Easy SG management

Right now I have my third AG batch sparging.
I haven't calculated my efficiency or started using any software yet and it occurred to me that there might be a simpler way to deal with this.
My recipe is for a final wort volume of 6 gallons at a specific OG, 1.062. The preboil will be a higher volume and lower SG than that. Why can't I sparge until the volume is what my final is supposed to be and if the SG is a little on the low side, add a bit of extract (dry or liquid) until it's right. Then at the end of the boil, top it back up with water to 6 gallons. Shouldn't it be back to the same SG as preboil? If not, it should still be closer and might require less initial preboil compensation.
This seems so much simpler than calculating and trying to compensate for variables before the fact. Am I missing something?

I think you could do that OR get you 6 gallons at 1.062 and then add the estimated boil off water before you boil. Having the extra boil off water in the pot will help with hop utilization and reduce carmelization.

If you're going AG, why would you want to 'contaminate' things with DME / LME. The calculations aren't that hard. And if the result is not exactly as planned, so what? I would rather do a pure AG, and miss my targets, than 'cheat' with DME/LME.

BTW - I don't make this argument from the point of view of quality, more as a matter of (trivial) principal.

carp said:

If you're going AG, why would you want to 'contaminate' things with DME / LME. The calculations aren't that hard. And if the result is not exactly as planned, so what? I would rather do a pure AG, and miss my targets, than 'cheat' with DME/LME.

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the extract goes in preboil, so contamination isn't a concern. It worked out pretty well. I put in about 6 oz of DME to bring it to the desired OG, then post boil, I added back about 3 quarts of water to bring it back.

carp said:

If you're going AG, why would you want to 'contaminate' things with DME / LME. The calculations aren't that hard. And if the result is not exactly as planned, so what? I would rather do a pure AG, and miss my targets, than 'cheat' with DME/LME.

BTW - I don't make this argument from the point of view of quality, more as a matter of (trivial) principal.

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That's just silly

carp said:

If you're going AG, why would you want to 'contaminate' things with DME / LME. The calculations aren't that hard. And if the result is not exactly as planned, so what? I would rather do a pure AG, and miss my targets, than 'cheat' with DME/LME.

BTW - I don't make this argument from the point of view of quality, more as a matter of (trivial) principal.

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my first AG I shot for 10 gallons, (what was I thinking!) and it boiled down to 8. another batch boiled down as much. i really didn't have a clue what i was doing. my mash temp was low and my efficiency seemed low, so i stopped when the SG was right. with this method, I can ignore efficiency and boildown variables until I get the hang of it better.
as for "contaminating" my precious AG with extract, I don't see any sacredness to using AG. my first three years of brewing were strictly partial extract box kits and i (and my friends) was perfectly happy with the results. i think the main advantage of AG is that you have more range of base malts. (please feel free to correct this impression) you have to admit that partials are a lot easier to make. so i don't have any problem to adding a small amount of DME, 4 oz in this case, to adjust my preboil SG.
I understand your purist position, and you are free to hold it, but this works for me.

sharpstick said:

------
I haven't calculated my efficiency or started using any software yet ----

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I admire your 'by hand' approach, but all grain and brewing software are just perfect for each other. There are several spreadsheet based brewing aids floating around, and I think most of the brewing software people have demo versions out there so you can get started with them for free. I use Brewsmith personally, and it really simplifies the brew day. YMMV.

even with the software readily accessable, i still keep to doing calculations by hand. sure, it may not be as fast, but i feel that it makes the science behind the project much easier to understand. plus, if i miss my numbers, i know it wasn't the software's fault. i can look back at the calcs and see what went wrong. besides, 20 dollars is almost another batch of beer. living on a college budget sucks =\

Personally I don't worry that much about hitting target OG - in fact a lot of the time I don't even bother to take a reading. I hate dealing with DME/LME, so the OG would have to be way off before I'd go that route.

Don't forget that by stopping your sparge at the post-boil volume, you're wasting usable wort and thus dropping your efficiency. The calculation to predict post-boil gravity from a pre-boil reading is simple, even by hand.

sharpstick said:

Right now I have my third AG batch sparging.
I haven't calculated my efficiency or started using any software yet and it occurred to me that there might be a simpler way to deal with this.
My recipe is for a final wort volume of 6 gallons at a specific OG, 1.062. The preboil will be a higher volume and lower SG than that. Why can't I sparge until the volume is what my final is supposed to be and if the SG is a little on the low side, add a bit of extract (dry or liquid) until it's right. Then at the end of the boil, top it back up with water to 6 gallons. Shouldn't it be back to the same SG as preboil? If not, it should still be closer and might require less initial preboil compensation.
This seems so much simpler than calculating and trying to compensate for variables before the fact. Am I missing something?

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I guess from my perspective the first question that needs asking is "What are my goals in SG management?" You can certainly brew the way you suggest but I don't know that it's any simpler that performing monitoring. It seems more reactive than proactive to me... You need to have a ready supply of ME but you won't know how much to use without accurate measurements of volume and SG anyway, you need a supply of boiled water available for top up or run the risk of contaminating your batch, plus hop utilization is affected by the gravity of the boil so you'd need to compensate for that... If you need to monitor these variables anyway to know what you need to top up, why not use them to lock your process down?

I did monitor as many variables as possible for the first few batches not to be an efficiency fiend, but to establish what to expect in terms of consistency from my equipment. After that I backed off on measurements so what I need to know to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. A shift if first runnings gravity from expected means the conversion wasn't complete. A shift in preboil SG means I didn't mix enough during sparging. If I'm high volume going into the carboy, I probably didn't boil hard enough. I then know what to do differently next time.

As it is right now, I know I'll get 80% of the sugars in my mash into the pot and I'll boil 1.5 gallons off in a 1 hour boil so as long as I add 20% more grain than the target gravity units and sparge 1.5 gallons more than the target final volume I'm good. If I'm off, my measurements tell me what to do differently next time. IMHO, doing a bit more work the first few batches leads to a lot less work on the future batches.

Cheers

Funkenjaeger said:

. . . I hate dealing with DME/LME, so the OG would have to be way off before I'd go that route.

Don't forget that by stopping your sparge at the post-boil volume, you're wasting usable wort and thus dropping your efficiency. The calculation to predict post-boil gravity from a pre-boil reading is simple, even by hand.

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why do you hate dealing with extract?
the wort running out of the mash was getting thin, about 1.025 and i've heard that you can get off tastes at the end of the runnings.