Compensating for grains and water absorption?

Hey folks, just bought the beer smith app and like it a lot but I feel I am missing something and a calculation I completely forgot to do when I was making my first batch of all grain last weekend. I had to add more water to my sparge to get the volume I needed, 5 gallons of pale ale wort, and wanted to know how I go about calculating, for example, what 12.5 grains of 2-row will chew through and absorb once the water hits.

I am brewing a seasonal ale from midwest supplies, the Seasonal Happy Ale, and its 12.5 pounds. Going for the 152 degree mash temp and thats about it for now. Any help guys? Thanks..

wade

ExtremeWade said:

what 12.5 grains of 2-row will chew through and absorb once the water hits.

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Are you asking what typical grain absorbtion is? The most common number I see is 0.5 quarts per pound, so for 12.5 pounds that's about 1.5 gallons.

Thanks man...yea..that was about it! I will be sure to do about 4.5 gallons of strike water this weekend and then do the remaining to get about 6 gallons when I secondary sparge!

BeerSmith will give those numbers on the recipes' "Vols" tab. It will also tell you how big your MLT needs to be.

WoodlandBrew said:

Are you asking what typical grain absorption is? The most common number I see is 0.5 quarts per pound, so for 12.5 pounds that's about 1.5 gallons.

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Old thread, but hoping you'll see this.
(Searched your username and absorption and this is the only thread that came up.)

Just starting to read your Brewing Engineering 2nd Edition. You use .8 qts/lb grain absorption in the book. I have been using .6 qts/lb with 2 quarts of dead space to match what I've learned through experience. I've always suspected the the absorption was higher and the dead space lower, but the .5 number that's often quoted had me second guessing.

Have you found the .8 number from the book to be correct with your system?

I went back over some of my notes, and it seem that I see 0.7 to 0.9 quarts of water absorbed per pound. And for what it's worth, displacement is about 0.3 quarts per pound.