First AG brew

[Birkin]

The OG should have been around 1060 but is 1032 which is pretty disappointing

To ask an obvious question (Which caught me out...) did you adjust your gravity reading for temperature? 1.032 @ 60C = 1.045 for a hydrometer calibrated at 20C

I've done 4 all grains now, what I've learned so far is that temperature is massively important, I read that most of the conversion happens in the first 10 minutes, so getting the initial temp right is key.

My OG's have been a bit low, but we're talking 1.45 instead of 1.50, I've tried pouring the sparge water on and batch sparging. My best result was batch sparging, which hit the OG target! (Drain mash tun, add 15 litres @78C, drain again, add 10 litres @78C, Drain then Boil)

Make sure you drain it slowly, it's meant to take at least an hour to collect your wort.

And, for the benefit of us all (Me..) feedback to us on what you find makes the biggest improvements!

 

[geetee]

it takes me about 1 hour to collect the wort. you will find by checking the runnings with refractometer, take a drop from the tap flow, the first wort will be high OG 1070 -80. I keep the flow fairly slow until there is a big gravity drop. After say 30 minutes it might drop to 1040 so I then turn up the flow and it will continue to drop faster until last running which by refractometer will be 1008 or 2 Brix.
Obviously the extraction will depend on the efficiency of the whole system but I tend not to worry about a difference in gravity. This may increase in the boil and can be corrected by adding water at the the end to hit gravity, or continuing to boil if OG is low.