BeerSmith Batch Sparge Instructions

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eanmcnulty

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Hi Guys,
Hope some can help me with this. I am brewing a three gallon batch of 10% ABV IPA. These are my instructions for the mash:

Mash In 154F, Add 14.50 qt of water at 171F for a step temp of 154F for 60 min


I'm fine with that, but then the batch sparge says this:

Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 2.00gal) of 168.0 F water

Does that mean two sparges of 2gal each? Or does it mean two sparges of 1gal each?

My guess is two at 2gal each. I'm sure 11.6 lbs of grain will soak up a lot of water.

Thanks a lot!
 
Hi Guys,
Hope some can help me with this. I am brewing a three gallon batch of 10% ABV IPA. These are my instructions for the mash:

Mash In 154F, Add 14.50 qt of water at 171F for a step temp of 154F for 60 min


I'm fine with that, but then the batch sparge says this:

Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 2.00gal) of 168.0 F water

Does that mean two sparges of 2gal each? Or does it mean two sparges of 1gal each?

My guess is two at 2gal each. I'm sure 11.6 lbs of grain will soak up a lot of water.

Thanks a lot!

First, I think 154 is too high for a 10% IPA. You will probably want to go with 150 or so.

How many pounds of grain are you using? 11.6? That's about right.
Remember that your grain will absorb about .125 gallons per pound of grain. So figure you'll "lose" 1.45 gallons right there out of the 3.625 you're mashing in with.

That means you'll have a bit over 2 gallons after the mash. What is your boil volume? You'll want to use enough sparge water to get you to your boil volume.
 
First, I think 154 is too high for a 10% IPA. You will probably want to go with 150 or so.

How many pounds of grain are you using? 11.6? That's about right.
Remember that your grain will absorb about .125 gallons per pound of grain. So figure you'll "lose" 1.45 gallons right there out of the 3.625 you're mashing in with.

That means you'll have a bit over 2 gallons after the mash. What is your boil volume? You'll want to use enough sparge water to get you to your boil volume.

Ah, you know Yooper, I'm an idiot. It says exactly how much water I need. All I had to do was add it together.

Is there any advantage to splitting the sparge into two batches?

And as far as the mash goes I had it at 150F ever since I've been working on this recipe (weeks), and I just changed it to 154F. Not sure why I thought that was a good idea. Thanks for the help!
 
Ah, you know Yooper, I'm an idiot. It says exactly how much water I need. All I had to do was add it together.

Is there any advantage to splitting the sparge into two batches?

And as far as the mash goes I had it at 150F ever since I've been working on this recipe (weeks), and I just changed it to 154F. Not sure why I thought that was a good idea. Thanks for the help!

There may be an advantage to splitting it into two batch sparges normally, but it really depends on how much sparge water you have. If you split this into two sparges, two gallons in each, you may not have enough liquid to really get the grainbed fluid and stir well. In that case, many people will do one round of batch sparging.
 
broadbill said:
Since when do IPA top out at 10%????? Kinda funny...I have nothing helpful to add...good luck!

What do you mean top out?

Sent from my Droid using Home Brew Talk
 
Yooper said:
There may be an advantage to splitting it into two batch sparges normally, but it really depends on how much sparge water you have. If you split this into two sparges, two gallons in each, you may not have enough liquid to really get the grainbed fluid and stir well. In that case, many people will do one round of batch sparging.

Ill just do what ever looks best when I get there. I was just trying to figure out BeerSmith wants me to batch sparge with two steops in stead of one.

Sent from my Droid using Home Brew Talk
 
Ill just do what ever looks best when I get there. I was just trying to figure out BeerSmith wants me to batch sparge with two steops in stead of one.

Sent from my Droid using Home Brew Talk

I don't have the new Beersmith, but my version has an option that you click on the "batch sparge screen" that says something like "use 50% of the batch sparge volume". That could be why it's tell you to do it twice.
 
I am doing my first all grain batch today, out of all the instructional videos I've seen I never heard of doing a two step sparge. Beer smith is throwing me for a loop, will it be a real problem if I just do a single sparge? I thought that would do a better job at rinsing the grains.
 
