This weekend is my second brew through my herms. I brewed a Polaris Oatmeal Stout that according to beersmith should have been right at 1.075og using 72% brewhouse efficiency (not yet really sure what the number should be). I hit all my volumes correct and wound up with 1.092 and 24.8 brix, i used both a refractometer and hydrometer. With my grain bill I don't event think these numbers are possible. Grain mill set to .37 500rpm.
24lb Pacific Northwest Premium 2 row
1.5 lb Carafa1
1.5 Crystal 120
.5 lb Chocolate malt
.5 lb rosted barley
1 lb flaked oats
70 min mash @156f (inlet was at 159f, grainbed was at 156f)
1hour fly sparge
90 min boil
Not really sure what happened the only thing I can think is that I might have added extra two row 24 lbs requires two buckets so perhaps I added wrong but I didn't start drinking until after mash in, even so it would have to be 4 lbs and 80+ efficiency to reach this number. Now I am hoping that my 3 litre wlp 001 starter will be enough. Anyone have any ideas on what else I could have done wrong, would loading it with unfermentables raise the OG. Im not complaining but I need to figure this out. Could this be something with HERMS? I just built the system, and had never used one before.