When To Add Water

[quincy]

My current MT is too small (25 litre esky).

With a standard grain bill of approx 5kg, I can fit (just) about 15 litres in for the mash.
I batch sparge and generally can fit around 12 litres in for the sparge.

With evaporation and trub loses in the kettle, I end up with about 18 litres in the fermenter. With some more small loses to the fermenter I end up with about 17 litres in the keg.

To get around this I bump up the grain bill a little and add a couple of litres to the fermenter prior to pitching. This still gives me an OG of around 1.050 and a full keg - All good

It got me thinking as to when would be the best time to add the top up water.

I thought it might be better to add the extra water to the kettle before boiling ...?

Any thoughts...



Cheers
Q

 

[Offline]

If you kettle can fit it I would be adding it to the kettle. It will improve your hop utilisation, not by much though if your only talking about a couple of litres.

Another option would be to do an extra sparge, so brake your sparge in to 2 equal volumes, this way you will get improved efficiency but it will take a little longer to do.

Another option would be to boil this water prior (maybe while you are mashing) then add it to the fermenter hot as part of you sanitising process.

 

[crundle]

Hi Quincy,

I BIAB, so I can't comment on the effects of not adding water while mashing or sparging, but as far as hop utilisation goes, it is better to have the water in the kettle to help extract the goodies from the hops than it is to add it later. You can add it later, but you would then have to add more hops to the boil to make up for the lack of volume. How much you would need to add and how big a deal this is, I will leave to others who know more about it. Obviously a factor in that would be how much water you are going to add. 1 litre or so may not have much of an effect on hop utilisation, but 2 or more may.

There is also the question of how efficient your extraction of sugars from the grain will be with less water, but I can't really help you there.

cheers,

Crundle

 

[quincy]

Never thought of hop utilisation..was too busy thinking about the gravity...

I think adding to the kettle seems to be the best option...


Cheers

Q

 

[muckey]

for a couple of litres of water I cant see it would make any difference.
I routinely add 1 or 2 litres into the fermenter mainly to adjust OG to what I am looking for

if talking 5 or more litres I would look at 2 sparges (as previously suggested) due to the small size of your mash tun. that way you'll bump your efficiency and get the extra litres into the kettle.

 

[Gavo]

Simple really, Just do multiple sparges until you reach your desired pre-boil volume, you will end up with a littel better efficiency also. My first MLT was 15lt, I used it mostly for partials but did a couple of AG's in it and did three rounds of sparging to reach the desired pre-boil. Just a PITA.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[quincy]

Yep - looking like either multiple sparges or add top up water preboil...

Thanks for all the replies...

Cheers
Q

 

[hazard]

Yep - looking like either multiple sparges or add top up water preboil...

Thanks for all the replies...

Cheers
Q

I would go an additional sparge.

I use a 20L MT, and when doing partial mashes (3kg of grain) I was doing a mash out plus 1 sparge to fill a 19L kettle, was achieving 75% efficeincy. I bought a big kettle recently and have gone AG, I am now mashing about 5kg of grain and mashing out plus 2 sparges - my efficeincy has jumped to 85%. So don't think of extra sparge as additional time, it may also give you more efficency.

Hazard

 

[quincy]

I would go an additional sparge.

I bought a big kettle recently and have gone AG, I am now mashing about 5kg of grain and mashing out plus 2 sparges - my efficeincy has jumped to 85%. So don't think of extra sparge as additional time, it may also give you more efficency.

Hazard

Now I'm sold.

Multiple sparges it is

Cheers
Q

 

[muckey]

Now I'm sold.

Multiple sparges it is

Cheers
Q

will work a treat.
just remember you cant sparge indefinitely. I've never run more than 2 batch sparges so never check but you'll make sure you aren't extracting anything unwanted by overdoing it

 

[quincy]

Will continue with the 12 litre sparge and add 2-3 litres half way through.

That should give me the required volume without extracting any nasties

Cheers
Q

 

[muckey]

Will continue with the 12 litre sparge and add 2-3 litres half way through.

That should give me the required volume without extracting any nasties

Cheers
Q

sounds perfick to me!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

definately multiple sparges - I made maybe 40AG batches in a 20L mash tun. All with fermenter volumes of 20-25L

2-3 runnings on your batch sparge and you will be fine for anything but the biggest beers

Dont - add 2-3L etc etc. Keep your run-off volumes uniform. You want equal volumes out every time you run-off.

So - run off say 10
add 10 sparge - run-off 10
add 10 sparge - run-off 10

= 30L pre-boil

or some variation that matches you required volumes ... but equal run-off volumes. This will give you a much better efficiency and a smoother process.

TB

 

[quincy]

definately multiple sparges - I made maybe 40AG batches in a 20L mash tun. All with fermenter volumes of 20-25L

2-3 runnings on your batch sparge and you will be fine for anything but the biggest beers

Dont - add 2-3L etc etc. Keep your run-off volumes uniform. You want equal volumes out every time you run-off.

So - run off say 10
add 10 sparge - run-off 10
add 10 sparge - run-off 10

= 30L pre-boil

or some variation that matches you required volumes ... but equal run-off volumes. This will give you a much better efficiency and a smoother process.

TB

So with my standard 12 litres + 3 litres top up, I should run 7.5 litres and stop - add 3 litres and sparge the final 7.5 litres?

I generally give the mash a good stir after adding the initial 12 litres and allow it to settle for 15 mins or so before draining. Should I do the same after adding the top up, and then drain to the kettle?

Cheers
Q