Overshot pre boil volume

[Brewer dad]

I way overshot my pre boil volume, which I attribute in part to some changes in my practices after realizing I was leaving wort behind in my mash tun. So now I have a good amount of leftovers after sparging, which I have boiling away next to my main batch. I took 1.5 gal of the excess(definitely at least two probably almost three gal left but don’t have a bigger pot). My thought is to boil it down a good amount to reduce and then add at flameout.

I missed my pre boil gravity by nine points so I’m hoping between this and a longer boil I can make up some ground. Any thoughts on reducing leftover runnings like this? While I would like to maximize efficiency where possible I’m not obsessed with it, so if the consensus is this is a bad idea I’ll just toss the extra. I’m doing the Winter Warmer from The Homebrewer’s Almanac.

I apologize if this post is disjointed juggling the boil and kids unexpectedly.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Boil off that extra wort as much as you want. All the way down to a thick syrup if you can. Skotrat's Traquair clone and this forum's Gunstock Ale both use this as a feature.

 

[TheMadKing]

That should work fine as long as you acidified your sparge water.

If not, you might have oversparged and pulled out tannins and end up with an astringent beer.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

To answer your question, yes, that would work.
Are you measuring out your total recipe volume and using the amount up? I have had a couple batches that I goofed and didn't pay attention to what I needed and just shot from the hip when it came to sparge and left a lot behind. I get leaving a bit behind from tun and kettle losses, but that sounds like quite a bit.

 

[Brewer dad]

Thanks for all the replies! I went ahead with it and ended up .02 low, which I am perfectly happy with.

@TheMadKing to this point I have only been acidifying at mash, maybe I will adjust and do both. Hopefully all the other things going on in this recipe help counterbalance any astringency I added.

@KeizerBrewr I followed the recipe which gave the mash and sparge volumes. But I do agree with you it seems like a ridiculous overshot. I am batch sparging in a cooler, and a few batches ago switched from a bazooka to a BIAB. This time I actually did the whole bag lift thing so left almost nothing behind. I had about 4.75 gal go into my kettle out of my 5 gal of mash water.

This is probably my fifth AG batch, and over that short time I have changed a number of things. Obviously I have some dialing in to do! Thanks again!