New to Homebrewing

[wesasmith]

Hey everyone,

So my brothers and I are new to the home brewing scene and have just completed our second all grain brew. I have a question about original gravity and when to take my reading. Should the reading be taken just after sparging or post boil?

For our most recent brew we planned on brewing an Imperial IPA.
however our last reading came in a little low, I took the OG reading just after we finished sparging, and chilled the wort to just over 80 degrees. After correcting for the temp our gravity was at 1.063,we were hoping to come in at around 1.080. this gave us a brew house efficiency of 73%.

brewing equipment/and procedure
10 gallon mash tun
30 quart stainless kettle
15 pound grain bill
fly sparge @170-175

any info/pointers would help:rockin:

 

[Yooper]

It's very helpful to know both readings- the preboil SG and the post boil SG. It's also important to know the volumes, say something like 1.060 at 7 gallons preboil, to figure mash efficiency and the brewhouse efficiency.

 

[wesasmith]

our wort volume was about 6.3 gallons, i used both brewersfriend.com to take the efficiency, we were brewing a 5 gallon batch.

 

[sweetcell]

your OG, the one quoted in recipes, is post-boil (and post-cooling - it's what you pitch your yeast into).

so hitting 1.063 pre-boil, depending on the boil, could quite possibly yield a 1.080 OG since boiling concentrates the wort. you pre-boil will always be lower than your OG (unless you add water).

 

[cpl-america]

I agree with both.
Welcome to hbt.

Cheers.

 

[wesasmith]

thanks everyone for your input, very helpful!