My first all-grain

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muggs

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This Sunday I'm going to brew a bitter chocolate oatmeal stout. It's a clone of the Stone stout. Seems like a really interesting beer and should be a big, big beer. Final abv should be 9-10% and the recipe called for 20 lbs. of grain.

I know this question is probably asked a lot, so I've read through the sticky's at the top of this page, but I still am I little unclear.

I'll be mashing in the cooler mash tun I just built (pics below- pretty standard) and I have a 10 gallon kettle. I know that I should use 1.25 qt. per lbs. of grain, so by my math for 20 lbs. of grain I'll need 25 qt. or 6.25 gallons. That seems low actually. Should I use more water? Or, if I should only use the 6.25 gallons how much should I mash with. How much should I sparge with? Again, sorry if this is redundant, but I thought this would be something you Vets could answer quickly.

Here's the mash tun. I used the stainless steel supply line filter thing most guys used in their online vids. Pumped to give it a try.

mashtun1.jpg


mashtun2.jpg
 
That's the water you should mash with. Your grain will then absorb around 10 quarts of that (0.5 qts per lb of grain) and you will lose about another quart or so to dead space in the mash tun. So when you drain your first runnings, you should get around 14 quarts (I'm assuming you're batch sparging). You then need to sparge with probably around 16 quarts to reach 30 quarts (7.5 gallons) of preboil volume. You can adjust the amount of sparge water in order to reach the preboil volume you want (I just used 7.5 because it's a fairly common preboil volume). You can also add a mashout in there if you want, you would just need to adjust your volumes so you end up with 30 qts. There's tons of calculators online that can help you with this kind of stuff. I use brewersfriend.com for almost everything. Good luck, and have fun brewing!
 
The 1.25 qt/lb is for mashing. You will need additional water to sparge and to reach your boil volume. I know there is method to determine how much sparge water will be necessary, but it escapes me at the moment (I'm sure you can find it on this forum)

Dang - already answered while I was typing ...
 
Just did the calculator. Total water needed is 9.8 gallons. 6.6 for mashing, 3.2 for sparging. Again, thanks guys.
 
Actually, as I'm learning as I go here, I have one more question. Since this recipe is calling for 20 lbs. of grain which includes a half pound of oats, should I be using more water to mash to prevent the grain bed from plugging up my mash tun filter?
 
No, don't use more water. A half pound of oats (2.5%) should be fine, most people worry about runoff problems when they have 20-50%+ of a huskless ingredient (malt, rye, pumpkin, etc.). If you're worried about things "plugging up" (called a stuck sparge) you want to add rice hulls.

This sounds like an awesome brew, but I would really suggest a lower OG beer for your first all grain. You're going to have a lot to dial in between boiloff rates, dead spaces, sparge method, mash efficiency, etc. Mash efficiency generally takes a big hit as your grain bill increases (since there's less available sparge water per pound of grain), so if you want to stick with this recipe I'd have some DME on hand. Measure your preboil SG, and if it's off you can add DME to correct it.
 
Yeah, I know this is a lot to take on as my first AG. But it will be my 5th brew and I tend to jump into things with both feet and my socks on. That philosophy has worked for and against me, but it's too late to change now. haha

Good tip on the DME. I'll pick some up. I think I got this though. I'll post some pics when it's done.

It is a really cool recipe. Decent about of hops (no dry hopping though) and it even calls for some cocoa powder to be added.
 
One tip: when you do beers over about 7% ABV you will have pretty bad efficiency (extraction of sugars from the grain). This is because you won't be sparging with much water and much of the sugars will be left in the grain.

So if your recipe is predicting OG based on a 75% efficiency you may want to adjust that down to 70% to be more accurate.

Alternately, what I do is a 90-120 min boil on my big beers, the calculator allows you to adjust the boil time to compensate for boil off. That way you can sparge with more water which increases sugar extraction from your grain bed.
 
Right now I'm planning on sparging with 3 gallons. Is that not a lot? Not trying to be a smarta$$, I really don't know. Seems like a lot though.

This also calls for a 90 minute boil for the first hop addition.

With all that, and maybe even adding some dry malt extract, I think I'll get the abv up there. What do you think?
 
You need to pick a boil time (sounds like 90 minutes) and batch size, then backcalculate a preboil volume from there. Add as much sparge water as you need to get that boil volume. Brewing software makes it all very easy.
 
