I am planning on doing a 9 pound grain mash…I have 5 gallon igloo cooler… I am guessing I should use a 1 to 1… 1 qt of h20 to 1 pound grain. So 2.25 gallons water mash… Then after first run off end up with 1.45 gallons… Then figure to batch sparge with 4.25 to finish with… Ending up with 5.65 for my boil…
Another question…temperature on batch sparge… Sry bout question last batch I made was may 2010… Long time waitin…
Cheers
You could go that route, but you’ll end up with lousy efficiency. Which is of course not a problem if you are calculating that into your planning. You’ll get much higher efficiency if you split up that sparge into two batches, or if you try a fly sparge instead.
I’ll assume you’ll boil off at least 1 gallon, so you’ll need at least 6 gallons pre boil. You may find that you need more than 6 gallons pre-boil to hit 5 gallons.
Meanwhile, I’d mash in with 4.25 gallons for 1.9 qt/#, which should give you about 3 gallons of first runnings. Then you could sparge with 3 additional gallons, for a total of 6 gallons.
the temp on the mash depends on what you want out of your beer. a good average is 153.
Adding 2.25 gallons of water to 9 lbs of grain brings the total volume of mash above 4 gallons, so there isn’t space in that cooler to add much more. The OP might want to consider getting a bigger cooler.
Sorry, I ignored the size of the cooler. :oops:
My 5 gallon Rubbermaid cooler holds just about 5.2 gallons when filled to the brim. According to BeerTools Pro, which has always predicted volumes accurately for me, you should be able to squeeze 4 gallons of water in there with 9 # of grain and still be below the 5 gallon mark. To do that, I’d add 1/2 to 2/3 of it, stir well to make sure you wet the grain fully, then add the rest.
Neither of those matches my experience. I got virtually no better efficiency with 2 sparges than I do with one. And my batch sparge efficiency is the same or better than those who fly sparge.
Denny, how is your efficiency with two very unequal drainings of the mash tun? That is the situation I was comparing the other situations to. With equal drainings, I only get a slight improvement with two sparges vs. three, but on very big beers it can make enough of a difference that I’ll do it.
If I can’t fit all the sparge water into the cooler at once, like large batches or high OG, I do use 2 sparges. I just put as much water into the cooler as I can ft at one time and don’t worry much about getting equal volumes. My efficiency stays about the same, IIRC, but it’s been so long since I’ve done it that I’d have to check my notes. I eventually decided I’d rather use a bigger cooler than do multiple sparges, so that’s what I’ve been doing for quite a few years.
