Was my efficiency really that high!

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brewinmt

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Today was my first attempt all grain. I made a German pilsner. My grain bill was
7lbs German pilsner
1lb Vienna
8oz white wheat
1oz tettnang 60min
1oz tettnang 30min
1oz tettnang 10min
White labs wlp029 German ale/kolsch
Mashed at 160deg for 60min
Fly sparged at 170deg

I set up brewsmith at 72% efficiency. The preboil gravity was 1.044 at 6.5 gallons. Boiled 60min and ended up perfectly at 5 gallons. Cooled to 70 degrees and had a final gravity of 1.055!
So I messed around with the efficiency on brewsmith and came up with about 84%! Can this be right?
Overall it was a lot of fun and not near as hard as I thought it was going to be. Wish I would have started AG a long time ago.
Thanks for any input!
 
A few pics of my setup, crush, and mash!
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Absolutely that is possible and pretty awesome. With this being the first time using your set up, as time goes you will learn your set up and the average efficiency you can expect from it. From there you can adjust your recipe so you don't blow past your OG.

I added some new pieces of equipment to my set up and brewed a Nut Brown through it about 6 months ago. I calculated 92% efficiency. I thought it was a mistake but BeerSmith and several online calculators all said the same thing. I have never hit that number again but I am consistently in the low to mid 80's
 
Thanks for the replies I think I will bump up my efficiency in brewsmith to maybe 78% and try another brew with those numbers and see where I come out.
 
I made it out of 1/2" copper pipe, it is 24" long by 9" wide. I made it to fit right on the top lip of my cooler mash tun.
You can probably see in the pics but I soldered the sides together taking care to make it as straight as possible so the water wouldn't just run to one side,and I can just pull it apart easily to clean it. I think the holes I drilled are 1/8" which worked pretty good. I wasn't sure how well this thing was going to work but I am extremely happy with it, the water dripped out all of the holes and was super easy to adjust the amount just by opening or closing the ball valve on the HLT. I hope this helps and let me know if I can answer any more questions.

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I made it out of 1/2" copper pipe, it is 24" long by 9" wide. I made it to fit right on the top lip of my cooler mash tun.
You can probably see in the pics but I soldered the sides together taking care to make it as straight as possible so the water wouldn't just run to one side,and I can just pull it apart easily to clean it. I think the holes I drilled are 1/8" which worked pretty good. I wasn't sure how well this thing was going to work but I am extremely happy with it, the water dripped out all of the holes and was super easy to adjust the amount just by opening or closing the ball valve on the HLT. I hope this helps and let me know if I can answer any more questions.

awesome, thanks!

I'm thinking of doing the same thing, except in CPVC, which is what my manifold is made of.

just 2 more questions and I'll stop bothering you:

1 - are you using a copper manifold too, or a bazooka tube?

2 - is that the coleman 70 quart?

again, thanks
 
[QUOTE="
So I messed around with the efficiency on brewsmith and came up with about 84%! [/QUOTE]

Did you crush the grains yourself? I have a few all grain batches under my belt and was getting poor efficiency (around 65%). I always had the online home brew store crush the grains for me but read on here that better milling would help. I invested in a mill and my next batch jumped to 90%. I am now a believer!
 
I did crush the grains myself. I have the barley crusher mill and I think it is set from the factory at .39 thousands of an inch.

I am using a copper manifold in the mash tun, I will attach some pics of it too. It's about 5" wide and 18" long. I made it so it fits tight against the cooler wall and the bulk head so there is no chance of knocking it off when stirring the mash.

The cooler is a 36qt Coleman xtreme.

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I also had an experience like yours when I first started all grain. I hit 92% once. Over the last few years changing my process and adding/deleting brew rig components I'm back to 72-78 almost every time. That's pretty much the average anyway and it's less work that way for me too. Eventually you'll be able to dial in your process but for now make the said eff adjustments to compensate. Take mental or better written notes of any process changes and you'll be able to find what works best for you.
 
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