Water Volume For Ag

[goatherder]

Hi All,

First off, i'm a long time lurker, first time poster who's just getting back into HB. I can't say enough about the depth of information on this site and the generosity of the community - it's a credit to you all.

I'm gathering materials for a foray into AG. The question I have is about the volume of water for mashing and sparging.

I'm planning to make ~20l batches and batch sparge. Can I get away with buying a cheap 20l SS pot for my HLT if I do the following:

1: Heat mash water to proper temp
2: dump mash water into mash tun with grain
3: while grain is mashing, refill HLT and heat.
4: sparge

IE will 2 x 20l of water be enough for making a 20l batch?
AND
is there enough time to heat the sparge water while the mash is in progress?

thanks,

goatherder

 

[Joel]

G'day Goatherder,

I use a 30L electric urn for a HLT, and I find I have to top it up a bit during the mash (it's got about 5L of deadspace below the tap). But alot of guys use 20L urns for their HLT and don't seem to have any dramas. The hour long mash should be plenty of time to heat your sparge water up.

I also have a normal kitchen kettle full of boiling water on standby to help in heating the water or to raise the mash temp if I miss my dough in temp.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jye]

IE will 2 x 20l of water be enough for making a 20l batch?

Yep, lets say you use 6kg of grain and mash at 2.5L/kg, you will need 15L of water for the mash. If you want a preboil volume of 26L then for your first sparge you will need to add 4L of water to the mash (because you want to have 2 equal sparges) and this will give you 13L in the kettle in your first run off. Then add another 13L to the mash for your second sparge.

So you will first need 15L in your HLT and then 17L (4L + 13L) the second time.

is there enough time to heat the sparge water while the mash is in progress?

Heaps of time, but it will depend on how you are heating you water. Stove, ring burner, HP burner or electric elements?

Cheers
Jye :beer:

 

[Stuster]

I have a 50 litre aluminium pot as my kettle and also heat the mash water in. I heat mash out water (if I bother with this) and then heat run off into it. Heat up sparge water in a 20l SS pot from BigW. If I need more water than this, I just heat up a few more litres quickly. This is fine using a NASA burner as it only takes a few minutes to get the water up to the right temp. Sometimes I have just heated all the mash out/sparge water in the big pot to over the temp I want for the sparge, transfer it to a fermenter, then move it from there to the mash tun. All very primitive, but makes beer. :beerbang:

Essentially, the plan sounds fine. You have an hour+ to heat the sparge water after all.

 

[AndrewQLD]

welcome to posting,
First off the average AG brew with say 4 kilo of grain will need between 10 and 12 lt water to mash in, that is with a water to grain ratio of 2.5l/k or 3l/k.
The problem you will have is with the sparge, aprox 4litres of water will be soaked up by the grains so assumming you go with the 3l/kilo ratio you will extract 8 lt of wort into your boiler.
With a vigourous boil I lose 6lt per hour from evaporation so to get 20lt at the end of the boil you need 26+lt at the start of the boil. So 26lt - the 8lt from the mash gives you 18+lt for the sparge, so yes it is possible but it will be tight because the above figures don't take into account kettle losses or losses to hops ect. Personally I think a 20 lt HLT is way to small, don't forget that a 20lt pot is 20lt to the brim so you would only be able to heat 18lt effectively.

Cheers
Andrew
Edit
and that just shows the differences in brewing styles, Jye is refering to batch sparging, while I assumed you would be fly sparging.

 

[Airgead]

Personally I think a 20 lt HLT is way to small, don't forget that a 20lt pot is 20lt to the brim so you would only be able to heat 18lt effectively.

Cheers
Andrew
Edit
and that just shows the differences in brewing styles, Jye is refering to batch sparging, while I assumed you would be fly sparging.

[post="116148"][/post]​

Andrew

I use a 20L urn for the HLT (actually 25l with 5l dead space under the tap) and fly sparge with no problems. I make sure the urn is full and hot at the end of the mash then do a mashout for 20 mins. This uses about 4-5l of water so I top up the urn and have 20 mins to bring it back up to temp which is heaps of time. That additional 4-5l means I have about 25l of available sparge water plus the 12 or so I use to mash in which lets me get 30 in the kettle easily.

Batch sparging would be even easier as you have the break between sparges to re-heat the water.

Cheers
Dave

 

[KoNG]

Herder,
i use a 20L ali pot for my HLT to do 23-24L batches, its a little annoying but nothing to stressful. Definately doable though, so get to it.

 

[goatherder]

thanks for the replies, looks like it's a goer.