is ALL of that water needed for all-grain?

Hey guys, I am reading up on all grain as I plan on making the move in a few months. Upon playing around with beersmith and some different recipes(high gravity) it is showing like 9 gallons of H2O for preboil (after absorption).

Really? Are you guys boiling off 2 gallons of water (more or less) to do all grain?

I boil off a good 1.5 gallons per 60 min. On average I mash with 3.5-4 gallon (depending on the beer), and sparge with around 5 so 9 gallons sounds about right. You just need to figure out your boil off % and the only way you can figure that out is by brewing and taking notes.

when I start a boil on a 5 gallon end beer batch I want to have around 6.8-7 gallons of wort preboil.

about 1.2 gallons of boiloff per hour and loss to the hops in the hop spider. I also want to end up with 5.5 gallons of wort to account for trub loss.

you must also look at the amount of water you will need to mash - about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain to be mashed plus water to sparge with- if you are sparging


Example: tomorrow I am going to brew a double batch of something with 20 pounds of grain. I will need a bit under 6 gallons for the mash, from which I might collect 3-4 gallons of wort*the grain absorbs the rest) then I have to sparge with an additional 8-9 gallons of water to get my preboil volume of around 12.5 gallons

yes, lots of water.

I'm at 1.25 / hour, 6.5 gall total Gabe me exactly 5 gallons in secondary after a 1l starter and 8oz bourbon ( and 1oz of oak chips, of course)

meltroha said:

I'm at 1.25 / hour, 6.5 gall total Gabe me exactly 5 gallons in secondary after a 1l starter and 8oz bourbon ( and 1oz of oak chips, of course)

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Sounds like you brewed a Blonde haha....sounds good what is your ABV?

It is good you are reading and trying to understand what is going on before you jump into it. I kind of wish I had done that when I started

Yes you do boil off a bit of water in the boil. Just something you will need to learn about your system and take into account when you are warming up your strike water and mash water. Everyone is a little bit different but if it helps last night in a hour boil I was just short of two gallons boiled off.

Varmintman said:

last night in a hour boil I was just short of two gallons boiled off.

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Just curious, which burner do you use?

The boil rate for me is about 2 gallons over 90 minutes. I didn't think it was that high until I actually measured it.

brettg20 said:

Sounds like you brewed a Blonde haha....sounds good what is your ABV?

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Its a sort of black English ipa. 7.8%, it is 8 days in the secondary, I'll be bottling next Thursday or Friday

brettg20 said:

Just curious, which burner do you use?

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I really do not know the brand. It is a very old one my Dad had that he used to bring 55 gallon drums of water to boil when we would pluck chickens as kids. Got some oomph to it and it does not help that my brew pot is short and wide. Just a slow rolling boil will boil off 1 3/4 gallons in a hour

Keggle here... 2 gallons per hour.

Okay, let me see if I have this straight.
You all know "roughly" how much wort you need at the "OG" point from your experience with extract brewing. So you have a level indicator in your larger brew pot for THAT volume. After you mash and sparge, you boil the wort down to that level, THEN start your 60 minute boil?

No, not quite.

We typically use BeerSmith, or an application like it, along with the information that we know about our system (actual volumes, boil-off rate, etc). We plug that info into BeerSmith, then we put together a recipe using BeerSmith, which does alot of the math for us - it'll calculate, based on our desired sparging method, just how much water we need to use to get the correct volume of pre-boil wort at the correct pre-boil gravity, that'd throw off your gravity. There's no boiling down to a volume before starting the timer - you sparge to the correct volume and gravity, period.

Now this is not to say there's not a learning curve to using BeerSmith, just like there's a learning curve to any other tool. I had been using BrewTarget for a while, for instance. I picked up a copy of BeerSmith last summer, found that it had a lot more functions and it was more appealing to me, so I decided to make the switch. It was about 4 batches before I was dialed in to the point where I was able to line up my results to what BeerSmith was predicting, because there are an awful lot of parameters you need to figure out and fine tune...

I have beersmith also. But things just don't jive as well as you hope for. I have been playing around with the "partial mash" and "all-grain" recipes...even copied a few from Midwest brew to size them up.
Beersmith is really off on ABV and boil amounts, even after adjusting my equipment...it does not look right.
How can you boil 8 gallons of wort and fit it into a 6.5 gallon fermentation unit?

Then I'd say you haven't adjusted well or accurately enough. You certainly can boil 8 gallons and fit into a 6.5 gallon fermenter, for instance, if your boil-off rate is 1.5 gallons/hr and your kettle/tubing/etc loss is another .5 gallons. Granted, that'd only leave you .5 gallon of headspace, which is bound to leave you with a messy blow-off, but it'd fit.

Now, if you get less than 1.5 gallons/hr of boil off (I know I get closer to 1.1) then you need to adjust adjust that. And if you get less loss to tubing, etc, then you need to adjust that as well.

BeerSmith's default values for things are definitely on the conservative side - but once you've adjusted them to your real values, it's a very accurate tool.

