somedudefromneworleans

Recipes 

So I used up a 50lb sack of 2 row and have a little left over and want to make something with the left overs before I buy another sack.

I was thinking of a high gravity lager (malt liquor). I only have grain for a small batch, maybe 2 gallons.

What I have left over is:

3-4lbs 2 row
2lbs vienna
1/2lb crystal 20
2oz crystal hop pellets
saflager s-23

I've only made 5 gallon batches before, and this is no where near enough grain. Can anyone tell me how much beer I can make, and how much water I should use for the mash and sparge ? I was hoping for around 8-10%ABV.

jonbrout

Recipes 

Rice? .

LakeErieBrew

Recipes 

Mash with about 1.25 - 2 qts per pound of grain. If you have 6 pounds of grain, use 7.5 - 12 qts for the mash. Let's assume you use 9 qts for you mash. Your sparge will be whatever amount of water you need to make up the rest of your finishing volume, with respect to the amount of liquor that is absorbed by the grain and the amount that will be boiled off.

Absorbtion is roughly 0.125 gallons of water per pound of grain, so again assuming 6 pounds of grain, you will have about 3 qts of absorbtion (.75 gallons).

Assuming you will boil off about 0.5 gallons over 60 minutes, you need to account for this in your sparge volume. If you want 2 gallons into the fermenter, you need 2.5 gallons pre-boil.

Here's the sparge volume calculation:

9 qts (mash water) minus 3 qts (absorbtion) = 6 qts run off after the mash

2.5 gallons (your pre-boil volume) is 10 qts

Sparge water needed is 10 qts - 6 qts = 4 qts

If your boil off is higher than .5 gallons per minute, you will need more sparge water. This is my typical boil off rate when I brew on the stove, so that's what I used here.