benzy4010

Recipes 

Ve brewed a couple of beers now but I think I've been sparking wrong. I've made drinkable beer every time but wondering if my sparing may have led to weaker watered down brews. I mash with 1.5 qts per lb go grain. When I'm collecting the first runnings I collect them in large plastic containers that have measurements on them which tells me how much exactly I collected. I then figure out how much water I need to Sparge with. I heat that amount up ( to get 6 gallons pre boil) and pour and stir with my grains then collect until I have six gallons. Sometimes I still have water left in my mash tun. Am I doing this way wrong. A few brews have tasted a bit weak such as my Belgian wit. Also do I need to heat Sparge water?

benzy4010

Recipes 

Do I want to make it so I get 3 gallons on mashing and 3 on Sparge? Or the majority on mash?

tektonjp

Recipes 

If you want 6 gallons in your kettle for boil, you'll need to also compensate for water absorbed by the grain and dead space in your mash tun. As for "weak", you'll never know unless you measure the gravity of your runnings, etc. Hydrometer or refractometer.

__________________
Tempest Bebende!

squeekybobo

Recipes 

Yes! Heat sparge water. I find about 185-190 gets my grain bed to about 170, about where you want it for sparging.

benzy4010

Recipes 

Is there any formula for grain absorption?

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

No. It varies a little depending on your system, but it should be close to 0.5 quarts per lb of grain. Measure your water loss on the first runnings and then measure your deadspace after you sparge. Subtract the deadspace from your water loss and that will give you a better idea of what's happening in your system.

__________________
Slots Down Brewery
Stick with the plan....not the sparge.

Never Ending Liquid Yeast - How to Farm Yeast and Freeze it.

benzy4010

Recipes 

How do you calculate dead space?

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

Measure the leftover wort that didn't come out when you drained the mash tun.

__________________
Slots Down Brewery
Stick with the plan....not the sparge.

Never Ending Liquid Yeast - How to Farm Yeast and Freeze it.

sonex

Recipes 

for grain absorbtion figure 1 pint per pound of grain.

Glynn

Recipes 

Put 3 gals of water in your tun and measure what you get back with out tipping the tuns, if you get back 2.5 gals then your dead space is .5 gal. I personally don't measure dead space when i do my mash i tilt the tun to extract all that i can and then batch sparge with 175 degree water to reach 7 gal of total wort. after a 60 min boil I'm usually at or just under 5.5 gal

__________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson
Duct tape. The handyman's secret weapon - Red Green

Naughty Kitty Brewing EST 1993
Primary 1 - Bobtail Pale Ale
Primary 2 -
Primary 3 -
Secondary 1 -
Secondary 2 -
Bottled - Alley Cat Amber, Fat Cat Imperial IPA, Bobtail Pale Ale, Citridian Wheat IPA