Gravity

[Bentwoten]

Hey guys bare with me while I explain the problem and my situation. I'm really new to all-grain brewing so I'm trying to work out the kinks. I've brewed to batches on my system. Which is as follows:

Keggle/HLT
10g Rubbermaid mash tun (round bev cooler)
7.5g boil kettle

My question is basically this. When taking my OG reading I've done both pre and post boil. Obviously the post boil will be higher because of boil off of water or at least that's my impression.

On my hefe I did on Thursday my pre boil OG was spot on target. Boil off was more than expected leaving post boil OG higher. I would also mention my target of 5 gallons was short post boil, but pre volume boils was close but maybe a little short.

I guess what I'm trying to fig out is if I should have sparged more water or adjusted post volume boil? And what am I doing wrong? Should I be having a higher pre volume boil with lower gravity, am I boiling to vigorously and boiling off to much water?

The recipe called for 6.5g pre volume boil. Like I said I took a gravity reading and it was on target. Should that have been a lower reading to account for evaporation?

Or am I just way off and confused about my process. Any help would be awesome. Thanks

 

[Bentwoten]

Well maybe I'm asking the wrong questions. Should I adjust my pre volume by adding more water to sparge or adjust my post volume to bring up to 5g or original gravity? Am I just not sparging enough or is my efficiency ****. Lol

 

[Dan]

Well sounds as though you did pretty well in my humble opinion. If your preboil gravity was spot on and very close to the volume you were looking for that is a plus. Since your post boil gravity was higher than predicted but volume was less, you probably could have just topped off with water to make the expected post boil value, that would have also dropped post boil gravity a bit.

Are you using any type of software?

 

[BrotherGrim]

I agree with what Dan says, it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things. Adjusting your post boil volume would put you back on target, and you may have boiled a bit more vigorously than required, but I wouldn't worry too much about it now, I am sure your beer will be fine. I also have trouble getting my volumes just right as I have started using BIAB for my AG brews and I have yet to get all my variable figured out exactly. I am finding my efficiency to not be as good as it should be, and getting every thing just right is difficult, but I am still making good beer. My plan is to keep working on it until I am hitting targets on the mark. The upside is I get to drink all my practice work.

 

[Bentwoten]

Ok. That's what I figured. I did adjust post boil volume a little and honestly could have probably did more I've just always been weird about adding water to my wort after boil but I guess hitting my targets would be more important. Thanks guys this really helped