Mash/sparge Water

[davelovesbeer]

I am preparing to have a crack at my first all grain shortly after finally piecing enough equipment together, but the more I have been reading, the more confused I have been getting about water volumes and the mashing process. I am not sure exactly what recipe yet, but will use about 5kg grain, and aiming for a post boil volume of 17L. Using beer smith I got these volumes, and am just wondering if they, and the process sounds correct:

Mash in with 13L at 74.4C for 68C mash for 60minutes
Add 7.3L water at 91.5C and mix in gently hold for 10 minutes (at 75.6C)
Recirculate and drain (completely???)
Sparge with 4.6L water at 75.6L.

Preboil volume = 19.5L

Will the sparge water at the end really do much, only4.6L?

Any advice/tips would be great..

 

[gap]

Have you factored in any water losses in your mash , your sparge and in your kettle post boil???

Regards

Graeme

 

[seemax]

I am preparing to have a crack at my first all grain shortly after finally piecing enough equipment together, but the more I have been reading, the more confused I have been getting about water volumes and the mashing process. I am not sure exactly what recipe yet, but will use about 5kg grain, and aiming for a post boil volume of 17L. Using beer smith I got these volumes, and am just wondering if they, and the process sounds correct:

Mash in with 13L at 74.4C for 68C mash for 60minutes
Add 7.3L water at 91.5C and mix in gently hold for 10 minutes (at 75.6C)
Recirculate and drain (completely???)
Sparge with 4.6L water at 75.6L.

Preboil volume = 19.5L

Will the sparge water at the end really do much, only4.6L?

Any advice/tips would be great..

Your preboil volume seems too low. In theory, for a 1.050 SG brew, 5kg of ale grain can produce a batch size of about 30L. Assuming your efficiency is 75% your post boil volume should around 23L and preboil about 25-26L depending on your evaporation rate (mines about 3L/hour due to wide pot). You need to increase the sparge volume to collect more wort. In my esky system I just add lots of (batch) sparge water and drain slowly until I hit the 26L mark.

Hope that makes sense. Just remember also that if you measure SG make sure you cool it down to your hydrometers calibrated temperature. 80C wort will show a lower reading than at 20C due to fluid expansion.

Hope that all makes sense.

Stef

 

[braufrau]

How big is your pot? Is that what is limiting you to 19.5l??
Are you then going to dilute your 17l? or is that the batch size?

In my "system" 74.4 would be too cool to reach 68 in the mash.
Have you entered your mash tun characteristics into beersmith and clicked the "adjust temperature for equipment" check box in your recipe? (I think that's what its called)?

If you add boiling water, rather than near boiling water, for the mash out, you wont need to add as much, and then you will have more left over for sparging.

Rather than draining the whole lot in the first runnings, you could drain 9.5l (half your boil volume) and then add the sparge water. That's what I do. Don't know if it makes a difference, but it feels right.

5kg of grain in 19.5l will give a pretty high pre-boil gravity. Off the top of my head .. 1.061 if you can get 75% efficiency .. which might be hard, I've never tried. I stick to low 50s.

You might have to do what I do and do a "big" partial, adding a small amount of DME to get your desired SG.

 

[braufrau]

Here's my method which I've just decided to call BP4SK or
Big Partial's for Small Kettles.

This is how I compensate for my small kettle, by doing concentrated boils.

I have a 23l mayonnaise bucket mash tun.
23l kettle boiled on the stove which means i can boil 18l.

I work out my recipes in beersmith so that the pre boil gravity is 1.050, assuming 75% efficiency.
This works out to be about 3.8kg of grain. Unfortunately the concentrated boil means I need more hops.
I usually get 70-75% efficiency with some woeful exceptions. This weekend I got 78%. yay!
The number 1.050 is quite arbitrary, I don't know how quickly my efficiency would fall off if I raised it.

For the Mash:
2.5l/kg. For 68C mash, I need to heat my strike water to 80C. Stir well! I usually mash for 60min.

Mash out. I use beersmith to tell me how much boiling water I need to reach 76C. Typically about 1l/kg of grain.
Stir well and sit for 20mins.
Recirculate.

Runnings:
Drain 9l (half the kettle) into a bucket.
Heat the sparge water (the volume beersmith tells me) to 76C. Stir well. Sit for 10mins.
Put the first runnings into the kettle then recirculate and drain the second runnings.

