Still a bit in the dark

I did my first AG batch this weekend with Ed Wort holding my hand nearly all the way (and providing counseling afterwards). I was making his Stone clone, which may have turned out not quite as good as I had hoped, but probably still drinkable. At any rate, I am still trying to get up the AG learning curve. Primarily, I am wanting to learn how to use the recipes in the database to make the AG batches.

I am looking at trying this one next:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21229

But I do not understand how you know how much water to use in the initial mash and subsequent sparges, including the temps that the water should be. I just downloaded Pro Mash and started playing with it. Do you guys put the recipes into Promash and have it spit out the necessary water volumes and mash/sparge temps?

I guess what I am asking is...how do you put the recipes in the database to actual use? Sorry for dragging this out, but in my defense, I am trying to learn the Promash system so that I can get on my feet for some of this.

Thanks!

Greg

This should help! http://www.krotchrott.com/plinytheelder.html

At the bottom you can download the ProMash file.

Keep in mind your AG system is most definatly different from someone elses, so be sure to account for differences such as setting the efficiency to match your system.

Good luck!

I have beer tools pro, but i still found it much easier to make a spread sheet to calculate my water and temperatures. First thing you need to know is the volume of beer you want to end up with. Normally this is 5 gallons. Normally yeast takes away about .5 gallon of beer so you want about 5.5 gallons going into your fermentor. I usually exstimate that my hops will absorb about a gallon worth of wort so that means having 6.5 gallons in the kettle at the end of the boil. Finally you need to figure out your evaporation rate. Mine is normally 1.5 gal/hour. so if i have an hour boil, that means that i want 8 gallons of wort in my kettle before the boil. That means that i have to collect 8 gallons of wort from my sparge.

So, i normally mash in at 1 qt or water/pound of grain. (most people use 1.25 or 1.5 though, it makes dough in easier). So if i have 12 lbs worth of grain, that means that i want 12 qt or 3 gallons of strike water. (I will mention temp calculations later). So you mix 3 gallons of strike water with the grain and mix, then let sit for the hour or so to convert everything to sugars. The grain absorbs some water that can't be regained. I use about .2 galllons per pound of grain. that means that you can realistically get (3 gallons - .2gal/lbs*12lbs=.6 gallons) .6 gallons of wort from the mash. I normally do a mash out to get my grain temp up to 170 before any sparging. So, just as you calculated strike temperature, calculate mash out temp. I assume adding water at about 190. Lets say that i added 3.5 gallons of water at 190F to get my mash to 170F. Let that sit for 10 minutes and then start sparging.

So, I can collect .6 gallons from the first water addition and 3.5 gallons from the mash out addition. So sparge and collect that 4.1 gallons of wort. Then, Since i know that i want 8 gallons total, (8gallons-4.1gallons=3.9gallons) I know that my sparge water volume is 3.9 gallons. So, add 3.9 gallons of 170F water for the sparge. let it rest for 10 minutes then collect the 3,9 gallons of wort.

Then you get 8 gallons or wort.

For temperature calculations, its easier if you read about it here:
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue4.5/miller.html

Then, as far as using recipes from others......

Normally a recipe is for 5 gallons. But, because hops and yeast make you loose some beer, you want 6.5 gallons of wort after the boil. I havent used the program that you downloaded but i imagine this would help with this step. To step up a recipe from 5 gallons to 6.5 gallons you want to keep ALL the grain proportions the same. If a 5 gallons batch has 9 pounds of pilsner and 1 pound of munich, you need to change this to a 6.5 gallons batch:

9lbs *6.5gallons/5gallons = 11.7 lbs pilsner
1lbs * 6.5gallons/5gallons=1.3 lbs munich.

Also, look at OG and you may need to change amounts of grain due to efficiency. use your program for that.

hope this wasnt too long and complicated. I can explain more if you want. i kind of ran out of steam and need to go to work.

Good luck!!

I stuck with 2 fairly basic recipes until I felt like I got it right. Tweeking them slightly here or there. My wife liked all my brews but I felt like they were just OK at best. The one I'm currently drinking is great in my opinion.

If you try brewing something completely different each time before you get the process down you may keep coming up with beer that is drinkable but not much else.

Just my $0.02

Basic rule of thumb: Mash 1.25qts per pound of grain. Sparge with 2 quarts per pound of grain. If you are batch sparging, split the sparge amount in half and do it in two batches. Mash between 145-158*F. 152 is what I typically shoot for.

In ProMash, to figure out water needed you can use the "Water Needed Calculator" in either the main program or when you start a session. There is an icon that says "Water Needed" that will bring up a calculator. Only thing it doesn't do is the 2 quarts per pound calculation for you. It does, however, have a box for sparge gallons that you can adjust the quantity in. It also has amounts that you can adjust for various losses (like hopback, or kettle deadspace). Just adjust your numbers and pay attention to the amount going to the fermenters to reach your final volume.

I will typically just use a good old calculator to figure it out on my own though and write it down on my brewing notebook.