before first all grain brew

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golfgod04

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So I was a partial mash brewer and now making the jump to all grain. I have an 8 gallon pot and a converted 52 quart cooler as a mash tun (no pump, ball valve with silicone hose) Before I do my first all grain brew, I want to make sure I have my steps down right.

1.) Heat 4 gallons of water to 158 so I can mash at 148
2.) Transer 4 gallons of water to the cooler
3.) Add the grain to cooler
4.) Stir the mash to make sure no lumps/dough balls
5.) Once that is mixed, close the lid of the cooler for an hour
6.) While that it is happening, heat up 3 gallons of water to 170 degrees to use as sparge
7.) After an hour, open the ball valve a little bit and let the wort come out and use the hose to pour it over the top of the grain bed. Doing this for 5 minutes
8.) Then pour the 170 water over the grain bed
9.) Transfer from cooler back to kettle using the ball valve hose until I have 6 and a half gallons of wort in my brew kettle
10.) Proceed with boil as I'm used to.

If I left anything out and should change anything, please let me know. Any input is appreciated.
 
I'm a newbie myself, but the only thing I noticed is that you mentioned pouring your sparge water in before you lauter your original water you used to strike/mash with. I would advise you batch sparge in two steps. First vorlauf to clear your wort, then lauter with the water you mashed with. Followed by adding the sparge water, stirring, repeating.

Anyone else more experienced feel free to chime in though.
 
So I was a partial mash brewer and now making the jump to all grain. I have an 8 gallon pot and a converted 52 quart cooler as a mash tun (no pump, ball valve with silicone hose) Before I do my first all grain brew, I want to make sure I have my steps down right.

1.) Heat 4 gallons of water to 158 so I can mash at 148
2.) Transer 4 gallons of water to the cooler
3.) Add the grain to cooler
4.) Stir the mash to make sure no lumps/dough balls
5.) Once that is mixed, close the lid of the cooler for an hour
6.) While that it is happening, heat up 3 gallons of water to 170 degrees to use as sparge
7.) After an hour, open the ball valve a little bit and let the wort come out and use the hose to pour it over the top of the grain bed. Doing this for 5 minutes
8.) Then pour the 170 water over the grain bed
9.) Transfer from cooler back to kettle using the ball valve hose until I have 6 and a half gallons of wort in my brew kettle
10.) Proceed with boil as I'm used to.

If I left anything out and should change anything, please let me know. Any input is appreciated.

Here are a few observations:

The volume of water will depend on the size of your grain bill. Most brewers go with a 1.25, 1.33, or 1.5 qt. of water per pound of grain. The grains will absorb water and cooler's typically have some dead space of wort that can't be collected. I usually account for about 1-1.5 gallons of total absorption/dead space for my system. Also, the strike temperature might vary depending on system. I typically need my strike water to be about 20 degrees above desired mash temp to accommodate for a cool mash tun and grain temperature. Same principle applies to sparging, although you're trying to raise the temp of the mash to the 170s. On #7, since you don't have a pump, I recommend having a pitcher on hand to lauter the first 2-4 qts into using your hose, then gently pour the wort from the pitcher back on the grainbed while you're lautering the remainder of your wort into your boil kettle. THEN, once drained completely, add the sparge water, stir, rest for 10 minutes (some advocate no rest at all), repeat the lauter process as before, and start your boil. Others will have different techniques and systems, but this is generally what works for me. You'll never know until you try. :)
 
Some easy advice is to do a dry run with plain water sometime before brew day. This will give you the chance to see if anything leaks, if parts of the process are cumbersome or unworkable, how much heat your tun absorbs so that you can dial in your strike water temperature, determine heat loss from your tun over your mash time, and get an accurate estimation of your boil-off rate.
 
if you're using a false bottom, you may need the vorlauf. Using a braided steel hose to filter, i don't vorlauf because i get zero particles through at the start.

i have had good luck with strike water temp calculators. here's another one http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

i have only just recently started mashing in a cooler instead of on the stove, so i've been heating the water to 3-4 degrees above strike temp, then adding it to the cooler and closing the lid for a few mins, then checking the temp. if it's too high, i just stir for a minute until it cools down and then add the grains.

I've only used this system 3-4 times, so i'm still working out the kinks compared to the papazap bucket sparge. this way definitely leaves me with less stuff to wash.
 
You NEED to overheat your strike water as you will lose heat transferring it and the cooler will also absorb heat.

IMO the best method is to heat your strike water to 170- 175 and transfer to MT, wait 5-10 minutes fo the tun to heat up....check temp and stir to cool, or add a couple ice cubes sparingly. When you get to strike temp dough in the grain and stir well, close the cooler wait a few minutes and stir again and check temp. IME if you check mash temp immediately you will get a false high reading as the temp has not stabilized yet.

