Yielding more wort, less OG

[numbskul]

I have been using various different online water calculators and usually ending up with 11 to 12 gallons wort with my 10 gallon batches.

I assume this is why I am ending up with lower than intended original gravity, as there is a higher ratio of water to ingredients.

Is there a reason for this? Is there any way to adjust some of the other figures such as batch size, boil time, trub loss, or the constants?

I brewed a Belgian White tonight. 21 lbs grains, 10 gal batch, 1 hr boil, everything else default. I ended up with 11 gallons. It called for 7 gal mash and 8.9 gal sparge (I used 8.5 gal) and I got 1049 og as opposed to the intended 1061. (1 hr mash @152-154F, fly sparge @ 178F)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

[sanguine]

My first thought is that, just by the math, is that an extra gallon of water alone is not enough to explain the difference in gravity. If you had 10 gallons of wort at 1.061 and added a gallon of just water, then the back of my envelope says you should end up with 11 gallons at around 1.055, meaning that the extra water only accounts for about half of the gravity disparity. The other half might be a lower-than-expected mash efficiency - if you're making big batches and using a really big kettle, you might, for example, be getting a situation where your mash was inconsistently heated, although that's really just my speculation.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

If you have too much wort try either adding less water in the mash or boil an extra 30 minutes or so.

 

[chickypad]

Calculators are only as good as the info you input. My suggestion is to take very good notes and measure everything along the way. If you're ending with 1-2 gallons over then something is not set right - either your boil off, deadspace or other losses, etc. Also it looks like the recipe you were using was set at about 80% efficiency, while yours appears to be around 71%. You should adjust the grainbill according to your own system and efficiency any time you use someone else's all grain recipe.

Edit: just re-read and saw you are fly sparging. That should make it really easy. All you need to do is nail in your pre boil volume then stop sparging when you hit it. A notched long spoon or rod is an easy way to do kettle measurements if you don't have a sight glass.