Boil as usual then add the any adjuncts i.e. extract and sugar if using it.

Cool and strain into the fermenter and top up with cold water.

That's it!

 

[davelovesbeer]

Braufrau, you make it sound so easy. I must admit, I havent looked into beersmith too much. Threason for the small post boil volume is that I was going to use the no chill method, and the cubes I have hold 17L. Therefore, I was going to try and do a normal mash etc, but get the post boil to 17L to fit in the cube just right. Then when I ferment, add 4-5L water to bring back upto 22-23L. Maybe I should just buy a bigger cube or a smaller mash to avoid hassles with my first go. Pot size isnt an issue, I have a 50L pot, which is quite wide, so I assume will have a decent evaporation rate.

Thanks guys, something to think about.

 

[Screwtop]

Braufrau, you make it sound so easy. I must admit, I havent looked into beersmith too much. Threason for the small post boil volume is that I was going to use the no chill method, and the cubes I have hold 17L. Therefore, I was going to try and do a normal mash etc, but get the post boil to 17L to fit in the cube just right. Then when I ferment, add 4-5L water to bring back upto 22-23L. Maybe I should just buy a bigger cube or a smaller mash to avoid hassles with my first go. Pot size isnt an issue, I have a 50L pot, which is quite wide, so I assume will have a decent evaporation rate.

Thanks guys, something to think about.

Now it makes sense, no probs as long as you brew to suit the OG and IBU of your fermentation volume. ie: If you are aiming for 23L in the fermenter @ OG 1.044 into the fermenter you would need to target a post boil volume of 17L @ OG 1.060 and a bitterness hop addition of around 47IBU to end up with around 35IBU in your 23L.

Hope this helps

Screwy

 

[braufrau]

So you enter boil size of 19.5L and a batch size of 23L, and the IBU it displays is actually what you end up with to the fermenter. If you enter boil size of 19.5 and post boil volume of 17L, it will come to the higher amount that srewtop was talking about, and you then have to manually work out the dilution rate back to the 23L.

Yes, that's right. So just enter boil size of 19.5 and batch size of 23 and then all you have to do at fermentation time is dilute to 23l and its all fine!

 

[braufrau]

BTW dave ... is there a reason for no-chilling in a cube? Are u planning on storing wort for fermenting later?
If u just need a container for the wort to cool in , you can no-chill just by whacking a sanitised lid on the kettle and leaving it for a day.

 

[arogers]

What does everyone do to their mash water to get it to the right pH? Recently begun doing AG and thus far they have turned out OK (as far as I know) but I have just been using boiled sydney water and not adjusting pH at all. Apparently our water here is in the 7's? Is this a huge problem?

 

[buttersd70]

What does everyone do to their mash water to get it to the right pH? Recently begun doing AG and thus far they have turned out OK (as far as I know) but I have just been using boiled sydney water and not adjusting pH at all. Apparently our water here is in the 7's? Is this a huge problem?

Ah, I hate f'n repeating myself when drunk........I did long posts on this in the last 24-48 hrs.
Read my ramblings Here.

Apoogies for rant.

 

[braufrau]

You never had any issues with this? Just cooling it in the kettle? I was contemplating this myself....the cube method is a PITA. Do you give it a CO2 squirt to balanket, or is at simple as turning the kettle off and putting on the lid?

I've only done it once. Lovely BPA. I ended up getting a chiller because I brew in the kitchen and it was PITA having the kettle hanging around so long.

I met a guy the other day who has been doing it for years. He'd never heard of "no chill" and laughed at the idea that it wasn't safe to
chill in the kettle. He's a pharmacist ... if that gives him more "cred".

Bacteria have to fall, or be blown into your kettle for them to infect it. They can't climb. Sticking on the lid is safe, I believe.
Check out pasteur's swan neck flask experiment ... link
Putting it in a cube risks infection from using a second vessel.

 

[arogers]

lol butters, thanks for the link.

 

[braufrau]

So I just checked with the English pharmacist at work ... I asked him was sticking the lid on and leaving the kettle to cool something he learnt in england and was it common practice and he looked all vague and said
"yeah .. i suppose it was .. I never thought about it .. its just what we did!".

 

[PostModern]

Not to derail this salts thread into another no-chill debate, but the topic is already broached....

