beersmith sparge calculation

hey guys,

i'm just getting back into brewing, and am doing an all grain blonde ale. i calculated the numbers at my LHBS using beersmith, and came up with a 3.8 gal mash, and a 7 gal sparge, with 9 lbs grain. to make a long story short, the sparge volume was way too much to end up with preboil volume of 8.76 gal.

after sparging, i had at least 2 gal over + and just put the extra amount aside and began my boil. the preboil sg was about 1.30. any ideas as to what i did wrong, or how i can correct it? any advice is much appreciated!

escalante88 said:

hey guys,

i'm just getting back into brewing, and am doing an all grain blonde ale. i calculated the numbers at my LHBS using beersmith, and came up with a 3.8 gal mash, and a 7 gal sparge, with 9 lbs grain. to make a long story short, the sparge volume was way too much to end up with preboil volume of 8.76 gal.

after sparging, i had at least 2 gal over + and just put the extra amount aside and began my boil. the preboil sg was about 1.30. any ideas as to what i did wrong, or how i can correct it? any advice is much appreciated!

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It must be in your "equipment set up" area. In order to check it for your next batch, just do the math yourself to see how much you should really use and then correct your settings in Beersmith.

For example, with 9 pounds of grain, you'd use about 1.5 quarts/pound of grain, for a total of 13.5 quarts of water for the strike water. Since the grain will absorb about a gallon of water in the mash, you could plan on getting 2.5 gallons of water out of the mash.

If you want a preboil volume of 7 gallons, then you'd need 4.5 gallons of sparge water. If you want a preboil volume of 8 gallons, then you'd need 5.5 gallons of sparge water.

The amount of sparge water you put in is what comes out, since the grain has already absorbed all the liquid it is going to in the mash. So you can always predict how much water you'll need just by subtracting.

could be a number of things such as incorrect boil off amount or grain absorption. if you dont own beersmith i suggest you buy it and set it up for your own personal brewing style and equipment. this will take a few batches for you to figure out. for my system i set dead space to zero and make sure i drain the tun well. i shoot for 7 gal of total wort so once i see what i get back then i sparge with what i need plus .5 gal of 175 degree water. ex first running returns 2.5 gal then i add 5 gal sparge to get back 7gal. my personally boil off is 1.5gal/hr leaving me with 5.5 gals.

great minds think alike

thanks guys! i definitely think the 7gal sparge was an overcalculation, but i think setting aside the last 2+ gallons of the sparge was a good idea. hopefully my gravity will end up ok - beersmith calculated an sg of 1.044, so will we see. I will definitely make calculations of my own next time, and will also have a better idea of what my system is capable of. i have a totally new set-up - my ex three times removed took my burner and pot!

and i am buying beersmith for myself!

escalante88 said:

thanks guys! i definitely think the 7gal sparge was an overcalculation

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Definitely was, when I read your post I had to say, "Whaaa?" in regard to that sparge volume. For that type of grain bill I am usually sparging with about 4.8 gallons of water. I use Brewzor on my Android phone and it's been a critical piece of software for me for it's brewing calculators on brew day. I own Beersmith but do all my calcs on my phone. If you have an Android or iPhone you might want to look into downloading one of the many free brewing apps available.


Rev.

Easy-Peasy method = determine your target preboil volume (say 7 gallons preboil to get to 5.5 gallons post boil) and sparge until you get to that volume.