Let me answer your question with another question: do you know how much boil-off you get with your current system in an hour? Most setups will boil off at least a gallon per hour (as my own does - hence the very long boils I need), and many boil off as much as two gallons per hour. Any time you are boiling water, you are (by definition) converting some of the water to steam. With all-grain brewing, boiling the wort down to the desired volume and gravity is important.The question becomes, at what rate is it boiling off?

The answer is to measure the rate of boil-off - a graduated boiler or a site glass would come in useful here, though spoon marked with the gradations will do nicely - and insert that rate into BeerSmith.

Keep in mind that you'll also want to take into account the amount of trub you end up with in the boiler after transferring the wort to the fermenter, as well as any loss due to your wort chiller and other equipment.

Varmintman said:

I really do not know the brand. It is a very old one my Dad had that he used to bring 55 gallon drums of water to boil when we would pluck chickens as kids. Got some oomph to it and it does not help that my brew pot is short and wide. Just a slow rolling boil will boil off 1 3/4 gallons in a hour

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Short and wide is your downfall, while personally I am short and wide, my kettle is the opposite. If you have plenty of room and don't mind the extra propane, just use what you got with more water. It will take a few brews to dial it in, but trust me you will enjoy the results of the trials!

gwapogorilla said:

I have beersmith also. But things just don't jive as well as you hope for. I have been playing around with the "partial mash" and "all-grain" recipes...even copied a few from Midwest brew to size them up.
Beersmith is really off on ABV and boil amounts, even after adjusting my equipment...it does not look right.
How can you boil 8 gallons of wort and fit it into a 6.5 gallon fermentation unit?

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You may need to adjust your equipment on BeerSmith. I have found so many little variables that if not dialed in right they can throw you off, but if entered correctly for the most part is pretty spot on.

I have Beersmith. It's a great tool, but honestly, once I dough-in, I don't even look at my volumes in beersmith again.
I mash, vorlauf, drain, and then measure my first running (batch sparger here).
I figure out how much more volume is needed (I want to end up with 8 gallons for a 6 gallon batch).
I divide the needed sparge into halves,
Add the first half, stir, wait 10 minutes vorlauf and drain.
Add the second half, stir, wait 10 minutes vorlauf and drain.
I'll end up with 8 gallons exactly every time, and it will boil down to 6 gallons exactly every time.

Schol-R-LEA said:

Let me answer your question with another question: do you know how much boil-off you get with your current system in an hour?

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Yes I do...and you guys are gonna crap. I get .8 gallons boil off per hour....REALLY!
I have done 2 batches now, both at .75 to .8 boil off. I have a 44 qt. Bayou stainless pot.
I also adjusted beersmith to compensate for that rate of boil off, but the models keep putting waaaayy too much water in the system. I'll be boiling for days!
For example, I will use the IPAI just brewed. Total water used was 6.75 gallons. I used 3 qts. of THAT water to steep 2 lbs of grain in(not sure of abortion)then rinsed with another 3 qts. I added the steep water back into the original water(which was in my brew pot). I brought to a boil and boiled for 1 hour then chilled with wort chiller. When I racked, I left out the cold break which measured 10 cups(.625 gallons). The amount of wort that went into my primary is 5.75 gallons,plus a 44 oz. yeast starter and there looks to be .625 gallons of trub in it...leaving about 5.1 gallons to bottle.
So 6.75(original volume)-5.1(final volume)=1.65...1.65-.625(cold break)=1.025....1.025-.625(trub loss)=.4....4+.344(yeast starter)=.744

.744 is the only variable missing besides absorption. Or am I retarded?

Kinda of a sidebar question if gwapogorilla doesn't mind.

Can I get an accurate boil-off rate for my unit by simply filling it up with a specified amount of water, boiling for an hour or 2 hours and measuring whats left?
...or will the boil-off rate be different when actually brewing?

BamaProud said:

Kinda of a sidebar question if gwapogorilla doesn't mind.

Can I get an accurate boil-off rate for my unit by simply filling it up with a specified amount of water, boiling for an hour or 2 hours and measuring whats left?
...or will the boil-off rate be different when actually brewing?

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No, I don't mind at all.
I also think I know why my boil off is so much lower than everyone elses...I've been doing extract so far. For the all-grainers, you really have to crank up the heat to get a hot break. I haven't had to worry about that yet.
Sound reasonable?

BamaProud said:

Kinda of a sidebar question if gwapogorilla doesn't mind.

Can I get an accurate boil-off rate for my unit by simply filling it up with a specified amount of water, boiling for an hour or 2 hours and measuring whats left?
...or will the boil-off rate be different when actually brewing?

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Yes, that's a good way to get an accurate boil-off rate.

gwapogorilla said:

No, I don't mind at all.
I also think I know why my boil off is so much lower than everyone elses...I've been doing extract so far. For the all-grainers, you really have to crank up the heat to get a hot break. I haven't had to worry about that yet.
Sound reasonable?

