quick question about water volumes,mashing and extra sugar

Hi everyone new guy here. i have couple questions. i brewed 2 batches so far (in the secondary now) and everything went well. i am doing another one monday.

1) first question:

My first 2 batches were partial mash and recipe called for 3gal boil water (including partial mash wort) and then 3 gallons were added directly to fermenter at the end of the boil.

now i am moving to all grain and most people balance strike water + sparge water to achieve desired wort volume.

now question is can you still add some water later given that grain bill is for the total amount? the reason i am asking i want to make 10 gallon batch, but my kettle only fits 8 (and it will be about 7 or less after hour boil) so i would need 3 more gallons to achieve desired volume. so can i add it after the boil if ingredients were for 10 gallon batch. to sum it up is there a difference between 10 gallons of wort and 7 gallons of wort + 3 gallons water if same exact ingredients were used.

2) second question.

my recipe calls for 1.5 lbs of corn sugar. if extra sugar is added does it goes in at the start of the boil or later? also i am assuming that sugar is used to add more fermentables so can it be replaced by more grain? the recipe was done in 5 gallon mash tun so is extra dextrose is added to compensate for lack of mash tun volume or because it is necessary?

3) third and last question.

this one is about mashing. i have seen some people adding 170? degree water at the end of the mash to stop conversion and some just run it off and start sparging. any thoughts about this one?

in advance thanks for putting up with my noobish questions

cheers Dziugas

1) yes you can top up but it will lower your OG. So plan for that. Ideally you would have a bigger pot.

2)you can add the sugar any time during the boil. Or even later after fermentation has begun. If you add it during ferment, make sure you boil it with some water to sanitize it. Replacing the sugar with grain will change the recipe and the resulting beer will be sweater with more body.

3)The simple answer is: Stopping conversion is not 100% needed. Once you start to heat the wort in the brew pot it will stop the conversion.

At the end of your boil, just top off with the water you need to reach the intended volume. It's really no big deal. I always have an unopened 2.5 gallon Ice Mountain sitting around on brewday, in case I need some of it. I usually do.

You can add simple sugars most anytime - but at the 15 minute mark is a good spot for it. It has enough time to fully dissolve and sanitize. Turn off the flame as you add, to avoid scorching on the bottom of the pan. Again, no worries.

1. I don't really agree with topping off with water. You'll mess up your hops utilization as well as water down your wort. If you need to top up, you could try sticking with a partial mash type of technique where you can add some DME and water to top up with. As long as you add the DME to the boil and top up according to your recipe, you should be ok. You'd have to have an OG of about 1.080 in 7 gallons to add 3 gallons of water to get an OG of 1.056. I just don't think that's practical, and you'd probably NOT be able to reach 1.080 anyway.

However, you could get an OG of 1.060 easily enough, and then use DME at flame out to reach a higher gravity. THEN add your 3 gallons of top off water. That would work pretty well, and not mess up your hops utilization.

2. You can add the sugar anytime. It doesn't matter. Even at flame out. Each recipe is different- to know the purpose behind the addition you'd have to know what kind of beer it is. It's very common in a beer you want to be "thinner" and "drier" than an all-malt beer, maybe like a cream ale or a Belgian tripel. The beer will NOT be sweeter- just the opposite. The sugar is fully fermentable and will ferment out.

3. You don't have to mash out, unless you're fly sparging. And even then you don't really have to- it just preserves the profile of the mash. If you're batch sparging, no reason to mash out.

you guys rock!! 3 very informative replies right away! thank you very much.

couple more things i saw people taking gravity readings pre-boil and then after boil what is proper procedure to take gravity readings through out the batch?

also what software do you use and recommend to start with

cheers

OK Maida and Yooper, I need an explanation about the OG. It seems to me that if the recipe puts 'X' number of gravity points into the wort, it won't matter whether you boil it down to 10 gallons, or add water to make 10 gallons, the gravity will be the same. The question was :

Dzuiggy said:

"to sum it up is there a difference between 10 gallons of wort and 7 gallons of wort + 3 gallons water if same exact ingredients were used."

Click to expand...

But you both say the wort will be watered down. What am I missing?

And yeah, I understand that the hop utilization may be different.

frazier said:

OK Maida and Yooper, I need an explanation about the OG. It seems to me that if the recipe puts 'X' number of gravity points into the wort, it won't matter whether you boil it down to 10 gallons, or add water to make 10 gallons, the gravity will be the same. The question was : But you both say the wort will be watered down. What am I missing?

And yeah, I understand that the hop utilization may be different.

Click to expand...

Well, if you make wort out of grain, you'll get XXX number of gravity points. Since it's an AG batch, you don't get more fermentables. That's it. Not like an extract batch where your gravity may be 1.090 because you've added 10 pounds of extract. Then you add water, and you're right where you wanted to be.

In AG, you have say, 1.050 in fermentables. That's it. You add water. It dilutes the gravity down significantly. In an AG batch, you don't have the "room" to add water. You've already sparged and got all the sugar you can from the grains. If you add water, you're diluted it even further.

OK thanks!

Like I said "plan for that". You just need to adjust your recipe. Maybe it's an extra lb of grain to make up for the top up water.

OR

sparge the full volume. and reserve some of the final runnings in a pale. Then use those final runnings to top up the kettle during the boil.