Do you do anything to make sure your OG does not go too high?

[Dave258]

I brewed my first All Grain in March, horrible efficiency, I think it was 58%. Blamed it on bad crush from a different lhbs, and not measuring water volume accurate enough.
Second All grain was brewed in April. Got grain from Austin Homebrew, used ph 5.2 stabilizer and measured water exactly. Hit efficiency of 76%. My OG was only 5 or 6 points over what it should of been.
Today I got a delivery from Brewmaster's Warehouse for my next 2 brew days. The Brewmasters crush looks even finer then Austin's crush. My recipes in beersmith are based on 70% efficiency. I am assuming that if I take same steps from my last brew day, efficiency will go even higher based only on the finer crush of the grain.
Does anyone take steps to make sure you OG does not go too high? I don't want the make up of the expected final product to be totaly off.
I am assuming that once I reach my pre boil volume, if the OG is to high, I can water it down a bit before getting it to a boil and adding my initial hops.
Is it even worth it to worry about this?

 

[Hammy71]

Basically that's what I do. If for some reason my eff. is really high (more than 5 points), I'll simply dilute with some water. Haven't had that happen in a long time. Once you get your own mill and have a couple batches under your belt your eff. should stay the same and consistant results will come.

 

[Dave258]

Cool, Thanks. So you think 5 points is the acceptable level?
I am trying to drop hints about a barley crusher for father's day!

 

[IrregularPulse]

I stick with BMW so I'm consistent with my efficiency. I too am dropping hints for Fathers day

 

[mezak1gd]

I get really good efficiency from Brewmasters. 80-85% usually. Although not the best idea, I have watered down with bottled water before, to get correct OG. This also means i get a larger batch for free

 

[Dave258]

I get really good efficiency from Brewmasters. 80-85% usually. Although not the best idea, I have watered down with bottled water before, to get correct OG. This also means i get a larger batch for free

So you water down post boil?
When you water down, do you change your hop schedule? I would rather do that then drain off to the original pre boil volume!

I guess I can measure bre boil gravity and get me efficiency going into the kettle. Can I then run inside and input that into beersmith to change my batch size and get a correct hop schedule.

Sorry if it seems I am overthinking it, I just want to be able to make the best beer I can, and be able to reproduce these 2 recipes!

 

[Dave258]

I too am dropping hints for Fathers day

I'd like a barley crusher like I said, and maybe a march pump. That will keep me from having to lift my 10 gallon cooler up over my head on to another cooler that is on a table to drain my sparges into my kettle.

 

[pkeeler]

I would just say, you can always dilute at the end. Higher efficiency will simply mean more beer

However, it seems like you are worried that the higher SG during boiling will throw off your hop utilization. It might, but 5 pts probably is not a big deal; especially if your pre-boil SG is under 1.050. If you think the beer will be bigger, then just throw the hops in a little earlier (boil 65 min instead of 60 min).

I usually shoot for a 5.3 gal recipe. Then it is easy to adjust to 5.5 or 5 gal; and I doubt I'm throwing much off doing so.

 

[jjyoung]

Instead of waiting until the end, check your gravity pre-boil. If you know your rate of boil off you can adjust the gravity going into the kettle by adding water at the start of the boil so you hit your desired value going into the fermenter. If your gravity pre-boil is way off then you'll also know if you should make an adjustment to your hops.