Blonde ale brew day

My friend and I are getting back into brewing, and brewed yesterday for the first time on our new system. It was also our first time brewing a 10gallon batch. Mash tun is a 70 quart Coleman cooler, with brew bag. The HLT is a keggle. The brew kettle, a 20 gallon. We decided to keep it simple, and brew Biermunchers Centennial Blonde. I have brewed this in the past in 5 gallon batches, with good success.

We went for a no sparge mash. For this batch I used Poland Spring water, as I am not yet setup to use house water. 15 gallons went into the keggle. FULL! Heated water to 161F, and pumped into mash cooler. Was only able to get 13 gallons into cooler, before we had to shut down pump. Cooler was filled to 4 inches below lid. Added grains and full! Stirred and checked temp, 152F.

Mashed out, and had to sparge 1 gallon to hit target pre boil amount of 13.75 gallons. At that point I took a small amount of wort and set aside for gravity reading. When cooled, I had a reading of 1.042, temp adjusted. Post boil amount was just over 11.2 gallons. Into fermenter. Cleaned up and went to bed. This morning I realized that I had forgotten to get a gravity reading after boil. Some math, and it looks like my fermentable OG is 1.051. Why so high? Actual amounts of liquid in kettle we found by looking at internal graduation marks the the SS Brewtech kettle come with. So there could be some variance there.

I used the same efficiency for my Calcs that the recipe used, 70%. Did I achieve a higher efficiency?

 

Yes, you most likely achieved higher efficiency. Someone here will likely back out the numbers for you, but 80-85% is achievable with a decent crush and minor losses.

A cooler BIAB typically has less system loss than other cooler lautering devices, so that helps as well.

FYI Wilser cooler BIAB bags only $28.00 vs $43.50 shameless plug