Low O.G question

[Hugh_Jass]

I took an O.G. reading from my brew today. It should have been 1.051. The hydrometer read 1.044. To compensate for the low original reading, I boiled a pint of water, added 9 oz. of DME to the boiled water, cooled and added to the wort. That brought the O.G. reading to the expected number of 1.051. Was this the proper course of action?
Thanks in advance.

 

[lordbeermestrength]

sounds fine to me. any ideas why the initial reading was so low?

 

[Hugh_Jass]

The original recipe was a partial mash with 3 lbs of maris and 8 oz. of Breiss Carmel 10 and added a can of Cooper's light LME at 5 minutes remaining in the boil. The grains were mashed at 153 for one hour with 1.75 qt water/lb. The grain was then "tea-bagged" in 170 degree water for 5 min.
My guess is I didn't get the efficiency out of the partial mash, but I'm not sure how to improve upon it in the future

 

[lordbeermestrength]

yeah, that's probably the problem. It's hard to get more than about 50% efficiency unless you have a decent way to control the mash temperature. That's okay though, just be prepared to add more extract.

When I did PM's on the stovetop I usually calculated about 40% efficiency.

(edit: just an fyi, I only get about 60%-65% eff in my cooler doing batch sparging... don't worry about efficiency too much. It's not critical. Just account for a lower number than you think.)

 

[Hugh_Jass]

The mash method was to raise the water temp to 160 deg., add grains in a large paint straining bag, put mash into the oven at the desired temp for an hour. I thought this would lend the most consistent temp for a partial mash. Is there a better way?