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tbone

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I will be doing my first AG batch early next week. It is an attempt at a Dogfish Head 60 Min clone. After reading a lot on this site and studying Palmer, I set up the following mash schedule. Would you please check things out and make suggestions. I would like to get this right. Also, I have a couple of questions below.


Recipe: All Grain
5 gallon batch
13.00 lbs 2 Row
.50 lb Amber Malt
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons
Absorption .1gal/lb

Procedure:
Mash in 4.22 gallons at 170 degrees (1.25 qts/lb)
Hold mash at 154 for 60 minutes

Add 1 ½ quarts boiling water to compensate for absorption. This will produce 3.25 gallons of wort. (The grain bed should be around 168 degrees after adding the water)
Stir-vorlauf-drain

Sparge – total collections should be 3.25 gallons.

2 equal sparges of 6 ½ quarts at 168 degrees. – this should result in 6.5 gallons of wort.

Calculated pre-boil maximum gravity 1.079 (38ppg x 13 / 6.5 plus 34ppg x .5 / 6.5) – from Palmer

Questions: Does the sparge water temp.and the strike water temp sound correct?
Am I wasting time doing two sparges with only 6 ½ qts per sparge?
Should I do only 1 sparge of 3.25 gallons?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
 
Looks reasonable. I would do one sparge my self (assuming batch spargeing).

Don't forget to voraluf.

Don't expect to get 1.079 gravity... you aren't going to get 100% efficiency.
 
Are you brewing outside? I'm assuming you are using a cooler for an MLT. If so, you'll need to pre-heat your MLT somehow or else your initial mash temp will be low. Just run some hot water into it just before you add your strike water.


+1 on just doing one sparge. 3 1/2 gallons isn't much to batch sparge, you can do that in one shot.
 
According to ProMash, your strike water should be 167 to achieve a mash temp of 154. This assumes that the tun has been pre-heated.

Adding 1.5 qt boiling water at the end of the mash will not be enough to raise the temp to 168. I would guess you would need over 1g boiling water for the figures you specified. This is a guess on my part, because I always use 1 qt per lb, but with 13 lb grain, I would use 1g near boiling water to raise the temp to 168.

I haven't checked your grain absorption figures as I really have no idea what my grain absorption rate is.

When doughing in and mashing out, I would recommend having a qt or so of very hot and cold water so that you can adjust the temperature if necessary. It usually takes a few attempts to get the temps right for your equipment.

Good luck.

-a.
 
It seems to me that your absorbtion figure is off. If it is .1 gallon per pound isn't that 1.3 gallons? My absorbtion rate is a little higher......around .13.
I would only do one sparge as well.
 
I don't know my absorption rate. I just took the .1 gal/lb from Denny Conn's article on Batch Sparging and used it as my own. I subtracted 1.35 gal from 4.22 gal (mash amount) and came up with 2.87 gallons. This subtracted from 3.25 gallons (1/2 of the total boil volume) left me with .38 gallon to make up in order to get 3.25 gallons from the first running. I think that I did it correctly. :) The only reason that I contemplated two sparges is because of what I read in some of Bobby M's posts as well as others on this site. However, if it does not give me an advantage, I will do one sparge.
 
its not that two batch sparges is 'bad'...its just that you may not need it. you need a couple AG brews under your belt to learn how your brewery operates and what efficiency you're getting out of it.
same goes for your actual boil off/evaporation percentage...its just a ballpark until you collect some real-world data.

so its best to keep it simple the first couple batches and then start making tweaks.
 
Actually, I just brewed that exact recipe this past Sunday.

Dough in was 4.22 gallons @ 168F

Mash out was 8.4 quarts boiling (212F) water

Grain absorption per Promash 1.63 gallons

I did a single batch sparge of 2.75 gallons @ 170F

I collected about 7.1 gallons of wort @ 12.7 Brix (1.049 specific gravity)

I boiled 30 minutes to get down to about 6.75 gallons before starting the hop additions.

I made up the hop amounts to add every 5 minutes.

I ended up with exactly 5 gallons in the fermenter @ 14.6 Brix (1.057 specific gravity)

It's chugging away out in the garage now.

Hope that helps.
 
Raceskier, I had to substitute for the hops that I couldn't get so I hope that it turns out OK. And I will look very closely at your procedure. Also thanks to all for the suggestions. Love this site.
 
tbone said:
Am I wasting time doing two sparges with only 6 ½ qts per sparge?
Should I do only 1 sparge of 3.25 gallons?

I prefer to do two sparges. Even though it is the same amount of water...going through that rinsing "action" twice seems to help in my opinion.

I'd also shoot for a 5.5 gallons in the primary to allow for loss to trub. That means upping your preboil to around 7 gallons. You can always boil longer if you end up with too much, but you can "un-boil" if your volume is short.
 
ajf said:
When doughing in and mashing out, I would recommend having a qt or so of very hot and cold water so that you can adjust the temperature if necessary.

I second that recommendation, but also to ensure you collect enough pre-boil volume. I've ended up about 1/2-1 gals short on my first 2 AG batches, due to higher-than-expected grain absorption (or sloppy handling). I'll correct for this going forward, but while you're getting your process down it'll help to have a little extra strike water
 
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