I am an idiot

BUT a lucky idiot! Can someone please explain this to me?
I made the centenniel blond recipe today. Used my burner and keggle and barley crusher and did everything outside for the first time. I did the test boil earlier today I posted about and in a half hour I boiled off 1.25 gallons ( approximate ) The idiot part is a boiled with the burner wide open and it would have boiled much lower and conserved gas. SO 1.25 gallons in a half hour is 2.5 gallons in an hour. The recipe calls for 5.5 gallons in the fermentor. SO I started with 8 gallons in the boil pot.....ANYWAY I ended up with 6.5 gallons in the fermentor and checked the OG and it was HIGHER than the recipe calls for OR the three prior batches of this same recipe I made. I know my efficiency could be higher this way but THAT much difference? A 5.5 gallon batch is estimated at 1.039...I got 6.5 ( again approximately) and 1.045!

I know you will as so here is ther recipe.
7 pounds 2 row
12 oz dextrine
8 oz vienna malt
8 oz crystal 10
mash 3.5 gallons of water at 150 for 60 minutes, double batch sparge with 3 gallons each.
60 min boil with 1/4 oz centenniel at 55 and 35 and 1/4 oz cascade @ 20 and 5

I encourage you to keep real good notes on your volumes along the way, so you can dial-in not only boil-off, but absorption, dead-space along the way, etc. Missing your volumes will cause you to miss your OG.

Normally, overshooting volumes causes you to undershoot the OG. Is this the first time for crushing your own grain? A better crush can make a big difference in your efficiency.

Cheers,
Glenn

skiwithg said:

I encourage you to keep real good notes on your volumes along the way, so you can dial-in not only boil-off, but absorption, dead-space along the way, etc. Missing your volumes will cause you to miss your OG.

Normally, overshooting volumes causes you to undershoot the OG. Is this the first time for crushing your own grain? A better crush can make a big difference in your efficiency.

Cheers,
Glenn

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THIS. I have finally absorbed the wisdom of getting these figures down on paper for MY rig: my mash tun, my boil pot, the kind of boil I use, the mass of fermentables in a recipe, and the preheat & ambient temperatures involved. Generalizations and formulas used for things like this are unlikely to be accurate for YOUR setup.

skiwithg said:

I encourage you to keep real good notes on your volumes along the way, so you can dial-in not only boil-off, but absorption, dead-space along the way, etc. Missing your volumes will cause you to miss your OG.

Normally, overshooting volumes causes you to undershoot the OG. Is this the first time for crushing your own grain? A better crush can make a big difference in your efficiency.

Cheers,
Glenn

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I have the parts odered to put sight glasses on my pots, right now using a marked stick to test levels. Yes this was my first real run with my own crusher. Did another but I used about 5 different settings on the barley crusher and had some uncrushed and some completely pulverized grains in that one.

rico567 said:

THIS. I have finally absorbed the wisdom of getting these figures down on paper for MY rig: my mash tun, my boil pot, the kind of boil I use, the mass of fermentables in a recipe, and the preheat & ambient temperatures involved. Generalizations and formulas used for things like this are unlikely to be accurate for YOUR setup.

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I am keeping decent notes but not THAT detailed.
I will say that out of the batches I have brewed ( about 10 now I guess) I have never seen this much "stuff" in the wort. Then again this is my first full ferment in glass. ( normally a bucket then glass secondary.) plus could ther hard boil have caused this? I mean it was REALLY rolling.

It's break material (i.e., proteins from the grains). If you have been extract boiling most of the break is left behind at the maltster. No worries. Pilsner malt, at least for me, has tons of break material.

Did you take a hydro reading of the wort prior to boiling?

Ichthy said:

It's break material (i.e., proteins from the grains). If you have been extract boiling most of the break is left behind at the maltster. No worries. Pilsner malt, at least for me, has tons of break material.

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I have been doing AG for a while but on the stove top ( full boils) this boil was far more vigorous. Again I may just be seeing it now due to using glass rather than plastic.

whoneedsabeer said:

Did you take a hydro reading of the wort prior to boiling?

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Unfortunately no I didn't.

IIRC, the hard boil would only drive off more water and concentrate the wort. But that would have reduced your volume too. If you use lbs. of grain x .36 /batch size = Max. efficiency and OG/ME = your efficiency, you got 93% and overshot your volume by 1 gallon! It's usually the other way around, you boil off until you hit your target OG. It's a mystery.... Are you confident that all of your measurements (weights, hydrometer) were accurate?

Reelale said:

IIRC, the hard boil would only drive off more water and concentrate the wort. But that would have reduced your volume too. If you use lbs. of grain x .36 /batch size = Max. efficiency and OG/ME = your efficiency, you got 93% and overshot your volume by 1 gallon! It's usually the other way around, you boil off until you hit your target OG. It's a mystery.... Are you confident that all of your measurements (weights, hydrometer) were accurate?

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yes, I even let the hydro sample set for a while to make sure bubbles were not affecting it. I have no clue what happened but everything looks good. I guess worse case scenario is I make beer lol.
I double sparged with 3 galons each and when I double sparge, my efficiency seems to go up a bit , and my mash was a bit thinner than I normally do, due to tryng to get 8 gallons into the pot.

OHIOSTEVE said:

I have no clue what happened but everything looks good. I guess worse case scenario is I make beer lol.

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That's the main thing. I do love a good mystery though......