I Brewed a Rye IPA last night and my target gravity (1.060) (my typical 70% brew-house efficiency) was well missed (1.044), my IBUs will be a too high if I leave it as is (1.044 OG for ~65 IBUs is lacking on the malt). Fermentation is just about to start, and I was thinking of adding 1 gal of high gravity unhopped wort (3# of DME, boiling that in 1gal for 30min or so), this would (in theory) give me ~6gal of 1.060 OG, 55 IBUs or so. Has anyone ever done this, think it is a good/ bad idea? If you think it would work, when should I add the new wort, High Kreausen, or secondary, somewhere between?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
6# 2-Row
4# Rye Malt
1# Vienna
1# Munich
0.5# Honey malt
0.5# rice hulls
5Gal Round cooler, false bottom.
4Gal 160F water -> ~150F for 50min, 1gal 210F water to ~160 for 15min, recirculate ~2gal, continuous sparge to ~6.5 gal with ~175F water, collection time ~25min for 26 quarts (too fast? too slow? Why not do batch sparging?)
This is the 5th normal (OG between 40 and 70) batch I have done with the mash tun, and before my efficiency was 70, 71, 70, 75%
Any help on what happened to my efficiency, when removing the grain bed to dry some, pressing out water resulted in nice thick sweet syrup, any thoughts on how best to add that to my brew kettle rather than onto my hand?