Halfway through my second AG...questions about boil

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magnj

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Ok so I'm halfway through my second AG, 3rd ever brew. I'm mashing 5lbs of White Wheat and 5lbs of Pilsner for a Hefe, Brew in a Bag style. But just now I realized my sparge is going to have to be like 4.5 gallons and my pot is 5.5 gallons. I don't think my sparge water and my mash wort is going to fit into the same boil. So can I leave the mash wort in the cooler w/o grains until the sparge boils down or should I try a split boil?

Otherwise all is well. I nailed my mash temp of 153 by using tap water at 165F! I think our heater is on a little higher than necessary lol. I'm going to split the wort into 2 fermenters so I can try 2 yeasts.
 
Do a dual boil man, I've been doing it this way and I have yet to have bad results. Just remember that you will have 2x the amount of evaporation though, so add water accordingly, i.e. if you want 5 gallons after you are done boiling, you'll need about 7 gallons in the boil for a 60 minute boil.
 
My next largest pots are 8 and 6 quarts. So I'd have to do a triple split boil. How and when do I add the hops?
 
ok well turns out my sparge is more like 3 gallons, I'm stupid and thought 10 pounds of grains and 4 gallons of water would fit in my pot. Sooo my efficiency is probably going to suck but I'm just going to boil down the sparge water until I can fit the mash and sparge water together and then start my 60 min boil there. I guess I can let it get down to like 4.5 gallons instead to compensate for the presumably low gravity.
 
How big is your "Big" pot? I have fit 12lbs 4oz of grain and 13.5qts of water in my 5gal pot.

You should go to a local Mexican market type of grocery store and get a 5gal Tamale pot for $20.
 
My big pot is 22qt. I ended up split boiling, but the big pot is having a hard time getting to a rolling boil. It's above 212F so it is boiling just doesn't look like it. I've got it all in one pot, and I added the hops 20 minutes ago. Hopefully it turns out ok. GF might be mad if here hefe sucks.
 
So my estimated OG @ 65% was 1.050. I got 1.060 which is 80%! That seems crazy considering my sparge was just 3 gallons but idk how else to explain it. I came out maybe 1/2 a gallon short, I guess that could be part of it?
 
Ok so since its more like 4.5 gallons that makes my efficiency 70%. I guess that's more plausible. Both the 3638 and 3068 are bubbling away and were withing 8 hours so I guess the starters really helped.
 
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