when i try and follow the recipe on the st paul porter all grain, How/where do I account for the extra water? do I just add it after the boil? Here’s what the directions say:
single infusion water amount is: 12.65 quarts
mash out water amount is: 6.31 quarts.
That combined equals 18.96 quarts which is 4 gallons 2.96quarts,
but then the total mash volume is suggested at 5.62 gallons?
So where do I account for the difference? thanks.
Are you batch sparging or fly?
11lb of grain. X 1.25qt = 13.75 quarts mash in water. They seem to be using 1.15qts/lb of grain.
11lb of grain will absorb a little over 1g of water. More loss with the dead space of the cooler. So Using NB’s #, Strike water + mash out water - ~1.25g (absorption) = ~3.25g in the pot.
After draining, add another 3 gallons of water to the mash, stir, recirculate and drain. This will give you ~6.25 gallons in the pot.
Adjust for your boil off rate and how much you want in the fermenter, 5-5.5 gallons.
Looks like the instruction may be missing something. Or I’m not seeing it.
well im using two ten gallon rubbermaid jugs, set up with northern brewer’s mash tun and sparge kit. So I don’t know if it’s called fly or batch? thanks for the info though, No the instructions don’t really explain how the grist soaks up a gallon of water and other info you mentioned.
Typically the two cooler method would involve fly (continuous) sparging. But you can do batch sparging.
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter16.html
Batch sparging you recirculate the wort to get grain particles filtered out by create a filter bed with the grain husks. Then completely drain the cooler. Add more water, recirculate and drain.
Fly sparging you recirculate the wort, then start to drain the cooler while at the same time adding fresh water to to cooler. Trying to maintain about 1" of water above the grain bed.
With either method, keep an extra .5-1g of hot water available just in case you calculation are off. Grain absorption rate can vary by how fine of a crush the grain is. And each set up has it’s own “dead space” to account for. .1 to .15qts/lb is a good place to start for the water loss.
To help with your water calclulation you can use Mashwater 3.3 that JT built.
http://gnipsel.com/beer/software/beer-software.html
Qbrew is also a free recipe program you can use to keep track of your brews. And give you an idea what would happen if you added another pound of grain to a recipe if your gravity comes out a bit low.
