Over 100% Efficiency Pre boil Gravity?

I was mashing a berliner wiesse yesterday, after mashing I took a pre boil gravity reading after the wort had cooled to room temp 68* F. The reading was 1.056 corrected for 68 degrees. I was shooting for 70% efficiency which should have put me at 1.035, at 1.056 it would be at 113% which is impossible. I took the sample out of the test jar into a cup to make sure there was not gunk on the bottom, put it back in the test jar still the same reading. I think my hydrometer is fine, still floats, no cracks. I am just at a loss of why the reading is so high.

4.20 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 58.33 %
3.00 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 41.67 %

Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Sparge Water: 5.0 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Mash PH: 5.2 PH

75 min Mash In Add 10 qt of water at 160.2 F 149.0 F

Any thoughts?

What's your volume?

Its around 6-6.5 gallons. This is only going to be a 15 minute boil for 5.5 gallons into the fermenter.

May be it's your scale that is off?

How did you going to boil off .5-1 gallon in 15 minutes? What was the temp of the wort when you checked the gravity? Something is definitely wrong somewhere.....

Checked it on two scales as well,

my guess is your volume measurements are off.

how exactly are you measuring volume?

It could be a number of things. To get an accurate efficiency calculation, you need an accurate volume measurement, the right 100% potential for the grain you're using, mix the wort so there's no stratification, etc. 1.035 vs. 1.056 is pretty far off though. .5 gallon mistake on the volume measurement would only change your reading by 1.002.

Have you calibrated your hydro in distilled water?

smokinghole said:

How did you going to boil off .5-1 gallon in 15 minutes? What was the temp of the wort when you checked the gravity? Something is definitely wrong somewhere.....

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Its in the cooler right now, going through a sourmash, I haven't boiled yet. I was just going off of what beersmith said for a 15 min boil, it called for a preboil volume of 6.41 gallons. Temp of the wort was at 68.

AZ_IPA said:

my guess is your volume measurements are off.

how exactly are you measuring volume?

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I have notches on my mash paddle for each gallon when in my brew pot.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

Have you calibrated your hydro in distilled water?

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Did that when i first got it, was pretty spot on.

mountainslide said:

after mashing I took a pre boil gravity reading after the wort had cooled to room temp 68* F.

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mountainslide said:

Its in the cooler right now, going through a sourmash, I haven't boiled yet.

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So have you or have you not sparged yet? The sparge water will dilute that gravity.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

So have you or have you not sparged yet? The sparge water will dilute that gravity.

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Yes I have sparged, sorry if that was unclear. I have the unhopped/unboiled wort in a cooler right now with some uncrushed grain to sour it.

Then either your hydro is bunk, you are reading the wrong scale, the wort was not well mixed, you grossly mis-estimated your volumes, or that is not the real amount of grain you put in there.

That is an odd one you have there.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

Then either your hydro is bunk, you are reading the wrong scale, the wort was not well mixed, you grossly mis-estimated your volumes, or that is not the real amount of grain you put in there.

That is an odd one you have there.

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I am going to grab another hydrometer tonight, I will measure my volume precisely tomorrow when I boil. I am going to try to find someone that will let me borrow a refractometer as well. Very wierd

What does it read in clean water?

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

What does it read in clean water?

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I calibrated the hydrometer in distilled water, read 1.000. I bought a refractometer it measured 8 brix. I am guessing the wort had enough other dissolved solids in it to throw off the reading. Thanks for the help.

How accurate is your scale for measuring the grains? Something is way off. And the SG seems low for that style to begin with.

suprchunk said:

How accurate is your scale for measuring the grains? Something is way off. And the SG seems low for that style to begin with.

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BW style is 1.028 to 1.032... it's quite rare to see a classic example over 5% ABV.

As far as the gravity.... who knows what was going on. It sounds like the refractometer reading is appropriate, though.

dwarven_stout said:

BW style is 1.028 to 1.032... it's quite rare to see a classic example over 5% ABV.

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Oh, okay. Just checked the BJCP and you are absolutely correct. They don't sell the BW near me as this area claims it's not real beer. But I'm close enough to Belgium to not worry about getting sours from Germany. Flanders and Geuze is more my style anyway.

You're going to want to boil that wort for much longer that 15 minutes given the fact that Pilsener malt makes up over 50% of your grain bill. You're going to end up with canned-corn flavored beer with only a 15 minute boil. Read up on DMS.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

hopvine said:

You're going to want to boil that wort for much longer that 15 minutes given the fact that Pilsener malt makes up over 50% of your grain bill. You're going to end up with canned-corn flavored beer with only a 15 minute boil. Read up on DMS.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

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Or just cool as quickly as possible, if you cannot boil that long or hard.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/dms-where-does-140f-come-132559/

I don't know how much perceptible DMS will be noticed, given the sourness of this beer. I've had sour beers that I would not think I would notice DMS-like flavors in it, but they may not have been present to actually perceive them. Or they may have been there and were just overpowered by the sourness.

hopvine said:

You're going to want to boil that wort for much longer that 15 minutes given the fact that Pilsener malt makes up over 50% of your grain bill. You're going to end up with canned-corn flavored beer with only a 15 minute boil. Read up on DMS.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

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Read up on Berliner Weiss. It's commonly made without a boil. Another common technique is to boil a thick decoction but not boil the main mash.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Berliner_Weisse