Okay, I'm going to try to make this as not confusing as I can, but I'm not making any promises.
I've done a few AG batches now and I always seem to have really poor efficiency no matter what I do. So on my last batch I made sure to pay really close attention and record everything I did so maybe I could sit down and figure out where I'm going wrong. Here's the recipe I used for a 5.5 gal batch and the data I collected.
7.5lb 2 row
2lb victory
1.5lb dark munich
1lb honey malt
8oz crystal 80
4oz chocolate
3oz amber
Okay so I use a 48qt cooler mash tun with a ss braid. I used a 1.25qt/lb ratio and mashed for 60 min at 150 degrees. I collected 6.5 gal at a rate of 1qt/2min. My preboil gravity was 1.044 and my target was 1.049. There was a lot of wort still in the mash tun so I collected about 1.5gal in a bucket and checked the SG. It was still reading 1.028. I feel like that's alot of sugar to not have in the brew kettle but alas my kettle is only 7.5gal.
After the boil my SG was 1.058 witch was exactly what I was shooting for, but I had more boiloff then expected and ended up with just over 5gal. When I plug all this data into my brew software it says my efficiency is around 60%!
So I guess the question is... Is my efficiency really that bad or do I just need to get a larger kettle so I can collect more wort from the mash to hit my numbers?
Sorry if this is really confusing. It's really hard to type out what I'm thinking.
I've done a few AG batches now and I always seem to have really poor efficiency no matter what I do. So on my last batch I made sure to pay really close attention and record everything I did so maybe I could sit down and figure out where I'm going wrong. Here's the recipe I used for a 5.5 gal batch and the data I collected.
7.5lb 2 row
2lb victory
1.5lb dark munich
1lb honey malt
8oz crystal 80
4oz chocolate
3oz amber
Okay so I use a 48qt cooler mash tun with a ss braid. I used a 1.25qt/lb ratio and mashed for 60 min at 150 degrees. I collected 6.5 gal at a rate of 1qt/2min. My preboil gravity was 1.044 and my target was 1.049. There was a lot of wort still in the mash tun so I collected about 1.5gal in a bucket and checked the SG. It was still reading 1.028. I feel like that's alot of sugar to not have in the brew kettle but alas my kettle is only 7.5gal.
After the boil my SG was 1.058 witch was exactly what I was shooting for, but I had more boiloff then expected and ended up with just over 5gal. When I plug all this data into my brew software it says my efficiency is around 60%!
So I guess the question is... Is my efficiency really that bad or do I just need to get a larger kettle so I can collect more wort from the mash to hit my numbers?
Sorry if this is really confusing. It's really hard to type out what I'm thinking.