All grain troubleshooting - original gravity

[hopsnhawks]

just brewed my third all grain and need some advice to increase original gravity

using a rectangle cooler with stainless steel braid, 3.4 gallons strike water and 5.2 gallons sparge water with 11lbs grain, target OG 1.054

my first two batches were poor, I was trying to fly sparge and I missed temperatures, underestimated water volumes and my ground water/ambient cellar temperatures were too hot

was told to switch to batch sparging for convenience and this brew went much better, hit my temperature marks perfect with both strike and sparge water and was able to cool down and ferment below 70 degrees so am hopeful

problem is I read a 1.040 OG and none of the three batches have been higher than 1.045 so my efficiency must be very low, even though batch sparging is supposed to be less efficient clearly I am leaving a lot of sugar in the tun

I reached my target preboil wort of 6.5 gallons but left some liquid still in the tun, did I use too much sparge water?

There was a considerable amount of material in the hydrometer column, more than I am used to seeing, it all dropped out within an hour but could that alter the buoyancy of the hydrometer?

any advice would be appreciated

 

[junior]

just brewed my third all grain and need some advice to increase original gravity

using a rectangle cooler with stainless steel braid, 3.4 gallons strike water and 5.2 gallons sparge water with 11lbs grain, target OG 1.054

my first two batches were poor, I was trying to fly sparge and I missed temperatures, underestimated water volumes and my ground water/ambient cellar temperatures were too hot

was told to switch to batch sparging for convenience and this brew went much better, hit my temperature marks perfect with both strike and sparge water and was able to cool down and ferment below 70 degrees so am hopeful

problem is I read a 1.040 OG and none of the three batches have been higher than 1.045 so my efficiency must be very low, even though batch sparging is supposed to be less efficient clearly I am leaving a lot of sugar in the tun

I reached my target preboil wort of 6.5 gallons but left some liquid still in the tun, did I use too much sparge water?

There was a considerable amount of material in the hydrometer column, more than I am used to seeing, it all dropped out within an hour but could that alter the buoyancy of the hydrometer?

any advice would be appreciated

This is my usual ratio for sparge water to grain, around 1.60 qts to grain, so in your recipe I would use 17.6 qts for mash in, add water and make sure you mix well, let sit for 60-90 minutes,drain, then figure how much water you need for sparge after first run off to make your boil amount, I am no expert but it seems you water to grain ratio is kind of thick, my .02, good luck.

 

[RoundKid]

To help find your issues, more information is needed.

What was the gravity of your first runnings?
What was your pre boil volume? At what Temperature?
What was your pre boil gravity?
How much liquid was left in the mash tun after reaching pre boil volume? What was the gravity of that wort?
What was your post boil volume? At what Temperature?
How much wort did you leave in the kettle after transferring to the fermenter?


Figuring out efficiency involves measuring all the losses in your system, so without measurements it is impossible to know where to look to increase your efficiency.

Look at this article for a good breakdown of troubleshooting efficency: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency

 

[hophop]

A couple other quick ideas: I break my sparge I to two s

 

[hophop]

A couple other quick ideas: I break my sparge I to two s

Oops posted by accident.

Do two sparges at 2.6 gallons each and stir very well each time. I think your mash and sparge volumes look fine.

Check ph.

Who grinds your grain?

 

[doc5md]

Did you let the sample cool to room temp before taking the reading?

 

[hopsnhawks]

thanks for the replies

RoundKid - only took a prefermentation gravity, will try to collect more data in the future, thanks for the link, looks like I have some reading to do

hop hop - may try to break my sparge into two washings, is there any reasoning behind that? I don't check my pH yet as I was told temperature is more important when batch sparging, am using filtered water from a machine and haven't reached a level where I would know how to adjust pH anyway, will work up to that, the local brew store crushes my grain but no idea what settings

doc5md - the temperature was about 68 when I took the OG (same as what I pitched the yeast into, when I put that into a calculator it didn't change it from 1.040