Newbie Q

Hi all. So I brewed my first all-grain batch today. Forgive me if this question has been raised a million times, but I couldn’t find an answer trolling around the forums for a few minutes. I watched the NB All-Grain 301 DVD. In it, it is suggested that one use 1.25-1.50 quarts per pound for the mash, and 2 quarts per pound for the sparge. On top of this, it suggests 6 quarts for a 10 minute mash-out rest. This seemed like a ton of water for a 5 gallon batch and didn’t jive with numbers I was getting from various calculators. I decided to go with 1.25 on the mash and 1.75 on the sparge, and the 6 quarts for mash out…still a lot of water. First question…when I’m continuous/fly sparging, should I just turn off the valve when I reach my boil volume in my kettle. In other words, get 6 to 6.5 gallons and shut it down? Am I leaving tons of sugar behind? I brewed the NB Black IPA kit with a 1075 OG. I ended up pulling 8 gallons into my kettle, and wound up with 6.25 gallons in my primary at 1061. Should I have just pulled 6.5g rather than let everything flow through? Thanks in advance.

Not knowing what the grain bill was on the video you can’t go by that the 6qts mash out rest.

Mashwater3.3 works good for me with water calculations. The same water volumes should be needed for Fly or Batch sparging.

http://gnipsel.com/beer/software/beer-software.html

IMO, your mash should be dry when you reach your pre boil volume.

Keep an extra .5gallons of water available in case you need a little more.

Very tough to nail this on your first try. I am guessing if you stopped at about 7.5 gallons and boiled a little longer, you would have nailed your O.G. Lots of variables you need to fine tune.

Crush
Mash temps
Efficiency

I recommend getting BeerSmith and recording your info to get a baseline from which you can adjust

Thanks for the input all. Does it makes sense to simply subtract 6 quarts from my sparge volume? Most of the mash calculators I’ve seen don’t seem to factor in any water used to stop enzyme activity prior to sparging.

By the way, love the name and hope you are a big fan od the Duo.

Wish I could help more with fly sparging. Seems to complicated to me with limited benefit. In my case with batch sparging, I try to equal out my first runnings with my sparse water amounts, within a half gallon. I always add about 1/2 gallon of extra water to get weak wort for the next round of starters.

Give an example of a recipe, lbs of grain used.