Help with sparge amounts

Working on trying my first all grain batch, its a wheat recipe for 5.5 gallons. It calls for a total of 9.25 lbs of grain. So I should mash in with about 11.5 quarts of water right? So how do I figure how much I need to sparge with?

Thanks

So if you are looking to mash with 11.5qts then you have decided on 1.25/qt per gallon.

You need to figure out how much water your grain will absorb. That will be approximately .11 gallon/lb grain. So 9.25 x .11 = 1.0175. Call it an even gallon. (4 qts) So you should expect to collect right about 7.5 qts of run off from your mash.

Next we know you want 5.5 gallons at the end of boil, but you need to know your boil off rate per hour, and how long you are going to boil for. Most will lose somewhere in the 1.25 to 1.75 gallons per hour during boil, although this number can fluctuate based on humididty, how hard you boil, diameter of your boil pot, wind conditions etc. If we assume you will lose about 1.5 gallons during boil and we know you want 5.5 gallons into the fermentor, then you want 7 gallons pre-boil, or 28 qts.

We take 28 qts
Subtract 7.5 qts runoff from mash
= 20.5 qts for sparge. (absorption during mash is minimal as the grain is already saturated)

You can either do one big sparge at 20.5 qts, or two smaller sparges. For most one big sparge is easier takes less time, and will rinse your grains just fine.

PS. You may want to mash a tad thinner for a wheat beer mash, especially if you have typical sticky adjuncts, and add some rice hulls. So maybe consider 1.3 to 1.5 qts/lb

I use gallons, because its easier. So 9.25 lbs of grain is about 3 to 3.5 gallons of mash water. You figure you will lose 1 gallon per hour of boil, then for a 5.5 gal finish you need 3 to 3.5 gallons of water from sparging. Or if you screwed up the mash and your gravity, everything can change...

Orogenic said:

I use gallons, because its easier. So 9.25 lbs of grain is about 3 to 3.5 gallons of mash water. You figure you will lose 1 gallon per hour of boil, then for a 5.5 gal finish you need 3 to 3.5 gallons of water from sparging. Or if you screwed up the mash and your gravity, everything can change...

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Orogenic,
You did not account for water lost to grain absorption. So if you mash with 3 to 3.5 gallons of water. Lose 1 gallon to grain absorption, lose 1.5 gallons to the boil. For a 5.5 gallon finish you need 4.5 to 5.0 gallons from sparging. If your anticipated boil off is only 1 gallon then you only need 4.0 to 4.5 gallons from sparge.