First all grain brew - efficiency

[pmatson]

In the process of my first all grain brew after 9 successful extract brews. I mashed 11 pounds of grain in my 10 gal cooler mash tun at 154 for 60 min with 3.4 gal water. Collected first runnings and then sparked with 4.25 gallons and collected those. Following the sparge, I took a sample and measure per boil OG at 1.045. Based on my brew calculator, this is a efficiency of 45%. I am hop bursting this beer, so I have time to try and save some gravity points. Should I just boil longer and evaporate more water to raise gravity? I don't want to over bitter my beer. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciate. Cheers

 

[climateboy]

1.045 is probably low for a high-hop beer--what's your target OG? If you have Beersmith, you can calculate boil-off's effect on gravity. If not, I can plug in numbers for you.

 

[pmatson]

I boiled off until I got the og to 1.05 and altered my hop schedule to 0.5 oz of Columbus at 15 and 10 min and added 3 oz at flame out with a 30 min hot stand. This is a 4 gallon batch going into my fermenter. Hopefully it will be drinkable.

I obviously need to figure out my efficiency issue.

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

I know it was just a typo, but I'm loving the term "sparked"

 

[pmatson]

Ha! Nice catch, didn't even notice than one.