Getting ready to do my 1st all grain and have a couple questions to any who wish to chime in.-(Denny?). Be gentle, this is my first time.
I am going to do a batch sparge. From my research it seems that many people will mash at a certain water/grain ratio, then calculate and add additional water after the mash (taking into account dead space and grain absorption) to get approx 50% of the total boil volume (don’t know if this is a true mash out or not or if it even matters). Then do 1st running after vorlauf. Measures first runnings volume (hopefully close to 50%), then calculate volume of sparge water needed (hopefully close to 50%), pour sparge water in at 85-90deg, stir, vorlauf, and drain for total boil volume.
My questions:
Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.
When calculating sparge volume, do you add more than the needed volume to account for any additional grain absorption/dead space, or is the grain already saturated and dead space now constant?
Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?
If you don’t have Beersmith www.brewheads.com has a nice Batch sparge calculator that’s free. I have been doing batch sparging for a year using Yoda’s (Denny’s) method. Don’t get frustrated, it may take some time to get your volumes and temps. dialed in so that they are consistant. A really accurate quick read thermometer is the most important tool I have. IMHO.
[quote=“Rookie L A”][quote=“Trapae”]
Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?
Thanks, T[/quote]
Stick to brewing. Over the last year my wife has taken up knitting, she’s gotten pretty good; brewing is so much easier. :? [/quote]
…but what a good waste of time while you wait for the mash.
1st all gain this weekend, just wanted to confirm that mash water temp should be around 185, so after it goes in, it will be around 170? I see for fly people use 170 so no tannins, but I guess with batch sparging, we drain so quick that the higher temp is not an issue?
[quote=“Trapae”]1st all gain this weekend, just wanted to confirm that mash water temp should be around 185, so after it goes in, it will be around 170? I see for fly people use 170 so no tannins, but I guess with batch sparging, we drain so quick that the higher temp is not an issue?[/quote]If you’re talking about the sparge water temp, then yes, 170F is fine. But if you’re talking about the strike water, you want that at a temp that after you’re heated the MT and added the grain you’ll end up at the correct mash temp - typically the strike temp is maybe 10-15F greater than the desired mash temp.
I’ve been successful hitting my mash temps using the infusion mask calculator on tasty brew www.tastybrew.com/calculators. I don’t preheat my tun, so I usually add a couple of degrees to the desired strike water temperature to account for that and I am always within a degree or two of the recommended temperature.
Did first all grain last weekend and it went really well. Wanted 6.25g preboil, after grain absorption and dead space, I got 3g first running, and total of 6.375g after batch sparge. Preboil OG 1.050. Efficiency turned out to be 74%, which I am happy with. Only hiccup was that I boiled off way more than I thought I would for a 90 min boil ( about 1/2 g more ) so my pale ale’s postboil OG turned out to be 1.067 instead of 1.055. I guess it will be a strong pale. I week into primary now. I will let ya all know how it tastes when kegged.
