Extract brewer moving to steeping grains and doing a full boil...
Original recipe is steeping 8oz of grain in .5gallons of water and sparging with .5 gallons of water. Add 7.25# of DME and water for a 2.5 gallon boil which is then cooled and then topped up to 5 gallons for the fermenter. First time I made it, I followed the recipe exactly and OG was almost dead on at just over 1.060. Ok, so now I try to redo the recipe only using a boil of 4.5 gallons. I do the same steeping process, then add water to get to 4.5 gallons and add 8# of DME. In my mind, and in BeerSmith, I should be around the correct OG. Pre-boil OG was estimated at 1.092. I hit 1.072. The post-boil OG was 20 points low too. This is the 2nd time this has happened. Am I missing something obvious?
Please let me know if you need any more info. I just can't figure it out.
Original recipe is steeping 8oz of grain in .5gallons of water and sparging with .5 gallons of water. Add 7.25# of DME and water for a 2.5 gallon boil which is then cooled and then topped up to 5 gallons for the fermenter. First time I made it, I followed the recipe exactly and OG was almost dead on at just over 1.060. Ok, so now I try to redo the recipe only using a boil of 4.5 gallons. I do the same steeping process, then add water to get to 4.5 gallons and add 8# of DME. In my mind, and in BeerSmith, I should be around the correct OG. Pre-boil OG was estimated at 1.092. I hit 1.072. The post-boil OG was 20 points low too. This is the 2nd time this has happened. Am I missing something obvious?
Please let me know if you need any more info. I just can't figure it out.