There are a lot of different factors that affect this but the first reason to break a sparge up into several batches is if your mash tun can't handle the full sparge volume. This happens to people who make the mistake of building a 5 gallon mash tun and then try to make a big OG beer. There is also sometimes a small boost in efficiency when breaking the sparge up and how much of a boost depends on a couple things. It's more effort, but I think it's good liquid handling practice for new all grain brewers anyway.
 
I have always split my sparge into 2 steps, mainly because thats the way I first got started on all grain. I am by no means an expert at this but it has always worked out for me. One thing it also does is make handling the preboil volume much easier.
Llifting 4.25 gallons of preboil liquid for a 3 gallon batch is about 33 lbs. Lifting nearly 7.5 gallons for a 6 gallon batch is a backbreaker at 60lbs.
Here are the direction I use, copied from Suebob.com's All Grain Primer. Everytime I brew, I reread them just to refresh myself with the steps.
>
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The Single Kettle/Burner Method with a simple picnic cooler MLT:

1. First you're going to figure out based on your grain bill, how much water you'll need to make the ratio 1.25qts/lb. Example, if you have 12lb of grain 12 x 1.25 = 15 quarts or 3.75 gallons of "STRIKE" water.

2. Heat strike water in your kettle to ABOUT 185F and dump it into your cooler, then close the lid. Wow, doesn't that seem a bit hot? Your cooler is going to absorb quite a bit of heat in the first 5 minutes. Leave it alone with the cover closed to let it warm up. After 5 minutes, open it up and stir the water, then test the temp. You're going to want it to cool to about 168F. Remember, software will help you figure out exactly what temp to use. Once you reach your ideal strike temp, dough in (mix the crushed grains in thoroughly) then close the lid.

3. After 5 minutes, open the cooler, stir once more and check the temperature in various places. Again, you want it to settle to ABOUT 152F. If it's a degree or two high or low, it's OK. If it's off by more, you might want to compensate with a little cold or boiling water. Once you're satisfied, close the lid and wait 60 minutes.

4. After about 20 minutes, you'll want to start heating your sparge water in the kettle. You'll need ABOUT the same volume as your intended finished batch. If it's a 5 gallon batch, heat up 5 gallons of sparge water to 180F.

5. After the full 60 minute mash, open the drain valve on the MLT and collect 2 quarts of wort into a pitcher. Carefully return this back on top of the mash (this is vorlaufing), then drain the entire MLT into a bucket. If the bucket has graduation marks, take note how much wort you collected. You're going to find that you lost a good percentage of liquid to grain absorption. In our example, it's likely that you only got out 2.5 gallons from the 3.75 strike volume. Here's where you have to decide ultimately how much wort you want in the kettle to start with. You will boil off about 1.25 gallons in 60 minutes of vigorous boil so you'll want at least 6.5gallons to start with. To figure out how much to sparge with, take this pre boil figure (6.5) and subtract it from how much wort you collected out of the MLT for first runnings (say 2.5). This leaves you with 4 gallons. This is exactly how much you'll need to sparge with.

6. Assuming you got the sparge water up to 180F, pour about HALF of the required sparge volume into the MLT (in the example it will be 2 gallons. Stir it well for a couple minutes, vorlauf 2 quarts again, then collect it in the same bucket the first runnings are in.

7. Repeat step 6 again with the remaining sparge volume. At this point, you should have about 6.25 gallons in the bucket. You can also split this amount between two buckets to make handling them easier.

8. Remove any excess water from the kettle and carefully transfer all your wort from the buckets into the kettle. Stir this wort up and draw off a bit to measure your pre-boil gravity and take note of it. You'll also need an accurate measurement of how much volume you collected. Once you have these two numbers you can figure out your mash/lauter efficiency as explained earlier on this page.

9. Proceed as you normally would for an extract batch. You've just made your own wort without "instant beer".


Here is a link to the entire article, and there are many variations by other folks that are just as good and maybe a little better but I like this one as it keeps everything simple for simple minded guys like me.
http://www.suebob.com/index.php?opt...in-primer&catid=40:brewing-articles&Itemid=66
 

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