How much is too much mash water?

When brewing this past weekend I had to add extra water to cool to proper mash temp.

With the extra water it was very easy to dough in. Just wondered what problems if any occur with using extra water during mash?

I nailed the SG and FG according to beersmith.

How much water did you add? I routinely mash with 2 qt/lb of mash water.

This was just a lawnmover beer. Little less than 8 lbs of grain.
Beersmith said to mash in with 10 quarts. Ended up being close to 3 gallon.
I don't expect any issues just wondered why you wouldn't want to mash with more water.

You were only at 1.5 qt/lb, which is about average around here I suspect.

Check this out: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...ncy_in_single_infusion_mashing#Mash_thickness

As you can see from that, mash thickness really doesn't matter all that much.

I like to mash with more water because it allows my system to retain more heat compared to a thicker mash. It really doesn't matter, what does matter is being consistent with your system.

So i am trying to understand this when you dough in you are adding 1.5qts of water to every one pound of grain?? lets say I am making a 2 gallon batch. and i use 4lbs of grain 3lbs base malt and 1 pound of specialty malt. how much water would i be using to mash? new to the whole all grain process. sorry if this sounds dumb

Yes; 1.5 qts of water for every pound of grain (in your scenario).

4 lbs of grain would thus need 6 qts of water (1.5 gallons).

brewguy82 said:

So i am trying to understand this when you dough in you are adding 1.5qts of water to every one pound of grain?? lets say I am making a 2 gallon batch. and i use 4lbs of grain 3lbs base malt and 1 pound of specialty malt. how much water would i be using to mash? new to the whole all grain process. sorry if this sounds dumb

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If you use 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain (a good ratio), and you're using 4 pounds of grain, you'd simply use 6 quarts of water in the mash. You can sparge with up to .5 gallons (2 quarts) of water per pound of grain, or up to your boil volume.

I usually use 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain, but sometimes go up to 1.5 quarts per pound, depending on how much grain I have. I like having my first runnings and my second runnings (sparge) roughly equal.

You're pretty safe with 1.25-2 quarts of water per pound of grain. That should give you the correct pH and keep you in range. If you go a little thicker (the 1.25-1.5 quarts/pound), you have some "room" if you miss your mash temps to add some boiling water or cold water.

nice thanks. I am starting to understand this a little better now. so only dough in with x amount of water and then add the remaining amount using your sparge water to rinse out the grains to use for your boil?

brewguy82 said:

nice thanks. I am starting to understand this a little better now. so only dough in with x amount of water and then add the remaining amount using your sparge water to rinse out the grains to use for your boil?

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I assume you're batch sparging? Draining the entire volume, and then adding the sparge water, stirring and then draining that, too?

I think devilishprune is right that 1.5 is average. I've tried everything from 1-2 and settled on 1.5 because it was a nice amount of fluidity but still left a good bit of water for sparging.

When I first started AG, I was chasing my efficiency (like everyone does I guess). I tried 1.25 for awhile because I wanted more sparge water for rinsing, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Here's what I do, and hopefully someone could tell me if I"m totally wrong with my method. I pretty much go with 1.25 qt/lb unless I have a huge grain bill and need to make room in my tun. I'll use my next brew as a sample.

26 lbs of grain x 1.25 qt/lb = 32.5 qts of water or 8.125 gallons. I make it 8.
I figure out that out of 26 lbs of grain with 8 g water added, I'll collect 5.5 g of wort. (grain absorption rate of 1 gallon per 10 lbs of grain makes me lose 2.5 gallons)
Now I take my desired post boil volume of 12 gallons and subtract 5.5 and come up with 6.5. I know I boil off 2 gallons in an hour, so I add that to the 6.5 to get to 8.5. I'll simply divide that number by 2 sparges and come up with 4.25, so I do 2 batch sparges of 4.25 gallons and wind up with 12.5 g of post boil wort. The math is rough, and some places I round up and some I round down, but it's close enough to where I don't get crazy with it. I take gravity readings after first runnings, before the boil, and after the boil. If anything doesn't seem right, I'll either add water, or add DME.

It's worked for me, and I think the batches that haven't turned out great have been other areas of my process. So is this a valid way of figuring out water quantities, or is THIS where my process has been flawed? As always, I appreciate any help anyone can offer.

BIABers use the full pre-boil volume to mash in. I'll use 7.5gal for a 6gal batch with 14lbs of grain (2.1Qt/lb) for a 1.065 OG. I've heard of people going as high as 3qt/lb, but I think the problem then is containing the volume. Might work for a low OG beer.