First AG batch, absurdly high OG

[bleak]

I've just brewed my first AG batch using Da Yooper's House Pale Ale recipe (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/da-yoopers-house-pale-ale-100304/). Everything went remarkably well; I used 3.5 gallons of strike water for a 1.25 qt/lb ratio, hit my mash temperature of 154° F, collected 1.75 gallons of wort, sparged with 4.5 gallons at 170° F to end up with 6.25 gallons in the brew kettle. Boiled for 1 hour, cooled the wort down to 70° F in 15 minutes with my homemade immersion chiller, then took a hydrometer reading as I was racking into the fermentor. I assumed there was something wrong with my hydrometer when it read an OG of 1.142, but a second hydrometer read exactly the same, and they both read 1.000 with plain water.

I didn't have any sterilized water handy to dilute the wort with, so I went ahead and pitched my starter of WLP-001. All I can figure is the boil must have been too hot (I kept two 1500w heatsticks going throughout), but I'm estimating there's only 4 gallons of wort sitting in my carboy. Is it possible to boil off 2.25 gallons in one hour?

It's happily fermenting now. Here's my question: should I add a gallon of sterilized water when I rack into the secondary for dryhopping, or should I just bottle it and call it a barleywine?

Thanks in advance for any advice anyone would like to contribute...

 

[rockytoptim]

I have a keggle and have boiled off 2 gal over an hour before.

 

[weirdboy]

There is either something wrong with your hydrometer, or your reading. Even accounting for the difference in volume, 1.142 is just absurdly high. If you had managed to accidentally make a batch of the same potential with only 4 gallons, you'd only be looking at around 1.072 OG...

Unless you accidentally used too much grain or something weird like that.

 

[bleak]

Oh wait...

I was looking at the Brix reading.

Never mind.

Nothing like making of fool of myself on one of my first posts...