KICK OFF - DOUBLE IPA Brew Session

Wow what a day.......I learned a lot 1: 17 lbs of grains had a pre boil gravity of 1.053 2: Added honey which made it 1.066 3: pre boil volume was 7.5 gal 4:missed the 35 minute hops by 10 minutes so everything was offset 10 minutes. 5: With the extra water, it lowered my gravity. Also missing the time on #4, decided to boil 20 extra minutes and add 3.7 ounces of corn sugar which gave me 2 gravity points 6: Hopback didn't work. Would not siphon when jar got full. Dumped whole hops into kettle. Screen was put on the kettle prior to help filter hops. 7: There was a lot of hop oils floating in the kettle which was awesome.... I hope 8: Just made 5 gallons into carboy 9: set at 65 deg SUMMARY: Plan for a lot of wort loss when using whole hops. NOTE: I later learned that lowering your brewhouse efficiency 10% is very common and should be done when brewing high gravity beers 1.080>. Due to using the same amount of water for twice the amount of grains it is hard to extract the sugars. When I lowered from an original 72% efficiency to 62% efficiency, the estimated OG was 1.081.... PERFECT!!!!! The ABV lowered to 7.8%...... we'll see how well fermentation goes. I will make up the FG and achieve an 8% beer. FOR NEXT BATCH: Use 16 lb 2row @ 62% efficiency to get 1.090 as originally desired. Also, don't boil for 80 minutes..... boil for 60 to make up for wort loss to whole hops.