How high is typical for the gravity of final runnings.

[Jamie McQuillan]

Today I brewed an American IPA. OG 1.066. I hit all my targets. I keep doing this which freaks me out to be honest. Ok Great, but for the first time today I monitored the gravity of my runnings. After the second batch sparge, full boil volume reached,  I had 1.030 (end of runnings, temperature corrected - which works every time when I compare with a cooled sample). Shit. Really? I was keeping an eye on it so I didn't go much below 1.016! It would have been easy enough to bump the grain bill bit and get 2 brews out at that rate. Keen to hear what other people have experienced. 

[Paws Xa]

wow checking the gravity reading at the end of the sparge is something I have never done. To be honest I almost never check gravity readings anymore. I find that focusing on getting my grain and water volumes right and hitting my temps, combined with using a good brewing software makes the gravity readings consistent enough to not worry about.

It will be interesting to see if any other brewers on here check the gravity at that point.

[Druid]

I check my tail end runnings, with a refractometer - and only when I'm doing lower gravity beers so that I don't keep sparging below 1.008.

The only time it's been at risk of going below 1.008 is with beers with a targeted OG of 1.040 or below. Mashes for bigger beers just never seem to rinse out enough that the concentration of sugars drops that low over the course of the sparge.

I believe you can continue sparging below 1.008 if you are managing the pH properly ie. dosing your sparge water with acid to keep keep it low to prevent tannins from being extracted from the husks.

It's made me realise that lower gravity beers should probably be sparged faster with the aim of not rinsing them so thoroughly so that you don't end up trying to get too much out of your grain bill and sacrificing the quality of the wort in the process.

[Ian Hebblethwaite]

I run off for around 90 to 100 minutes until the kettle is full or runnings drop to 1.010

I measure gravity and cumulative volume every 5-10 minutes and plot these on a graph. Usually my end runnings are between 1.012 and 1.016. It's easy to bemoan the waste when you drain the mash tun. In the past I've tried to brew small beer, ginger beer and make non-alcoholic hot malt drinks from the end runnings, but not with any meaningful success. In truth, there's not a lot of sugar left in the mash which you can see if you plot the gravity/volume curve.