Ok, newbie to all grain - and I’ve been doing 5 gallon batches with extracts.
I got a 10 gallon kettle and NB 5 gallon all grain system, 6.5 gallon primary and 5 gallon secondary carboys.
So I know I shouldn’t be able to do higher gravity beers with the 5 gallon AG system, but I got a black IPA before I realized this. At any rate, there are about 13 lbs of grain in that AG kit, which I figured means about 4 gallons of mash water (at 1.50 quarts per lb) and 6.5 gallons of sparge/lauter water (at 2 quarts per lb of grain) - PLUS the 1.5 gallons of boiling water to mash out?
(That’s 12 gallons of H20!)
So I wind up with not only far more than can fit in the 5 gallon coolers (fine, I expected that) but I’ve got over 9 gallons in the brew kettle now (and more that I collected in another pot)…
So how on earth am I going to be able to get that into a 5 gallon carboy for fermentation… I must be missing something here, need help! Am I to expect that a bunch of this will boil off in a hour?
You can change from 1.5 quarts per pound of grain to 1.2 quarts. Also cut back some on the sparge water to 1 quart per pound. I shouldn’t be giving advice when I am new to all grain also. But I have the opposite problem, too little wort after the boil. Anyway, before you brew, measure you water in your brew pot by adding a gallon at a time, get a paint stick or something and mark each gallon by putting the stick in the pot. Mark the water line. Do this with every gallon until you reach 9 gallons. Now you have an idea how much wort you will have after you do your first running after you use your stick to measure it. Add enough sparge water to bring your total volume to 8 or 8.5 gallons. You will loose volume during the boil, but I think you will wind up with an amount that will fit in the 6.5 carboy. Good luck. I’m sure you will get better advice from more experienced brewers.
I have a 5 gallon bucket with measuring lines on it and keep track of first runnings. I do not let it run too dry and then make up the difference between my final boil volume less first runnings = batch sparge volume.
Works very well except I imported a recipe in Beersmith and used that as a starting point this weekend for a batch. There were totally different efficiencies and lost volumes than with my set up and I ended up with extra wort and lower gravity than I hoped
