Super efficient batch sparge !?!?

[Ron Reyes (Papa Piggy)]

this weekend i was making a simple blond ale. I decided to use my cooler mash-tun for this batch where my efficiency has been in the mid to high 60's The OG target was 1.049 but i actually got 1.060! based on a higher than anticipated pre boil gravity i added a few more hops to balance it out so now ill have more of a light-pale ale. thats fine. but what is really strange is i forgot the phosphoric acid that i was needing to get the PH in line YET still got an incredible OG. there are probably many reasons this happened but my question is this... can i dilute it prior to kegging? i really do not want a stronger than 5% ABV beer (long story)?

 

[GFHomebrew]

Most dilute pre fermentation but can see why not post your still diluting IBUs I'd say pre Boiled for sure.

Wow that is a big discrepancy Ron what did your brew house come out at? I know through Braukaisers mash experiments that a 5.6ph yielded the best extract potential compared with lower mash ph mashes. Maybe not acidifying the mash down lower helped to extract a few more points but it's just impossible that it yeilded that much more sugars.
What ever you did on the sparge remember it it just might save you some coin down the track.

 

[Bubba Wade]

You can dilute post-fermentation. This is common among large scale commercial brewers.

I have done it on small batches as well, sometimes just to get the keg topped off.

 

[Ron Reyes (Papa Piggy)]

Most dilute pre fermentation but can see why not post your still diluting IBUs I'd say pre Boiled for sure.

Wow that is a big discrepancy Ron what did your brew house come out at? I know through Braukaisers mash experiments that a 5.6ph yielded the best extract potential compared with lower mash ph mashes. Maybe not acidifying the mash down lower helped to extract a few more points but it's just impossible that it yeilded that much more sugars.
What ever you did on the sparge remember it it just might save you some coin down the track.

Yeah I'm really surprised. I've never come close to this with my cooler set up. It's the main reason I switched over to a 3 kettle direct heated circulated mash set up. Since then my efficiency has been good. But it was snowing so I wanted to simplify this particular brew session. The things I did different are... 1) first time I used DI water as my base. 2) mashed for 75 mins. 3) mashed a little lower at 149f. 4) did a partial mashout by adding a gallon of near boiling water. Then used about 180f water to sparge. That brought the grains upto about 156. I'm going to try it again to see if I can repeat it.