Water volume calculation newbie question

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CopperBeechBrew

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I am new – very new – to homebrewing. I've jumped straight into all-grain. So far I've done two successful brews (Irish stout – tasted great to me, Amber Ale – still in bottle) and a failed IPA (the pelleted hops got stuck in my counterflow chiller – and I panicked and i'm sure it's slowly going south in the fermenter) All of the brews were from pretty thorough recipes.

I am now looking for recipes and most of the time they focus on the grains/hops and adjuncts but the water details are a little sketchy ie they give a batch volume but nothing else. I'm pretty confident working backwards from the batch size to the boil volume but backwards from there confuses me ie how do I work out how much water to mash and then sparge with?

My volume/process limitations are:
Preboil volume 19l
Cooler box style mash tun for infusion mashing.

So presumably I need to work backwards from my boil volume limitation and then calculate the volume of grain but from there I get stuck working out how much water to mash in with and how much to sparge with.
I've been trying to research but am getting confused with all the info out there. Any advice or suggestions of where I can read more would be greatly appreciated.
 
This is why they make brewing software. :) Either buy something like beersmith or use one of the many free online calculators. You plug in your basic recipe and equipment parameters and it does the calculations for you.
 
figure on 1.25 qt/lb water to grain for your mash (you can go thicker or thinner but that's an average). Then figure you'll lose some of that water to grain absorption, maybe .15 gal/lb. So you can now determine how much wort you'll run off from your mash, whatever is left to acheive pre-boil volume is your sparge, I like to split it up and do a double batch sparge.

As billl said, alternatively buy some software and let it work itself out for you. Beersmith has a free trial, I imagine after 30 days free you'll pay the 25$ for a license without thinking about it.
 
Thanks I also came to that conclusion and bought BeerAlchemy but all it gives me is the volumes at the start and end of boil, then the fermenter, pitching and finished beer volume. I still need to work out how much water to mash and sparge with otherwise won't it stuff up my OG?
 
CopperBeechBrew said:
I am new – very new – to homebrewing. I've jumped straight into all-grain. So far I've done two successful brews (Irish stout – tasted great to me, Amber Ale – still in bottle) and a failed IPA (the pelleted hops got stuck in my counterflow chiller – and I panicked and i'm sure it's slowly going south in the fermenter) All of the brews were from pretty thorough recipes.

I am now looking for recipes and most of the time they focus on the grains/hops and adjuncts but the water details are a little sketchy ie they give a batch volume but nothing else. I'm pretty confident working backwards from the batch size to the boil volume but backwards from there confuses me ie how do I work out how much water to mash and then sparge with?

My volume/process limitations are:
Preboil volume 19l
Cooler box style mash tun for infusion mashing.

So presumably I need to work backwards from my boil volume limitation and then calculate the volume of grain but from there I get stuck working out how much water to mash in with and how much to sparge with.
I've been trying to research but am getting confused with all the info out there. Any advice or suggestions of where I can read more would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't work backwards as much as much I'd work from both ends to the middle...

Figure out your grain bill and then decide on a water to grist ratio - say, 1.3 q/lb that will tell you your mash volume. Then figure out what you want your boil vol to be based on your equip. I can't tell if you are saying you can boil 19l, or if that's the pot size. Say you could boil 5 gals. If you are going to do a 5 gallon batch, you'll need to use some top off water.

Say you can boil 5 gals. and have 11 lbs worth of grain. At a W/G of 1.3 that would be about 3.5 Gallons mash vol. Now you just want to figure out what you'll lose to the grain, then add sparge water - assuming you are batch sparging to get your preboil vol. Figure out what you'll boil off during the boil and then you'll know your top off volume as well.
 

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