OG a bit off from recipe

[NevadaHomeBrewer]

The OG called for 1.070 after it has cooled down and before pitching the yeast. Mine read ~1.052. Not sure of the causes for it being so much less than the recipe. Before I started sparging, it was reading 1.075. Can sparging lower your OG that much?

I used 13 pounds of grain and mashed that with 16 quarts of water and then I batch sparged with ~3 gallons of water. Basically enough sparge water to fill my 5 gallon boiler. I also found out I have a lot void space in my latur tun as it took more sparge water than the recipe said simply cause I need to fill my boiler.

 

[Nightstrife]

Each new water additions to your tun will have lower gravity(less sugars) readings as your essentially rinsing the left over sugars out of your grain.

How is your crush? Did your LHBS crush for you?

Mabee try upping your grain bill a bit if you can't change your crush(increasing efficiency) next brew.
Edit: Also did you hit your mash Temps and time mashed?

 

[NevadaHomeBrewer]

Yeah the local home brew store has it already crushed. I never asked how they do it. I have never had any problems before with partial grain batches. This was my first all grain batch so it probably is how I mashed it.

The recipe called for 75 mins at 150 degrees. I did my best to keep it at 150 but sometime it dropped down to 148ish. So I have to work on that.

I guess it just takes practice.

 

[Nightstrife]

Partial grain your not getting all your sugars from the grain. Where as all grain you are. I think your mash Temps look good. Over all between like 140 to like 169 is good (don't quote those Temps those are just off the top of my head you can search different Temps and outcomes) basically the higher-end of temp gets you a fuller beer with a thick mouth feel with less fermentables. On the lower end you get a lighter mouth feel with a drier beer, with more fermentables.

It does sound like your grain efficiency is lower due to the crush at your LHBS. You can compensate by adding some base grain to gain more sugars. If you get a program like beersmith it will help you calculate efficiency and how much grain you need for your specific set up. It's say helped me a lot.

I don't care so much about a high efficiency but I do care about my end result coming out consistent. Consistently good beer is IMO better than awesome and next batch Crap.