OG super high

[donshizzles]

Last night brewed up a batch of Bourbon Vanilla Porter with the following grain bill.....

9.5lbs Pale Maris Otter
1.0lbs English chocolate malt
1.0lbs Crystal 120L
2.5lbs Munich malt 10L
1.5lbs Brown malt
8oz Crystal 40L

Target OG was 1.065. I ended up with an OG of 1.085. Mash in was supposed to be 156 but initially ended up at 165 for a few minutes until I could bring it down to about 154 for the 45 mins in the mash tun.
How did my OG end up being so far off?

 

[RM-MN]

Last night brewed up a batch of Bourbon Vanilla Porter with the following grain bill.....

9.5lbs Pale Maris Otter
1.0lbs English chocolate malt
1.0lbs Crystal 120L
2.5lbs Munich malt 10L
1.5lbs Brown malt
8oz Crystal 40L

Target OG was 1.065. I ended up with an OG of 1.085. Mash in was supposed to be 156 but initially ended up at 165 for a few minutes until I could bring it down to about 154 for the 45 mins in the mash tun.
How did my OG end up being so far off?

Recipes are designed with a particular brewhouse efficiency. Yours was better. One reason could be the crush of the grain as that can have a huge impact on mash efficiency. Another would be the difference in leaving trub behind instead of dumping it all into the fermenter.

 

[LarMoeCur]

Exactly, what RM-MN said! You have to know your system and what efficiency you tend to get. Then you tailor the recipe up or down based on the ingredient percentages to meet your systems efficiency. Taking and reviewing brewing notes and tracking your efficiency are important in recipe development. Taking gravity readings through out the brewing process is also important. Preboil gravity being one of the most important. If you knew your preboil gravity was to high you could have cut the wort with some water to hit your target OG. You would have ended up with a larger batch but the planned recipe would have been intact.

I routinely get 82% efficiency on my brew system. If I use a recipe that was built using 75% efficiency. I'll over shoot by 7% which means I brewed a different beer.