First all grain on Sat quick questions

I am planning on making my first all-grain brew this weekend and I Have a few questions for some experts or people who know.

First, I am looking at ration of 1.33qt/lb of grain, the question I have here is that about right?

Second, I here that there is no need for a mash out but will have to collect more wort in a second running. I plan to drain the first rinning all out of cooler before leaving the grain, at this point I will know how much sparge water I need (if I get 3 gallons from first rnning I will add 4 to get 7 gallons. How do I know what my sparge temp should be?

I have watched about 15 youtube videos and the video on this forum posted last year, all great but ach was diffrent. One said to add boiling wather the second time for a mash out another said 167 degrees. Just curious what you all thought. Any help is always appreciated.

I just found a decent website that has the water calculations pretty decent here it is

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

It says if I want the mash temp at 155 to heat strike water to 167

Your water/grain ratio is fine. I’ve used anything from .75/lb (tried to do a step mash) to 2qt/lb. It’s a forgiving process. So you can just round up your amounts to the nearest quart.

Yes you can skip adding water to the MT before the 1st runnings if you want.

For the water temps. I seem to loose about 10* when I add the grain. So I actually start 20* warmer. Add the water to the cooler and let it sit for 5 minutes. Allow the cooler to heat up, then stir to cool the water down to the 10* mark. Then add the grain. Stir, and you should be close to the temp you want. Hopefully you are high, just stir a little more to bring it down.

I’ve found that even adding near/boiling water doesn’t seem to bring the temp up anywhere close to 170*. So I don’t worry about the water being to warm.

Brew365 is a great site.

I like using Mashwater 3.3 for water calculations. It list water temp and volumes. Also takes into account hop absorption in the boil.

http://suburb.semo.net/jet1024/beer/sof ... tware.html

Thanks, I was readinga process not sure were but it said to check temp every 15 min and stir. In all the videos I watched it set let sit for the mash time usually around an hour, do you suggest opeining the cooler every 15 min to stir?

Your mash ratio is good.

A online calculator should help you with your infusion amounts and temperatures. If you were planning on doing a mashout, your second infusion would be of boiling water that would bring the mash up to mashout temperatures (168-170). Whether you plan to do a mashout or not, your sparge water should probably be around 170 degrees.

When I first started I was getting poor efficiency so I tried stirring every 15 minutes of the mash and saw no real improvement until I started crushing my own grain. Now, you don’t need to do this but I would recommend having some DME around just in case you miss your gravity by a healthy margin.

Heating water to near boiling for a semi mashout during the sparge I think is a waste of time and money so I just add 165* water for a batch sparge, stir the crap out of it and then let it settle for a bit before draining. I think I remember hearing on here something about some research on sparging with room temp water that had no negative affect on the beer or lautering process so I don’t think temp is a big issue.

Also, have you watched the new video on from Northern Brewer with John Palmer, that one was pretty solid and the guy definitely has a reputation as someone who knows what he’s doing.

[quote=“Jon462”]do you suggest opeining the cooler every 15 min to stir?[/quote]Stir, stir, stir at the beginning and make sure that you have a consistent temp throughout the mashtun, then button it up and leave it be - opening and stirring will just lower the temp.

If you assume that the grain will hold 0.125 gallons of wort per lb, you can estimate the sparge volume.

[quote=“Shadetree”][quote=“Jon462”]do you suggest opeining the cooler every 15 min to stir?[/quote]Stir, stir, stir at the beginning and make sure that you have a consistent temp throughout the mashtun, then button it up and leave it be - opening and stirring will just lower the temp.

If you assume that the grain will hold 0.125 gallons of wort per lb, you can estimate the sparge volume.[/quote]

No matter how much I stir at the beginning, it seems like it takes a good 10 minutes for the water and grain to come to equilibrium (temperature wise). So, if you get everything stirred up and your mash temp seems 5 - 10 degrees high, don’t panic and start dumping in ice. Give it a while and check again.

See www.dennybrew.com for proper batch sparging technique.

Thanks everybody great help, hopefully this will be the last question on this topic. My cooler is 32 quarts, I read most people use a 48 qt cooler is 32 ok or should I buy a new 48 qt cooler?

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

In the link above, there is a calculator “can I mash this”. It will tell you how much space a given grain/water ration will take up.

No reason not to use the 36qt cooler if your mash volume will fit.

+1 for Denny’s site, really helped me get down my process. I usually mash at closer 1.5 qt per lb, but like others have pointed out go with what you are comfortable with. I use Beersmith which does a great job calculating strike temps, mash volume, sparge volumes, etc. Of course any of these programs will work great, play with them and pick one you like best.

+1 on the mill too, that was the biggest improvement I made in getting some consistency to my brew efficiency. The mill at my LHS was pretty horrid and got jammed all the time. Every time they would fix it, it would change the crush which made it almost impossible to predict my efficiency.

Good luck!
:cheers: