New To All Grain - Full Volume?

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RScottyL

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I am new to all grain brewing, but have done extract brewing before.

I just recently bought the equipment to do all grain (larger pot, mash tun cooler,immersion cooler, etc)!

My brew pot is 32 qts (8 gallons) and my mash tun is a 10 gallon igloo cooler. I am only brewing 5 gallon batches right now, limited by the size of my kegs.

Would it be better to follow the instructions in the all grain "kit", which is to boil the water, mash, sparge and use more water.....

or would it be better just to boil for the full volume and save time?
 
I don't know that much about all grain having never done it myself, but folks on this forum do not usually take to just following directions on kits.

I would heat water to 166F-ish (thus leaving room for grain to bring temp down to your mash temp (152-154F)), dough in, mash for 60 mins and stir, take first runnings and recirculate till wart runs clear, drain to brew pot, then add sparge water heated to 170, let sit for 10 mins, recirculate and drain, proceed with full volume boil as usual.

But it'd leave it for a pro to answer for reals.
 
Yeah, in short, the instructions say to boil (170 degrees) 3 gallons of water first, then mash with grains.

They say drain, then boil 5 gallons of water to use for sparge, let sit for a bit, then drain.

I need to have 6.75 gallons of wort to boil for 1 hour!



So, i was figuring I could bring about 8 gallons of water to about 170 degrees, mash with grains for an hour, vourlauf then drain, then bring that wort to 170 degrees and then be done!
 
That is called "no sparge"
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/No_sparge_method
You can get good results with this method for brews under 1.06OG but will sacrifice a few efficiency points.
Estimate 60% efficiency when you develop your recipes, efficiency will suffer further if you do this with bigger brews.

The directions describe a "batch sparge" process.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Batch_Sparging
This is very common among home brewers due to its higher efficiency (some can yield close to 80%)
I am not so lucky, I average about 70% batch sparge and about 62% no sparge for a 1.055 brew.
 
I'm sure that's one way to do it, though (and this is where experience helps, of which I have none) I'm not sure if that will give you a decent extraction of sugars. The reason being, I imagine, that your mash temp would be difficult to hold with one the full volume of water (it needs to be +/- 2 degrees F for the whole 60 minutes for a decent conversion).

Also, sparging, if done correctly, ensures that you'll hit your pre-boil volume bang on because when you add your sparge water, you'll know exactly how much you'll need to heat.
Also, there is this link: http://brewwiki.com/index.php/Sparging
It outlines the pros and cons of sparging techniques as well as the pros and cons of going no sparge.
 
RScottyL said:
I am new to all grain brewing, but have done extract brewing before.

I just recently bought the equipment to do all grain (larger pot, mash tun cooler,immersion cooler, etc)!

My brew pot is 32 qts (8 gallons) and my mash tun is a 10 gallon igloo cooler. I am only brewing 5 gallon batches right now, limited by the size of my kegs.

Would it be better to follow the instructions in the all grain "kit", which is to boil the water, mash, sparge and use more water.....

or would it be better just to boil for the full volume and save time?

Your question is a little confusing:(
You want to mash the grains using 1.5qt/lb of water that should be around 163-65F and stir in so everything gets mixed well and the temperature settles at 150-152 and hold for 60 minutes, then drain. Calculate the amount of wort you collect and then sparge with enough 180F water to collect your pre-boil volume which should be 6-6.5 gallons, assuming you will boil off 1g/hr.

Go to Www.dennybrew.com and you can batch sparge

Good luck!
 
I don't know that much about all grain having never done it myself

Then you are posting advice in the wrong area.:)

I fly sparge, and have so for the last 20 years. But I have been giving batch sparging another shot. Just batch sparged my second batch yesterday and this time it went pretty good and was my shortest brew day (all-grain) yet. I feel that is an easy way to ease into all-grain, but won't help if you are wanting to go pro one day. Maybe get a few batch sparging batches in then go fly sparging?

And your question is a little confusing as pointed out. You wouldn't add boiling water to the mash, no matter what stage you were in. I would also sparge a little closer to 170° to avoid tannin extraction.

There are online tools to help calculate the water temp to grain, to get the temps you need. I think Beersmith also has a free trial, and it has the same.
 
Then you are posting advice in the wrong area.:)

I appreciate the smiley face, that took the sting out of that comment. :tank:
Out of curiosity, I genuinely want to know, what I missed in my brief description of a batch sparge brew day?

I may not have done it, yet. But I've done my share of reading of reading.
 
You can't just bring your 8 gallons of water to 170 and add the grains to mash because the mash temperature has to be right and unless your grains just came from the freezer your water will be way to hot for mashing. You need to calculate the temperature of the water based on the weight and temperature of the grains to get the right mash temp. Most of my BIAB 5 gallon batches will have water temperature near 160 for the 8 or so pounds of grain to end up with a mash temp of 152 to 154. I use an online calculator for this. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/infusion.html
 
jwalk4 said:
I appreciate the smiley face, that took the sting out of that comment. :tank:
Out of curiosity, I genuinely want to know, what I missed in my brief description of a batch sparge brew day?

I may not have done it, yet. But I've done my share of reading of reading.

Batch sparging:
Www.dennybrew.com
 
I appreciate the smiley face, that took the sting out of that comment. :tank:
Out of curiosity, I genuinely want to know, what I missed in my brief description of a batch sparge brew day?

I may not have done it, yet. But I've done my share of reading of reading.

Depends on your grain bill. But for my brew yesterday I mashed my 10 lbs. of grain with about 14 quarts of water at 161 to get to 152 mash temp. After mashing, I added another 1.5 gals of 168 water (per Beersmith) to start the runoff. After that I added another 3.5 gallons of 168, stirred and then ran that off. I probably could have gone a bit higher for the sparge additions, but I was following along with Beersmith this go around.

In all, you didn't miss much. But it is very dependent on your grain bill, and what kind of mash thickness you want. Also what you want your mash temp to be.

I was putting the smiley on to let you know I was completely kidding with my comment. It doesn't matter your skill level as long as you are giving good advice. And yours was not bad.

Good luck when you take the expensive plunge.

Also, take anything with Denny's name attached to it with a huge grain of salt. Doesn't make him easier to digest, but it takes your mind off of him. ;)
 
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