I have about 40 litres of wort sitting in cubes in my kitchen waiting to ferment. They were the result of three flexi days. Tell me how I could make all that beer letting the wort chill in the kettle.

Yes, I agree you can slow chill in your kettle, if you transfer to fermenter and pitch yeast quickly, but I dispute that there is an increased risk of infection by no-chilling in a cube if you follow the golden rules of no-chilling, namely: use a clean and sanitised cube and transfer hose (5 mins of sloshing iodophor around during the boil); fill with very hot wort (80C+); invert the cube after filling to sanitise the lid with heat. Hundreds of IBU batches can't be wrong.

I don't see how the number of vessels relates to the chance of infection. If that was the case, we'd all be BIABing and fermenting in the kettle.

 

[braufrau]

Not to derail this salts thread into another no-chill debate, but the topic is already broached....

I have about 40 litres of wort sitting in cubes in my kitchen waiting to ferment. They were the result of three flexi days. Tell me how I could make all that beer letting the wort chill in the kettle.

Yes, I agree you can slow chill in your kettle, if you transfer to fermenter and pitch yeast quickly, but I dispute that there is an increased risk of infection by no-chilling in a cube if you follow the golden rules of no-chilling, namely: use a clean and sanitised cube and transfer hose (5 mins of sloshing iodophor around during the boil); fill with very hot wort (80C+); invert the cube after filling to sanitise the lid with heat. Hundreds of IBU batches can't be wrong.

I don't see how the number of vessels relates to the chance of infection. If that was the case, we'd all be BIABing and fermenting in the kettle.

Oh dear .. I knew I shouldn't have bought up the subject of no chill ... you couldn't brew 40 litres of wort and have it sitting in kettles (unless you had a lot of kettles).

Every new vessel is a potential source of contamination, which is why we sanitise! sanitise! sanitise! and the safest thing would be fermenting in the kettle, which all nice and sanitised by default! But not practical.

The original poster of this thread is planning concentrated boils to fit into a cube, despite the fact he has a 50l kettle. I was merely suggesting a way of no-chilling that would not involve concentrated boils and simpler and safer than using the cube if you're not planning on storing the wort.


Please read the thread before jumping down my throat.

 

[PostModern]

Putting it in a cube risks infection from using a second vessel.

There's nothing like a good argument, but it seems I've gotten myself (yet again) into a bad one.

I was primarily responding to this comment. Sure, it's not the entirety of what you were saying, but the impression you make with casual lines like this is that no-chilling creates a new risk. I just posted to give the other side of the coin. Apologies.

 

[braufrau]

Ok sorry postmodern .. looks like I over-reacted!

Anyway, back to a more civilised vein .. postmodern .. when you no chill, do you do concentrated boils? Or do you have bigger cubes than davelovesbeer?
Or something else???

 

[PostModern]

Ok sorry postmodern .. looks like I over-reacted! sad.gif

I should have quoted better in my first post.

.. postmodern .. when you no chill, do you do concentrated boils? Or do you have bigger cubes than davelovesbeer?
Or something else???

A little from column A, a little from column B. I mostly have 17L cubes (ex-NNL Wort packs) but also some 23L ones. Depending on my mood and which cubes are empty, I'll either brew a 23L batch at final gravity, a double batch of 17L at high gravity or any other combination, such as 40L split between two different sized cubes. The flexibility is great!

Generally I only brew to get 20L in the keg and don't bottle anything, so 23L batches lead to me drinking 3L of warm beer straight from the fermenter tap. Not a pretty sight

 

[davelovesbeer]

Thanks for eveeyones input. Screwtop is giving me a hand outside this thread, so Im sure it will all work out, whether I brew for a 23L batch, or reduce the grain/hop for a 17L batch only.

Not wanting to reopen the 'cool in the brewpot' thing again now that braufrau and Postmodern have kissed and made up. But if you were going to leave it in your brewpot to chill, wouldnt it be just as easy to transfer the hot wort straight into the sterilised fermenter, cool, aerate and pitch yeast. I assumed the point of the cube is not only for blokes without chillers, but letting the wort cool with no air in the cube to contaminate. The pot has an air space above, so wouldnt the fermenter be better than the pot as you can seal it? Almost same as putting in an oversize cube.