Calculating Mash Water amount

What does every use to calculate the amount of Mash water needed? Does anyone have any apps they use on their phone? Is there an excel sheet that anyones created to assist in this?

You typically just use the weight of your grain bill and a ratio of quarts of mash water per pound of grain. This ratio is generally in the neighborhood of 1.25 - 1.5 quarts per pound of grain, but can vary a lot depending on individual preferences/systems.

So if you're mashing 12 pounds of grain and you want to use a ratio of 1.5 quarts per pound, you would use 18 quarts (4.5 gallons) of mash water.

For fairly obvious reasons, I use my mash calculator over at http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/TestingQ

While the original intent was for biabers, it's completely generalized at this point and can be used for any mash setup. The mash analysis section was done by another users here, doug293cz, and I just implemented it into my calculator because he did a great job.

I just use 5 gallons every time and then adjust my batch sparge water amount depending on how much wort I need to make up the preboil amount (usually 6.5 to 7 gallons total preboil volume).

I typically take the total volume of the boil, divide it by two, and add .15 gallons per pound of grain.

If you have a 10# grain bill and 7 gallon preboil volume:

3.5 + (.12)(10) = 4.7 gallons.

I try to make sure the first runnings and sparge volumes are as close to even as possible. I batch sparge, so pH isn't as important to me. If it's over 2 quarts per pound, I will adjust it down to 2.

rje45 said:

I batch sparge, so pH isn't as important to me.

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This is not good advice. The type of sparge has nothing to do with mash pH.

Mash pH always matters.

MagicMatt said:

This is not good advice. The type of sparge has nothing to do with mash pH.

Mash pH always matters.

Click to expand...

I was under the impression that it was pretty much universally accepted that pH is not as important when batch sparging versus continuous sparging. Do you have a source?

http://byo.com/mead/item/1392-sparging-a-comparison-of-batch-vs-continuous
http://www.dennybrew.com/

rje45 said:

I was under the impression that it was pretty much universally accepted that pH is not as important when batch sparging versus continuous sparging. Do you have a source?

http://byo.com/mead/item/1392-sparging-a-comparison-of-batch-vs-continuous
http://www.dennybrew.com/

Click to expand...

The pH of your runnings is not important to monitor with batch sparging, which is what those sources you listed are saying. But the mash pH is the most important pH to get right. And since that comes into play at dough in and during the mash rest, there is virtually no difference at that point between batch and fly sparging.

EDIT: Also, I use brewersfriend.com for all of my calculators. And I usually go with a ratio of about 1.5 qt/lb.

I see what you're saying. The mash pH can still be affected, but the lauter pH wouldn't be. I get it now. Thanks for clearing it up.

Does the water volume in the mash affect the mash pH though? I thought that would come more from the acidity of the water itself than the volume. My point about batch sparging was related to extracting tannins during the lautering process.

rje45 said:

I see what you're saying. The mash pH can still be affected, but the lauter pH wouldn't be. I get it now. Thanks for clearing it up.

Does the water volume in the mash affect the mash pH though? I thought that would come more from the acidity of the water itself than the volume. My point about batch sparging was related to extracting tannins during the lautering process.

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No problem, I figured that's what you meant. I believe the mash water amount has some effect on mash pH, but it will largely depend on the chemistry of your water. The actual starting pH of the water doesn't have much of an effect on the mash pH. It's all about the buffering capacity and ion content of the water as well as the salts and acid you add. I always plug all of my numbers into a water chemistry calculator to find out the amount of salts and acid I need to add to the mash to get it to the right pH.