sgillespie

Recipes 

For a 3 1/2 grain batch and using this calculator:

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

It is telling me that I need a total of 6.28 Gal of total water, which means that I am expected to lose almost 3 gallons of water? Doesn't that seem a bit high?

aarondrich

Recipes 

You have 3.5 lbs of grain, but how big of a batch size did you put in?

phatuna

Recipes 

seems normal, but you didn't give enough info to help you. Your grains will soak up most of it, then you'll boil off some as well.

sgillespie

Recipes 

Sorry,

Its 3.5 Gallon batch w/ 6.5 pounds of grain. I was thinking I would lose maybe 1 - 1.5 lbs of water. This is obviously my first All grain batch

jaba

Recipes 

You will lose about a half quart water per pound of grain, so you will lose 3.25 quarts, or just over 3/4 of a gallon.

Assuming you are using 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain, you would mash with a little over 8 quarts of water, or 2 gallons. You will lose 3/4 gallon, so your first runnings will be just under 1.25 gallons. Mashout with 1 gallon of water to collect half of your preboil volume with your first runnings, 2.25 gallons. (assuming 4.5 gallons preboil, adjust accordingly if you boil off less or more, if you know). You will need to sparge with another 2.25 gallons to collect 4.5 gallons total, so your final post boil volume will be 3.5 gallons. All told you will need at least 5.25 gallons of water, probably a little bit more to be safe (unless you have a large dead space or other large losses in your system.)

If this doesn't make sense, read this post... http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/milling-my-own-grains-hit-all-my-mash-sparge-temps-still-only-got-60-a-176566/#post2044305

I follow this method and have always hit my volumes dead on.