Missing preboil gravity

[Willbrew]

I use a 10 gallon square cooler for my mash tun. For the last 6 batches i used a pvc manifold but kept getting stuck sparges. So for this last batch i installed a false bottom on top of the manifold which fits pretty tightly. The recipe was for a double stout which had a total grain bill of 15 lbs. I used 5 gallons for my first runnings. The program i use called for 1.063 preboil gravity but i ended up with 1.051. Could this be more efficient if i increased the amount of water for the first runnings

 

[slykwilli]

From what I know the two things you need to look at to increase your mash efficiency would be your crush and your mashout temp.If you get your grains from your LHBS you could ask them to run your grain through the crusher again and that may help a little. As far as mash out temp goes... you need to get your mash temp to ask close to 168-170 as possible when you start sparging. Many of the sugars are non-soluable at lower temps. Hope that helps

 

[Willbrew]

From what I know the two things you need to look at to increase your mash efficiency would be your crush and your mashout temp.If you get your grains from your LHBS you could ask them to run your grain through the crusher again and that may help a little. As far as mash out temp goes... you need to get your mash temp to ask close to 168-170 as possible when you start sparging. Many of the sugars are non-soluable at lower temps. Hope that helps

I mashed at 155 for one hour then 175 for 10 min. I may get my lhbs to re crush next time. Thanks for the input

 

[cjd3]

How long was your sparge? My last 10 gallon batch took 55 minutes, and I had really good efficiency.

 

[Willbrew]

How long was your sparge? My last 10 gallon batch took 55 minutes, and I had really good efficiency.

I didnt time it unfortunately but if i were to guess i would say 30 to 40 min. It was slow but i only got 2 gallons out of it, does that sound normal?

 

[70Cuda383]

a question that is similar...if I missed the gravity after sparging...can I sparge again with more water, then boil down to the original batch size? i.e. if I'm low on OG, can I re-sparge the grain bed, doubling my wort volume, then boil it back down to the original volume before adding hops and beginning the "actual" boil? or will all that extra boil time to the un-hopped wort change the flavor

 

[mjohnson]

or keep some DME on hand to make up the difference - might be simpler and I doubt it would affect the flavor.