Right now I'm planning on sparging with 3 gallons. Is that not a lot? Not trying to be a smarta$$, I really don't know. Seems like a lot though.

This also calls for a 90 minute boil for the first hop addition.

With all that, and maybe even adding some dry malt extract, I think I'll get the abv up there. What do you think?

Are you sure you put 90 minutes into that calculator as 1.5 hours?

Because I just ran the calculator using .5 gal equipment loss, 90 min boil (1.5 hr) and 1.25qt/lb mash and it says you need to sparge with 4.09 gallons for a 5 gallon batch.

Generally you get the highest efficiency when your grain bill is smaller and you sparge with at least as much water as you mashed with. It just means that you have to waste more grain in order to brew a big all grain beer because of the efficiency loss. Boosting it with DME extract is a good idea actually.
 
Yeah, I did have it in there as 1.5 hours, but I may have changed other numbers.

At this point, I'm leaning towards just doing a full volume mash.

By chance, I just saw that my local home brewing stores is putting on a all-grain class tomorrow morning. Could not have been timed better for me. I called the guy and he said he'll be teaching how to calculate efficiency etc... So, I signed up. I have a 50 qt. mash tun, so I think it would be big enough to just do a full volume mash. I'll know for sure by noon tomorrow though. I'm planning on picking up some DME in case my effciency sucks, with 20 grains it obviously might.


I'll keep you all posted.
 
I agree with others that for such a big beer I'd either lower your efficiency estimates (to about 60%) -OR- increase boil time so you can mash/sparge with more water. Personally I mash thin, 1.5-2qts per pound and try to sparge with as much water as I mashed with (so I play around with the mash thickness until mash and sparge volumes are about equal). I get 80% every time in my cooler with braid. If I wanted to do this for a big beer, I'd need to boil longer, no big deal, just don't add your hops until you're supposed to (start paying attention when there's 60m left in the boil, for instance).

The calculators/software really tell you everything you need to do. It's always a math equation that determines what you need to do with brewing in order to get what you want.

Also, FWIW, my absorption is nearer to 0.15g/lb and boiloff is not quite 1g/hr in my keggle. Those getting 0.5g/lb and 1.5-2g/hr boiloff must have excellent lauter mediums and wide-arse kettles boiling hardcore.
 
Yes, I'm either planning on doing a full volume mash, or a fly sparge equal to mash volume. The only issue is I may not have a big enough mash tun. Mine is 52 qt. or 13 gallons so I should be good. I'll know exactly which method I'm going to have to use and how much water after this the class tomorrow.

I was planning a mash thickness of 1.5 but we'll see.
 
Yes, I'm either planning on doing a full volume mash, or a fly sparge equal to mash volume. The only issue is I may not have a big enough mash tun. Mine is 52 qt. or 13 gallons so I should be good. I'll know exactly which method I'm going to have to use and how much water after this the class tomorrow.

I was planning a mash thickness of 1.5 but we'll see.

Just understand that whatever you learn tomorrow is just one matter of opinion. Often times LHBS guys "swear" that you "have" to do it a certain way...then you find hundreds of people who do it another way with as good or even better results. Take it all in, but remember, not everything is gospel. Do your own homework.
 
Yes, I'm either planning on doing a full volume mash, or a fly sparge equal to mash volume. The only issue is I may not have a big enough mash tun. Mine is 52 qt. or 13 gallons so I should be good. I'll know exactly which method I'm going to have to use and how much water after this the class tomorrow.

I was planning a mash thickness of 1.5 but we'll see.

My mash cooler is also 52 qt. I can mash up to about 21 lbs of grains at 1.33qt/lb...any more than that and the cooler about overflows.
 
My mash cooler is also 52 qt. I can mash up to about 21 lbs of grains at 1.33qt/lb...any more than that and the cooler about overflows.

1.33qts/lb. with 21lbs. of grain is 8.66g total displacement. Your cooler is much larger than that. I'm lost...? :confused:
 
Ok, I think I have a plan in place. I added accurate numbers into the brew365 calculator and it's coming up with total water needed of 12.05, 6.65 gallons for mashing and 5.40 for sparging.

Since I'm pretty sure my effeciency is going to suck with this many grains, I'm going to mash with 9 gallons without a sparge. Then I'll make the needed adjustments with DME to get my gravity up.

