So I've done two all grain batches now. The first one I ended up with about 62% total brew-house efficiency and yesterdays brew 61% total according to Beersmith. I know people say it's more important to be consistent, but I'd really like to improve this. I tightened my mill from .039 to .035 for the second batch. Both batches had too much sparge water, which is clearly my fault. The first batch was worse, but I really thought I got it right on the second batch, and even allowed my pre-boil volume to go .25 gallons over planned. The siphon stopped, but I still had another .25 gallons in the mash tun reading at 1.028. I guess maybe I should have tipped the tun to get that out?
I did an extra long boil to get it down to the correct final volume, so I dunno. I'm brewing again this weekend and really want to hit a higher efficiency. I guess maybe I shouldn't fixate on it, so I can create my recipes accurately hitting the OG I want to, but I just feel like I should be doing better than this, and I cannot figure out the problem besides water volumes. I don't know if I'm miscalculating dead-space, grain absorption, or if I'm just adding too much water because I can't figure out Beersmith. Sorry if I'm rambling, and I know efficiency has been covered ad nauseam on here.
I did an extra long boil to get it down to the correct final volume, so I dunno. I'm brewing again this weekend and really want to hit a higher efficiency. I guess maybe I shouldn't fixate on it, so I can create my recipes accurately hitting the OG I want to, but I just feel like I should be doing better than this, and I cannot figure out the problem besides water volumes. I don't know if I'm miscalculating dead-space, grain absorption, or if I'm just adding too much water because I can't figure out Beersmith. Sorry if I'm rambling, and I know efficiency has been covered ad nauseam on here.