A quick rundown. I have been on this forum for all most a year but never posted. ( I'm a reader not a poster) I have been brewing for just about a year. I have done 2 brewers best kits and then decided I wanted to go all grain. I have done 4 batches, all the same recipe of one that I got from this site. The first 3 I did as the recipe called. The last one I switched the hops amount and addition time around a bit. The 1st batch I bottled and it sucked very badly!!! The 2nd batch I keged and it turned out great and it only lasted 1 week. The 3rd batch was ok and the 4 wasn't much better but both were drinkable. I want to start this year off with trying some new things and learning more about what I'm doing. I got beersmith a few months ago and was a little overwhelmed at first and haven't used it yet. I found a recipe that I want to try and I put it into beersmith and edited my equipment profile. Here is where I'm getting confused!!!! I have a rectangle cooler that I use for my mash tun. The recipe that I used was very clear to mash in the water, gave me the temps that I wanted to hit and hold for 90 min. Then add just over 2 gallons more at a higher temp and hold for 10 min. Then lauter and add just over 4 gallons more. Then do a final lauter. When I set up my equipment profile on beersmith for single infusion, medium body, batch sparge it gave me a mash it amount of water and temp and then gave me a 3 step batch sparge of .57gal,2.26gal,2.26gal.
I'm confused on the 3 step batch sparge, why the 3 amounts of water additions and how do you do this? Is this the normal way? I have been looking all over the internet all day and can not find an answer. Also I'm trying to figure out how to get the pre boil gravity to see if I should be adding more grain to get to the original gravity because every time I am about .07 to .10 lower then the recipes original gravity after the boil.
Sorry for the noval. Thanks for reading
I'm confused on the 3 step batch sparge, why the 3 amounts of water additions and how do you do this? Is this the normal way? I have been looking all over the internet all day and can not find an answer. Also I'm trying to figure out how to get the pre boil gravity to see if I should be adding more grain to get to the original gravity because every time I am about .07 to .10 lower then the recipes original gravity after the boil.
Sorry for the noval. Thanks for reading