Brewhouse efficiency down when brewing IPA

[ph0ngwh0ng]

Hi!

I'm not an expert homebrewer, but I have my system pretty much dialed in.

I've just brewed an IPA where I used 2.5 oz of whole leaf hops and 2 ounces of pellet hops in the boil.

Before boil, I had 9.25 gallons of wort at 1.040.

Mash efficiency: 80%.

After boil, I had 5.5 gal of wort in the fermenter at 1.054, 8 points shy of my target, 1.062.

Brewhouse efficiency: 64%. I expected 72-73%.

Same thing happened while brewing another IPA this summer. Mash eff. 85% and brew. eff. 67.6%.

Something wrong is going down during the boil and I don't know what it is.

I can account for 0.5 gal loss due to trub/break material (which is included in the expected brewhouse eff.), but there seems to be about 0.8 gal of wort missing.

I built myself a hop spider, because usually I don't use that much leaf hops and last time I wound up leaving a gallon in the kettle since it was all loose pellet hops. The spider was pretty heavy when I lifted it from the kettle. Maybe it can account for 3/4 to 1 quart of wort, max. I let it drip a bit, but didn't press on the bag since I read that it could make the beer taste grassy.

Insight? Is it normal that IPA brewing hurts brew. eff. this much?

 

[acidrain]

The leaf hops sucked it up.
I use leaf hops exclusively, they absorb A LOT of wort.

 

[ph0ngwh0ng]

Yeah I think you're right. Googled a bit and found that thread.

Denny Conn mentions a 0.375 quart sucked up by each oune of hops. Add the pellet hops and measurement errors and I think the mystery is solved.

 

[TrubHead]

Yeah I think you're right. Googled a bit and found that thread.

Denny Conn mentions a 0.375 quart sucked up by each oune of hops. Add the pellet hops and measurement errors and I think the mystery is solved.

So leaf hops absorbed the gravity points (sugars) vs wort? Might need a biochemist to elaborate on this.

 

[ph0ngwh0ng]

No, it absorbed water. If no hops had been in the boil, I would've boiled longer to reach desired volume and gotten those gravoty points.