Batch size of 6G (that is post-boil)
70% efficiency
Beersmith calculate OG at 1.053

What Might Be Happening on Brew Day:
12.5# of US 2-row (arbitrary ingredient to get to the right gravity)
Changed batch to 5.25G (to reflect your 1.75G boil off)
Changed efficiency to 79% (to reflect you getting higher efficiency)
Beersmith calculates OG at 1.068

smackythefrog said:

I'm not sure what to do when my OG is that high.

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To boil off less (if that is the issue), turn down your flame. The liquid just has to be turning over, not leaping out of the pot.

If BG is too high, I would add water to dilute it and then remove wort from the boiler to get it to the volume you want.

I hope this is helpful in some way. Good luck.

EDIT: On rereading the post I quoted, I see that your concern is the gravity change from pre-boil to post boil so efficiency is a mute point. Even with a 1.75G boil-off the change in gravity you are seeing seems high. I've heard that wort stratifies by temperature and perhaps you are getting a lower BG reading off the top of the wort if you are taking it before it is boiling.

Have you calibrated your hydrometer recently? I had one that the paper inside slipped a little, and it started reading everything about 5 points low. I thought my efficiency had suddenly dropped severely, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

The default setting on Beersmith for a 5.25 gal batch assumes that you only collect 6.28 gal of wort. Doing a larger sparge to collect 7 gal would increase the sugar extracted, which Beersmith doesn't take into account, even if you manually change the boil volume.

I have a friend who works in a HBS that sells a lot of kits. From talking with him, I know that the pre-assembled kits often come with a generous amount of grain, which may also contribute to your higher gravity.

Here's a thought for the pre-assembled kits where you aren't able to adjust for your higher efficiency. Dilute it with distilled water to the desired post boil OG, and then ferment the extra volume in another vessel. I've intentionally made slightly larger batches and done this so I could compare yeasts or dry hopping techniques. After diluting your moose drool clone, a one gal growler would probably be large enough to ferment the extra volume.

First, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the input. I think what I'm getting from this boils down to the following:
Be thankful for high efficiency, at least it's something I can work into the equation fairly easily.
Adjust the grain bill when possible to account for the efficiency, if not then dilute the wort.
Control the boil. I was always under the assumption that if it wasn't about to boil over it wasn't boiling enough so I increased the amount of wort collected.
It's all an experiment. I just need to learn how my equipment works and brew according to that.

One more thought about your pre boil gravity, how are you taking the readings?

Are you pulling hot wort and testing with the hydro and using beersmith to correct for temperature?

It is my understanding that the equations are not valid for high temps, try cooling it down and then sampling.

I use a refractometer that was calibrated a couple weeks back but when I started getting high readings I also used a hydrometer and let the wort cool down to get a correct reading. Both displayed the same.
Juanmoore, I had thought if I pulled more wort it would dilute the wort that I had already in my kettle since it isn't as concentrated. Maybe I'll just stick to the water.

smackythefrog said:

I use a refractometer that was calibrated a couple weeks back but when I started getting high readings I also used a hydrometer and let the wort cool down to get a correct reading. Both displayed the same.
Juanmoore, I had thought if I pulled more wort it would dilute the wort that I had already in my kettle since it isn't as concentrated. Maybe I'll just stick to the water.

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The extra wort will be more diluted, but it still contains extra sugars that you're adding to the boil, which increases the post boil OG. If you collected less wort, and boiled a little less vigorously to end with the same volume, the post boil OG would be significantly lower. By sparging a larger volume and then boiling off more water, you're increasing your overall efficiency, which seems to already be abnormaly high.

Also, I've read that excessive sparging can lead to tannin extraction and astringent tastes. Not sure how true this is, but why risk it when you already have such great efficiency?

What do you use to measure volume? That can throw your measurements off a lot.

netjunk1e said:

What do you use to measure volume? That can throw your measurements off a lot.

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I use a copper pipe with gallon and half gallon markings scored into it that I made specifically for this kettle. If my volume measurements aren't dead on they can't be off by more than a pint.

I've had the same problem on the last few batches. I'm not too keen on adding water so I just let it go and whatever the OG is after boiling, that's the OG that I'll be happy with. Beers have always been quite tasty. I've examined my numbers and I've here are a few tips to help you better dial in your process. These seem to work well for me

-if your using a Barley Crusher, stay with the default setting. If you adjust your rollers to get them closer, you will get a higher eff. Crush is important.

-mash at 1.25 qts/lb. I tried a few times at 1.50 and efficiency always went up.

-Don't sweat the tanin extraction deal too much. You're ok if your final runnings are above 1.010. With 7 gallons in the boil, my final runnings were 1.022 on an American amber with about 80ish efficiency. Lot of room, no need to worry.

-back off on the boiling like a previous poster said. You should lose about a gallon an hour. You want to just break the surface of the wort not boil the snot out of it.