I'm new to brewing and at this point have just two all-grain brews under my belt, using a 5-gallon BrewEasy system - both brews were the same American brown ale recipe. My thinking was I could nail down my equipment profile and also get some consistency while familiarizing myself with the BrewEasy. One thing I learned after the first batch was that I was short approximately 1/2 gallon (into the fermenter), when following the basic BrewSmith profile. In checking the actual preboil volume, I could see my grains were retaining more than BeerSmith was estimating. The default BIAB Grain Absorb factor (under <options - advanced>) of .586 fl oz/oz was really .915 in my case. Are others seeing grain retention at this higher value?
My biggest issue that I'm having trouble getting my head around is that my actual OG (post-boil) value is much lower than the BeerSmith estimated OG. I use the Tilt Hydrometer to monitor gravity, have been very happy with it, and assume accuracy within 1 gravity point. For both brews, the estimated OG was 1.054, yet I got 1.048 the first time and only 1.044 the second time. If I dial down the Brew House efficiency to match these OG values, I end up with 60% efficiency (for the second batch), which seems way low, even for the BrewEasy system. Are others seeing efficiencies this low? I know grain crush and chemistry affect gravity and I know there are tricks to squeezing out higher efficiencies from the BrewEasy, but I think I've followed all the suggestions.
My biggest issue that I'm having trouble getting my head around is that my actual OG (post-boil) value is much lower than the BeerSmith estimated OG. I use the Tilt Hydrometer to monitor gravity, have been very happy with it, and assume accuracy within 1 gravity point. For both brews, the estimated OG was 1.054, yet I got 1.048 the first time and only 1.044 the second time. If I dial down the Brew House efficiency to match these OG values, I end up with 60% efficiency (for the second batch), which seems way low, even for the BrewEasy system. Are others seeing efficiencies this low? I know grain crush and chemistry affect gravity and I know there are tricks to squeezing out higher efficiencies from the BrewEasy, but I think I've followed all the suggestions.