first all grain tomorrow

Going to do a pale ale recipe tomorrow, first all grain for me after about 3 years of extract. Questions...

I have 5 gal igloo coolers, recipe calls for 10 lbs grain. I think I need a little over 4 gal of water to mash at. How much sparge water do I use to run through, only about 2 gallons with 6 gallon wort? Am I right?

3.12 gallons of water for a 1.25 quart to 1 lb ratio. depending on your deadspace and grain absorption you'll yield probably a little less than 2 gallons. you'll sparge with however much it'll take to get your preboil volume

Correct. I usually mash in at 1.3 qt / 1 lb. That would give 3.25 gallons for mash water. Be sure to preheat the mash tun - I use a teapot full of boiling water while I heat my mash water. You'll want to shoot some 5 - 10 degrees higher then your target mash temperature to compensate for the grain being around room temperature .

I lose approx. .12 gallons of water for each pound of grain, so you'll need to calculate that as well. Assuming that, you'll end up with about 2 gallons from your mash. From there just sparge until you get your pre-boil volume. I aim for around 6.25 gallons but it will depend on your boil off rate.

went by jkellner29's house yesterday afternoon to check an all grain brew in progress. it smelled like beer and looked like beer....i think he nailed it. can't wait to try it...

Im going to try my second all grain this week , my first finished up at about 3.8% , not very efficient , hope to get it right this time

jkellner29 said:

I have 5 gal igloo coolers, recipe calls for 10 lbs grain. I think I need a little over 4 gal of water to mash at. How much sparge water do I use to run through, only about 2 gallons with 6 gallon wort? Am I right?

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You'll probably lose about 1.5 gallons along the way so I would plan on using 4 gallons for sparge and you can always stop the sparge when you have enough wort.

ubenumber2 said:

Im going to try my second all grain this week , my first finished up at about 3.8% , not very efficient , hope to get it right this time

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My first AG finished at 3.9%, so dont worry. How were your temps? I undershot mine first go around.

Also, I have had far better efficiency when I purchased a grain mill rather then use the LHBS crush.

Completed the all grain, pale ale last Sunday and its been bubbling away since.
At a mash temp of 152, I hit about 150.6 which I thought was good for my first attempt. I ended up taking about 4.5 hrs from start to finish. Not too bad but in the end added about .5 gal as I had lost about 1.5 through the grain absorption and boil. I believe the og was supposed to be about 1.052??? But I took a reading at 4.5 gallons, 80 degrees at the time. Reading was high 1.060, I guess because I was more concentrated in the end less water, high temp. Overall I will see mid week what it finish final gravity at..if it hits close to what I was thinking for final gravity, I will be happy, thoughts?

Yeah Ive been looking at buying a mill , right now buying my grains online pre crushed , my temp at mash could have been my problem , everything else I know was close enough to be better and I fermented at 68 degrees , Im going to give it a shot with a new thermometer on an IPA using a liquid yeast this week

remuS said:

My first AG finished at 3.9%, so dont worry. How were your temps? I undershot mine first go around.

Also, I have had far better efficiency when I purchased a grain mill rather then use the LHBS crush.

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I always sparge till I have between 6.5 and 7 gallons of wort in my boil kettle. I know exactly where the magic mark is on the kettle. After the boil I have around 6 gallons to pour into the fermenter and by the time I transfer to secondary I have about 5.5 gallons. My goal is to get a good clean 5 gallons into the keg and I almost always achieve my goal.

For planning I use my batch size for how much sparge water I need. It usually comes out very close to that.