Mash Thickness question.

[Minbari]

And then you have the rebel, the one who makes rules on the fly. I always start with 5.5 gallons for 9 to 11 pounda and sparge to about 6.5 to 6.75 gallons depending on how much hops is going in dry hopping.
There's always one....

Pretty much how I do it too, lol. Then adjust water to get the gravity right

 

[Triskele]

For my f

No, add a quart or two less water at the beginning. When your gravity is too high at the end, due to not enough water, you can can add it in and correct the gravity.

You can do it by boiling longer too, but that takes longer.

So i have absolutely idea what my efficiency is, For my first attempt instead of setting the ca!curator to a pre boil volume to 6.5 gal instead of 7? Then either dilute or boil longer to hit my planned OG?
Or,
Just use the calculator to get the numbers, take notes, determine what my efficiency is and make adjustments for my second brew?

 

[Minbari]

For my f

So i have absolutely idea what my efficiency is, For my first attempt instead of setting the ca!curator to a pre boil volume to 6.5 gal instead of 7? Then either dilute or boil longer to hit my planned OG?
Or,
Just use the calculator to get the numbers, take notes, determine what my efficiency is and make adjustments for my second brew?

Both, yes. It takes a few batches to get it right. I just like to err on the side of not enough water because adding more at the end is easier.

 

[Craigerrr]

I looked over you posts to date, and I am not seeing any reference to what your equipment or method is.

Are you brewing with the BIAB method?

If so, I would suggest that you could try starting based on an 80% efficiency and adjust up or down from there.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

@Triskele, be sure you don't focus so much on the details that you forget to enjoy the process! Don't worry too much on getting the strike & sparge water volumes or temperatures exact. Close is close enough. Even now I rarely hit my intended pre or post-boil gravity or volume exactly. If I'm off by a couple gravity points or a half-gallon of wort, I consider it a successful brew day. I've heard it said somewhere: While it is hard to make great beer it is even harder to make bad beer.

 

[Triskele]

I am doing extract presently. The kits that I use uses extract but also requires using specialty grains and hops. I am interested in "advancing" to all grain. I've wasted a lot of money buying equipment that was advertised as necessary. So now I've decided to do research in advance of my purchases. So while I'm still doing extract, I'm purchasing equipment a little at a time.
Right now I've settled on using a mash tun rather than doing BIAB. I just purchased a igloo and I'm planning on building a copper manifold.
So, I'm trying to understand the tools and recipes on this site. My experience is that when you understand "why" you do something rather than just following instructions then you know how to correct your mistakes.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

I am doing extract presently. The kits that I use uses extract but also requires using specialty grains and hops. I am interested in "advancing" to all grain. I've wasted a lot of money buying equipment that was advertised as necessary. So now I've decided to do research in advance of my purchases. So while I'm still doing extract, I'm purchasing equipment a little at a time.
Right now I've settled on using a mash tun rather than doing BIAB. I just purchased a igloo and I'm planning on building a copper manifold.
So, I'm trying to understand the tools and recipes on this site. My experience is that when you understand "why" you do something rather than just following instructions then you know how to correct your mistakes.

That's the path I took into all-grain. My picnic cooler mash tun is based on Denny Conn's Cheap-n-Easy batch sparge design described here.