If you heat your strike to 158, transfer to MT your mash temp will be way too low due to losses from the transfer and a cold MT

You have a large MT and a smallish batch, some claim laying a sheet of aluminum foil over the grain bet will help keep temp....idk ymmv

Cheers!
 
A few things.... As mentioned above, 4 gallons of water is probably too much. Your strike temperature will be determined by your process. Mine is18 degrees above my mash temp. You can always cool it down before adding your grain or even after. If you had a smaller cooler( 25 to 30 qt ), it would be easier to control. Keep your eye on the pot for the first 10-15 minutes of the boil. Many brewers use an 8 gallon boiler but a 10 gallon is much better for boilover control. Whatever you do enjoy the brew day and don't freak. You'll make a good beer. By the way, make sure to give yourself 5 or 6 hours.
 
Thanks for all the tips, after messaging with a few of you directly, I understand how to do this.

I used beer smith for my recipe and it says 4 gallons for mash in and 4.5 gallons for sparge.
 
What do you have as a filter/screen in your mash tun? I'm only a few batches in myself, and botched my first volume due to the amount of dead space in the MT, just be sure to note this in your equipment profile to account for it in later batches. I changed mine around, and ended up with subsequently almost 0 dead space, and proceeded to way overshoot my volume on the next one. Good luck!
 
Also my 2 cents. I had brewhouse efficiency in the mid to high 60's, once I started stirring my mash at 15 and 45 mins into the mash I've seen my efficiency increase into the 70's and sometimes 80's. And I don't lose too much in the way of temperature. I'm not saying do it on your first batch. Just keep it simple but if you have lower mash efficiency just keep that in the back of your mind. Also keep great notes on how much water you get back vs what you put in To fine tune your process, it will probably take a couple of batches to really dial in your system. Don't expect awesome efficiency on your first allgrain batch.
 
What should I do for mash and sparge water amounts? My grain bill
6lbs 2-row
5lbs vienna
1lb crystal 15
1/2lb flaked wheat

beer smith says 4 gallons of water for mash. then 4.5 gallons for sparge.
Should I use 1.25 quarts per LB of grain? Then sparge is 1.5x that?
 
So I was a partial mash brewer and now making the jump to all grain. I have an 8 gallon pot and a converted 52 quart cooler as a mash tun (no pump, ball valve with silicone hose) Before I do my first all grain brew, I want to make sure I have my steps down right.

1.) Heat 4 gallons of water to 158 so I can mash at 148
As stated check the calculators. And pre heat your mash tun by putting a gallon or so of 140-150 degree water in for 5-10 minutes
2.) Transer 4 gallons of water to the cooler
If that is right for your grainbill.
3.) Add the grain to cooler
4.) Stir the mash to make sure no lumps/dough balls
5.) Once that is mixed, close the lid of the cooler for an hour
6.) While that it is happening, heat up 3 gallons of water to 170 degrees to use as sparge
The temperature here is not critical if you are doing a batch sparge.
7.) After an hour, open the ball valve a little bit and let the wort come out and use the hose to pour it over the top of the grain bed. Doing this for 5 minutes
are you talking about taking wort from the cooler and runing it back to the top of the grainbed? This will not work unless you have a pump. Vorlauf by opening the valve a little, drain into a pitcher until it is running clear, no debris, carefully pour the pitcher back into the mash tun.
8.) Then pour the 170 water over the grain bed
Stir it up well before draining to the boil kettle.
9.) Transfer from cooler back to kettle using the ball valve hose until I have 6 and a half gallons of wort in my brew kettle
This depends on your boil off rate. My 10 gallon pot and Bayou Classic SP10 burner has a boil off rate of 2 gallons per hour.
10.) Proceed with boil as I'm used to.

If I left anything out and should change anything, please let me know. Any input is appreciated.

Watch this video it is one of the ones that got me started:
 
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What should I do for mash and sparge water amounts? My grain bill
6lbs 2-row
5lbs vienna
1lb crystal 15
1/2lb flaked wheat

beer smith says 4 gallons of water for mash. then 4.5 gallons for sparge.
Should I use 1.25 quarts per LB of grain? Then sparge is 1.5x that?

4 gallons will work. I use 1.33 quarts per lb. So it would end up being 4 gallons, 2.5 cups

I fly sparge and just collect 5.5 gallons. I'd rather have some extra, plus I don't have to figure how much everytime.
 
Don't overthink the process. I use 5 gallons of strike water every time no matter what my grain bill is. Ii also keep a gallon of cold water handy in case I overshoot my mash temp. Just add cold water little by little and stir until you hit your target temp. Sometimes that means I'm mashing with 5 1/2 gallons of water. I then heat 4-5 gallons of sparge water near the end of the mash and only use as much as I need. I I get 3 1/2 gallons of wort from the mash and I want 6 1/2 gallons of pre-boil wort, I add 3 gallons of sparge water, stir and drain. I personally don't think grain to water ratios has any discernible effect on a 5 gallon batch.
 

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