Water amounts

When batch sparging do you just use as much water needed to fill the balance you'll need to boil? Say you're making a 5 gallon batch...you want to have a 6.5 gallon boil and when you've mashed out with 3.5 gallons. Would you just sparge with 3 gallons to make up the difference?

It wouldn't just be the difference, no, as you're going to be losing water from grain absorption and some due to any dead space at the bottom of your mashing vessel. The water absorbed by grains is really the big one though. I don't recall off the top of my head how much water a pound of grain will typically absorb, so hopefully someone else chimes in with that info.

shanecb said:

It wouldn't just be the difference, no, as you're going to be losing water from grain absorption and some due to any dead space at the bottom of your mashing vessel. The water absorbed by grains is really the big one though. I don't recall off the top of my head how much water a pound of grain will typically absorb, so hopefully someone else chimes in with that info.

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Pretty much correct. I use .12 gal./lb. for absorption.

It's about .125 gal per pound.


You'll end up putting in say 6 gallons to mash in. You'll drain like 3.5 out or so. If you need 7.5 gallons per boil you'll spare with 4 gallons and your done.

It's roughly an estimate. Will vary with your equipment and process.

Actually, he already figured the grain absorbtion in by saying "mash out." So, yes, it would be the difference. One way to do it ahead of time would be to figure out how much loss you will get to tun design (in my case .5 gal) then add in the grain absorbtion .10-.12 would be fine, then subtract that from your mash in volume. Then you will have your estimated mash out figure to prepare your sparge water.

BigB said:

Actually, he already figured the grain absorbtion in by saying "mash out."

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Ahhh... reading comprehension fail on my end. I read "mash in".