1st All grain batch. I have question on the water to grain calculation

When calculating the amount of water needed I include the malt with the grain in that calculation? Is that correct?

yes all grains account for your total grain bill when figuring up your water. 1.25qts/lb seems the consensus on here. Also bookmark this site to help you out:


http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

If you can scrape up the change, Beer Smith is worth every penny. It takes alot of math out of the process. Granted, doing your own calculations allows for more 'personality' in each batch.

I do my own calculations every time. I start with 1.5 qt/lb and then calculate what volume my first runnings will be. Then, I try to make the sparge volume equal the first running volume which usually requires me to add a little more water to the strike volume. Yesterday with a 4 gal batch and 8.5ish pounds of grain, I initially calculated a strike volume of 3.14 gal's and a first running of 2 gal's and then the sparge would have been 4 gals. So I added another gallon to the strike to get 4.14 gals and 3 gal's of first runnings and then 3 gal's of sparge.

By doing the calc's yourself you have a lot more control over what you want to do, and I think it is more fun to be more involved in the process

Coypoo's method is pretty much what I do when I batch sparge.

I'm a little confused why you mean by "malt" and "grain". I assume you're differentiating base malts from specialty/caramalts but for the most part, all of it is "the grain bill" and goes into the mash. You're not talking about liquid or powdered malt extract right?

iron_city_ap said:

If you can scrape up the change, Beer Smith is worth every penny. It takes alot of math out of the process. Granted, doing your own calculations allows for more 'personality' in each batch.

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You can usually download a demo to try it out before hand. I find that I'm just too impatient to figure these programs out so I go with 1.5 qt/lb. I find it's better to have a bit too much water.

Have fun, there is nothing like the AG process and no matter what happens (like not having enough sparge water - that happened to me on my first AG brew) you will more than likely end up with great beer.

I LOVE all grain. Long story short, I recently thought about picking up an extract kit rather than waiting for an AG order to get shipped to me. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. Not that I didn't get good beer out of extacts in the past, but I enjoy the process SOO much more.

Also, as a quick test, I ran copypoo's grain bill through BS and it spit back a strike vol of 2.6gal and sparge vol. of 4.6gal Slightly off from the math version, but not by all that much. I like the sound of what the math version would give for the same batch. Maybe I'll just make a .6 gallon adjustment in the future.

Thanks for all the advice. I think my first AG brew went pretty well. I had 20 lb's of grain which worked out to 8 gallons of water. I had enough grain and enough water left over that I decided to see if I could get a second batch (obviously much weaker) out of what was left over. If it turns out I'm going to name it "Sloppy Seconds".

JLW said:

If it turns out I'm going to name it "Sloppy Seconds".

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You're asking for a yeast infection
:fro:

JLW said:

T. I had enough grain and enough water left over that I decided to see if I could get a second batch (obviously much weaker) out of what was left over.

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Left over grain? How must wert did you collect and boil for each batch? Interested in what the OG was of the second one if you didn't mix it all then separate it.

I collected 7 gallons in the main batch and the OG was 1.120. The second batch I collected about 4 gallons and the OG was 1.030.

I had 8 gallons of sparge water and my 10 gallon brew pot wouldn't hold all of that water. I boiled for 90 min (which is what the recipe called for) and hit 5 gallons almost on the nose.

WAAAAYY back, wasn't it pretty common to try to get 2 or 3 batches out of a grain bill? I remember reading something about it in Radical Brewing. I'm out of town right now, so I can't reference the book at the moment. I'm curious how the 2nd batch will turn out.

iron_city_ap said:

WAAAAYY back, wasn't it pretty common to try to get 2 or 3 batches out of a grain bill?

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It's called partigyle. I'm definitely going to do that next time I make a Barleywine, so it's easier to hit my gravity. Then I'll be left with a smaller beer too.

and you can call it... mini barleywine...

/pinky to the corner of my mouth

iron_city_ap said:

and you can call it... mini barleywine...

/pinky to the corner of my mouth

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That made me lol for real.