Originally Posted by bmboileau
Thanks for all of this, I really appreciate the help! Just a final few concerns, does the 1.25 quarts / 1lbs of grain stand as a good mash volume? Does a full boil mean that you mash and boil with a certain volume and never top up that water? If yes, how do you adjust for water lost when removing the bags / during the boil? Do you just add more water than you need?
A full boil means that everything that goes into the fermenter came from the kettle.
To make a 6-gallon batch of beer, I start my boils at 7.5 gallons. During the 75 minutes (my normal boil time), I lose probably 1.25 gallons, and leave another .25 gallons in the bottom of the kettle / absorbed by the hops. It's not starting with more water than I need... it's starting with exactly the right amount of water!
Now, the big problem with doing a partial boil then topping off the fermenter for all grain is that you don't have enough water to get the sugars out of the grains. There is a certain maximum level of sugar you can get water to absorb. Most people "sparge" their grains by running additional water (in addition to the 1.25 qt./lb) through the grains and into the kettle, pulling out more sugar with fresh water.
Sounds like you got poor efficiency because you didn't have enough water to pull that much sugar out.