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Only if you're not getting a full rolling boil.

It's a boil...no doubt about that, digital thermometer read 211. But not hard, as I understand it, all-grain must be HARD BOILED.

gwapogorilla said:

It's a boil...no doubt about that, digital thermometer read 211. But not hard, as I understand it, all-grain must be HARD BOILED.

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All beers, whether extract or all-grain need a nice rolling boil.

You don't need to have an extremely vigorous boil, but it should definitely be a rolling boil.

Of course, that is true for extract brewing as well as that is what isomerizes the hops oils.

gwapogorilla said:

Yes I do...and you guys are gonna crap. I get .8 gallons boil off per hour....REALLY!
I have done 2 batches now, both at .75 to .8 boil off. I have a 44 qt. Bayou stainless pot.

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How are you heating the kettle? Are you working on a stovetop, and if so, is it gas or electric? Have you considered any means of increasing the heating rate, such as adding a heat wand, or switching to using an exterior propane burner?

As I said, I get about 1 gallon/hour boil-off, on a stovetop with gas heat, using a single burner with a 30 qt boiler (though for various reasons, I have in the past split the boil between that and a smaller boiler to increase the boil-off rate). It takes quite a while for me to get a rolling boil in the 30qt boiler, as well. Were I in a position to do so, I would be using an exterior burner setup in my garage, rather than the stovetop, but that isn't an option at the moment. I am considering buying (or building a heat stick to increase the overall heating. Were I getting the boil-off rate you mention, and were having trouble getting a rolling boil, I would seriously consider finding a better heat source, or at least adding to the heat source you already have.

The first batch I did on stove top...full volume. After that, I learned I needed to go to propane burner...which is what I used for batch 2. I know I had enough boil for LME...at my altitude water boils at 211*, and when I put the initial hop addition in the wort darn near boiled over! I had to quick turn the burner off...it was like throwing Mentos into coco-cola!
I guess this is why people do partial mashes before all-grain...to figure out just how their equipment works.

gwapogorilla said:

It's a boil...no doubt about that, digital thermometer read 211. But not hard, as I understand it, all-grain must be HARD BOILED.

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Not true. No difference between an all grain and an extract boil. In either case, you're boiling primarily to isomerize the hops, and the temperature does the work there, not the virogousness (is that even a word?) of the boil. Secondarily, you're driving off DMS and its precursors, which are mostly already gone from extract. But as long as you have enough of a boil to generate steam (and it doesn't take much) you're good.

I typically aim for a low rolling boil for no other reason than to save some propane.

gwapogorilla said:

The first batch I did on stove top...full volume. After that, I learned I needed to go to propane burner...which is what I used for batch 2. I know I had enough boil for LME...at my altitude water boils at 211*, and when I put the initial hop addition in the wort darn near boiled over! I had to quick turn the burner off...it was like throwing Mentos into coco-cola!

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Boil-overs are something you have to watch for, no matter how you are boiling the wort. And yes, they are most likely to happen when you are adding the hop additions, though they can happen at any point during the boil, really. I've been fortunate enough not to have any for some time now, but I recall all too well what a horrible mess a boil-over can make if you don't stop it in time.

If you dial down the heat, you'll get less risk of boil-over, but you'll slow the boil as a whole. Getting that happy medium is tricky.

But you say that you were only getting .8 gallons per hour on the propane burner? That doesn't sound right. A good propane burner ought to put out at least 35,000 BTU/hour, which should boil off at least 1.5 gallons per hour with a suitable kettle (and the one you have is suitable). How far down are you dialing the burner? You still want to get a rolling boil, after all, and while you want to watch for boil-over, you still want to be heating the kettle as high as possible without causing one. Something just isn't adding up.

gwapogorilla said:

I guess this is why people do partial mashes before all-grain...to figure out just how their equipment works.

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Dialing in your setup is a part of what partial mashes are for, it's true. They are also a lot simpler and less time consuming in general, which is the main reason that most people do them, but yes, it helps a lot to do a few partial mashes with your equipment first before jumping into all-grain.

I know it sounds weird guys, but I know what a boil looks like. Pot is stainless, 15" diameter x 18" high. Had a "decent" boil going...eruption was about every 4 seconds. That is also why I checked the temp...to make sure it was not a rapid simmer.
Everything went well though guys...the beer is looking great! I have a few more weeks before the next batch, I will study more.

Thanks again guys, you are ALL very helpful.:rockin:

gwapogorilla said:

I know it sounds weird guys, but I know what a boil looks like. Pot is stainless, 15" diameter x 18" high. Had a "decent" boil going...eruption was about every 4 seconds. That is also why I checked the temp...to make sure it was not a rapid simmer.
Everything went well though guys...the beer is looking great! I have a few more weeks before the next batch, I will study more.

Thanks again guys, you are ALL very helpful.:rockin:

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It's all about the beer, if you like it, you did a fantastic job brewing it! Cheers!