LovesIPA
Well-Known Member
First off, I am an all-grain newb so please keep my newbness in mind.
I read this:
And figured out that for a 5-gallon batch of a Racer 5 IPA clone that has a 13.75 lb grain bill, I would need 4.45 gal for mash and 6.88 gal for sparge, or roughly 11 gallons of water total. This seems like an awful lot.
I also just downloaded Sparge Pal on my iPhone and I entered in the parameters for the same recipe, and it says I need 4.3 gal for the mash but only 4.7 gal for the sparge. Now we're down to 9 gallons which still seems like a lot of water.
First question - why the 2 gallon difference in sparge volume?
The recipe says to boil for 90 minutes and provides a hop schedule. I will obviously need a lot more than 90 minutes to boil off 4 or 6 gallons of water.
Second question - do I add the time needed to boil this much water to the beginning of the timeline? In other words, if the recipe says to add X amount of hops at the beginning of the boil, do I boil and start the hop schedule 90 minutes prior to the time I will reach the final 5 gallon volume?
Third question - do I really need to buy a kettle large enough to boil this much water? This doesn't seem right.
I read this:
I have found that the most common thread here is not using enough water during mashing and sparging. All you need to do is figure 1 to 1 1/4 quarts of water per pound of grain for the mash and about 1/2 gallon of water per pound of grain for sparging.
And figured out that for a 5-gallon batch of a Racer 5 IPA clone that has a 13.75 lb grain bill, I would need 4.45 gal for mash and 6.88 gal for sparge, or roughly 11 gallons of water total. This seems like an awful lot.
I also just downloaded Sparge Pal on my iPhone and I entered in the parameters for the same recipe, and it says I need 4.3 gal for the mash but only 4.7 gal for the sparge. Now we're down to 9 gallons which still seems like a lot of water.
First question - why the 2 gallon difference in sparge volume?
The recipe says to boil for 90 minutes and provides a hop schedule. I will obviously need a lot more than 90 minutes to boil off 4 or 6 gallons of water.
Second question - do I add the time needed to boil this much water to the beginning of the timeline? In other words, if the recipe says to add X amount of hops at the beginning of the boil, do I boil and start the hop schedule 90 minutes prior to the time I will reach the final 5 gallon volume?
Third question - do I really need to buy a kettle large enough to boil this much water? This doesn't seem right.