Terminology question

Hi all!

I have an all grain recipe which I want to try for my "first" go (I say "first" as my actual first was awful, so I'm not counting that...). I understand and am happy with most of it, but one part says "total liquor = 28.1L, Mash liquor = 11.8L".

Am I right in thinking that I use 11.8L to mash, the same again to sparge and then top the fermenting barrel up to 28.1L with cold water once it's at that point? Or would I be boiling with 28.1L?

28.1L seems little excessive as this is a recipe for 19 litres of beer, so am I expected to lose 9.1L during the boil? it would seem a lot!

I don't really do metric, but you will lose some water to grain absorbtion and I usually lose about 1.5 gallons during a 60 minute boil.

11.8L to mash. The rest of the water is the sparge. Then boil it.

The way I do my all-grains is to basically take between 1/3 and 1/2 of the water I'll be boiling, and use the remainder to sparge the grains, extracting most of the sugar (more water = more sugar extraction). I'm not super scientific about the precise amount of water that I use, but I will use more water in the initial mash for recipes that use more grains so that my mash isn't too thick.

I've never heard of adding cold water to your kettle after you finish your sparge, as Ideally you should be using as much sparge water as possible to extract the maximum amount of sugar (principles of diffusion/solubility explain why). Thus, I believe the "mash liqour" refers to the initial 11-12 liters you used for your mash, and that the total volume at the end is post-sparge.

Depending on factors ranging from humidity, flame temp, elevation, size/shape of the kettle, to dark sorcery, you'll lose between 6-8 liters over the course of the boil, so 28 liters after a sparging is a reasonable volume of wort (mash liqour) especially since most of us rack through a wort-chiller, leaving the hop-trub and some liquid behind in the kettle anyway.

Sounds about right. You didn’t mention how much grain you’re using. That might be a little thick for the mash. You want about 2.75 L/kg. Sparge with the rest until you make your boil volume. If that’s more than you need, the excess stays in the lauter tun.

Don’t do metric? Come on, it’s easy. A liter is a big quart. 19L is five gallons. Mash at 67º. Boil near 100º. Pitch at 19-20º. The hard part is getting used to sweating profusely at 42º, like today.

Wynne-R said:

Don’t do metric? Come on, it’s easy. A liter is a big quart. 19L is five gallons. Mash at 67º. Boil near 100º. Pitch at 19-20º. The hard part is getting used to sweating profusely at 42º, like today.

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That all requires way too much thinking for me!!

Thanks for the help guys, although I think I may now have a slightly different problem - my boiling pot is only 24 litres!!! Damn!

jonboy_t said:

Thanks for the help guys, although I think I may now have a slightly different problem - my boiling pot is only 24 litres!!! Damn!

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Best solution IMO is to buy a turkey fryer, you get both a 36L stockpot + a propane burner to match, you can get them for about $40USD

Andrew5329 said:

Best solution IMO is to buy a turkey fryer, you get both a 36L stockpot + a propane burner to match, you can get them for about $40USD

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+1 to that. That's how I got started. Just make sure to boil some water ahead of time in the fryer since they're usually aluminum.

I really struggled to find anything bigger to be honest. A few weeks of scouring specialists, eBay, catering suppliers... everything, I found a couple of 100 litre ones which would have been ideal, but they were £100 upwards and I just can't get her to agree to opening the wallet that wide!

I did get a 20qt, 18qt and 15qt one off eBay in the end, so I suppose splitting the boil in two might be an option.