Dark_Ale

Recipes 

I built a Mash Tun out of a round igloo cooler. When I add my water and grain it takes 5 gallons of water to cover the grain 1 inch. Is my tun to big? With the lauter and sparge how much total wort should I begin my boil with?

david_42

Recipes 

Generally 6-6.5 gallons is a good start for a boil. A high gravity ale, you might go as high as 7.5-8 gallons. Five gallons of water to cover your grain is a lot, but it really depends on how much grain you have in the tun. So long as you are in the 1 1/3 to 2 quarts per pound range, it will work.

__________________
Remember one unassailable statistic, as explained by the late, great George Carlin: "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"

"I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact." Elon Musk

Dark_Ale

Recipes 

One of the problems is that where to push button was that I removed and replaced with a valve sits up about an inch from the bottom. This leaves a bit of liquid, I can tilt it and get most but not all of it. I need to build a type of header that sits lower, but thats another day I guess.

Mikey

Recipes 

You're not supposed to cover your grain with water during the mash- that's FAR too 'thin'. The usual ratio is 1.25 qts. to 1 pound of grain. Your mash should look like really thick porridge.

The 'covering the grain' part of the beer making process is only when you sparge.

cowain

Recipes 

I don't know about that. I think it probably depends on your mash tun. When I use a ration of 1.25 quarts per pound, I usually have several inches of water sitting above the grain. In order to achieve your porridge consistency I'd have a ratio of about 1 to 1.

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

Yep, I always have water covering my grains in either my round 5g cooler or my rectangular 36qt, even at 1.1qt/lb. The best way to deal with the elevated height of the drainvalve is, as you say, to build a manifold that sits lower in the tun.

As far as volumes, that depends on your weather and kettle configuration. Under most conditions, I need 7g to boil for 60-75 minutes and have 5.5g left in my kettle (which results in a little over 5g in my fermenter). I usually figure around 20% evaporation, but other people get much less.

Mikey

Recipes 

You could be right. I was reverse converting from metric to to Imperial measure and probably forgot how many furlongs there are in a fortnight. I mash using liters per kilo.

In any case, the idea is not to get hung up on a number for either the mash or the sparge, but to achieve a certain result. I always heat far more water then needed and adjust as I go.

With the mash, the idea is to get a certain consistancy at a certain termperature. The exact ratio is nice to know for next time or for the anal retentive.