Then since there will be so many residual sugars still in the mash tun, I'm going to make a second brew. With the grain bill already in the mash, I think I can get a nice brown ale out of it. So, I pound an extra pound of cystral 20 and .25 pound of chocolate malt. I'll add the fresh grain on top of the grain bed in the tun, remash with more water, then do a second boil. I bought 2 oz. of Willamette hops for the boil. Plan to do a 60 min boil with 1 oz and finish with the other oz.

Hopefully, fingers crossed, I get two nice beers out of this. Heck, I think I may even like the second beer more.

Brew Day is tomorrow. I'll post pictures.
 
Ok, I think I have a plan in place. I added accurate numbers into the brew365 calculator and it's coming up with total water needed of 12.05, 6.65 gallons for mashing and 5.40 for sparging.

Since I'm pretty sure my effeciency is going to suck with this many grains, I'm going to mash with 9 gallons without a sparge. Then I'll make the needed adjustments with DME to get my gravity up.

Then since there will be so many residual sugars still in the mash tun, I'm going to make a second brew. With the grain bill already in the mash, I think I can get a nice brown ale out of it. So, I pound an extra pound of cystral 20 and .25 pound of chocolate malt. I'll add the fresh grain on top of the grain bed in the tun, remash with more water, then do a second boil. I bought 2 oz. of Willamette hops for the boil. Plan to do a 60 min boil with 1 oz and finish with the other oz.

Hopefully, fingers crossed, I get two nice beers out of this. Heck, I think I may even like the second beer more.

Brew Day is tomorrow. I'll post pictures.

What's your batch size? That's a lot of water for 5 gallons. I use about 13.2 for a 9 gallon batch
 
Sorry, I should have clarified. That's too much water for the 5 gallon batch I'm planning on, so I'm going to mash with a full 9 gallons and won't be sparging. I'm planning on 2 gallons of absorption with this amount of grain. My effeciency won't be good so I'll add some DME to get the target gravity. I learned the formula for figuring how much DME I'll need during that all-grain class I went to yesterday.

After I get the first batch in the primary, I'm going to add the 1.25 lbs. of extra grain to the grain bed in the mash tun and get that brown ale going. I think I can a get 4 or 4.5 gallon batch out of that.
 
2g sounds right for absorption. 7g boil probably brings you to 5.5 after evaporate and trub loss. I doubt you boil off much more than a gallon per hour
 
You're right on the money. Just started a 7g boil. My efficiency sucked as expected. Target OG was 1.082 and we got 1.048. I only had two lbs. of DME which I ended all of, but it won't be enough to get the 9 or 10% abv. I'm okay with that though. The good news is there are plenty of residual sugars there for my second brew.
 
You're right on the money. Just started a 7g boil. My efficiency sucked as expected. Target OG was 1.082 and we got 1.048. I only had two lbs. of DME which I ended all of, but it won't be enough to get the 9 or 10% abv. I'm okay with that though. The good news is there are plenty of residual sugars there for my second brew.

Yeah, without a sparge you'll have low efficiency, unless you recirc with a pump, etc
 
1.33qts/lb. with 21lbs. of grain is 8.66g total displacement. Your cooler is much larger than that. I'm lost...? :confused:

21 lbs of milled grain is about 5 gal volume plus the 8.5 gallons of water to mash = 13.5 gallons of displacement (the grain absorbs the water as you mash in thus reducing this slightly). 52 qt cooler = 13 gallons. Thus if you have a 13 gal cooler you won't be mashing much over 21 lbs of grain in it at once.
 
21 lbs of milled grain is about 5 gal volume plus the 8.5 gallons of water to mash = 13.5 gallons of displacement (the grain absorbs the water as you mash in thus reducing this slightly). 52 qt cooler = 13 gallons. Thus if you have a 13 gal cooler you won't be mashing much over 21 lbs of grain in it at once.

You said:

My mash cooler is also 52 qt. I can mash up to about 21 lbs of grains at 1.33qt/lb...any more than that and the cooler about overflows.

21*1.33=27.93qts.
27.93/4qts per gallon=6.9825
According to http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml (can I mash it tool) the total displacement for 1.33qts/lb and 21lbs. of grain is 8.66gallons.

I just didn't see how that was close to 13 gallons.

I know that 20lbs of grain takes up about 3-4 gallons in my 5g bucket, but you have to consider the spaces between that grain, etc. that water will fill in.
 
Just out of curiosity, how did it go? I'm getting ready for my 1st all grain soon and am looking for what to look for.
 
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