Boil Volume and Wort

[Mobstar]

Good day.
I'm somewhat new at all grain brewing and am puzzled when reading recipes.

Some recipes say for a 5 gal batch you'll have a 7 gallon boil size.
But.. the single mash I'm using might only generate 4-5 gallons of wort.

How do you make up the difference to obtain that 7 gallon boil volume?
Do you add water to the kettle before adding the wort? Or.. Do you keep adding water to the mash to rinse the grains? if so, does the temperature of that water matter??

Thank you for your help!
I'll be brewing my third batch of all grain this weekend. The first one ended up all over my basement floor. The second one was a Belgian tripel and it turned out great thanks to you guys!

 

[jddevinn]

Good day.
I'm somewhat new at all grain brewing and am puzzled when reading recipes.

Some recipes say for a 5 gal batch you'll have a 7 gallon boil size.
But.. the single mash I'm using might only generate 4-5 gallons of wort.

How do you make up the difference to obtain that 7 gallon boil volume?
Do you add water to the kettle before adding the wort? Or.. Do you keep adding water to the mash to rinse the grains? if so, does the temperature of that water matter??

Thank you for your help!
I'll be brewing my third batch of all grain this weekend. The first one ended up all over my basement floor. The second one was a Belgian tripel and it turned out great thanks to you guys!

The boil size is going to be dependent on the final size of the recipe (obviously! many people scale to get slightly more than batch size), the boil time and your boil off rate. You will need to adjust the recipe for size and to fit your equipment profile.

"adding water to the mash to rinse the grains" is sparging. Some people fly sparge, some batch and some do not sparge. All of these will affect your efficiency and change grain amounts. For example you cannot take one of my fly sparging recipes and duplicate it without adjusting as a no sparge recipe as our efficiencies will be very different.. I sparge with the water staring at the mashout temp (168°F normally) at a rate of ~0.2 gallons/min and let it drop naturally until the sparge is done. I could increase the rate at the cost of efficiency.

It's a bit dated but there is info in the How to Brew book on basic sparging.

 

[daksin]

Yes- the key here is sparging. When you drain off all of your wort from the mash, a significant amount of sugar is left behind in the grains. Adding hot water to the grains, allowing them to soak for a while, and then draining that liquid into the boil kettle is called batch sparging. There's probably no need for you to worry about more complicated procedures like fly/continuous sparging at the moment. Whatever liquid you need to get up to your boil volume after you take the first mash liquid (first runnings) is the volume you need to sparge with.

 

[kh54s10]

Running more water through the grains to extract more sugars, called sparging is dependent on the recipe and your boil off rate. You cannot just add water. You need to know how much you will lose during the boil. That is dependent on the geometry of the kettle the amount of heat applied and to a lesser extent the weather - heat and humidity. Then you have to have a recipe designed for the preboil amount you expect to collect.

For instance if you have a recipe that is designed for 6 gallons preboil at 1.040 but collect 7 gallons you might only get 1.03x for your preboil gravity. Your final ABV will be lower and you will have a thinner, watery beer.

Most recipes for 5 gallons will be looking for about 7 gallons preboil and will need a sparge to get to that amount. The mash will be at about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. So the amount of the water in the mash and sparge will be a little different for each recipe.

 

[Mobstar]

Thank you!
Is there a rule for the temperature of the sparge water?
The recipe I'm doing only states that it's a 5 gallon batch. Boil volume is 7gallons and to mash at 153 for 90min.

I punched in the numbers in a mash calculator and it said to use 4.18gallons of 168 strike water to get to 153 "depending on the grain/equipment temperature" but it says nothing about sparging temperature..

Thank you!! Very excited to brew again!

Running more water through the grains to extract more sugars, called sparging is dependent on the recipe and your boil off rate. You cannot just add water. You need to know how much you will lose during the boil. That is dependent on the geometry of the kettle the amount of heat applied and to a lesser extent the weather - heat and humidity. Then you have to have a recipe designed for the preboil amount you expect to collect.

For instance if you have a recipe that is designed for 6 gallons preboil at 1.040 but collect 7 gallons you might only get 1.03x for your preboil gravity. Your final ABV will be lower and you will have a thinner, watery beer.

Most recipes for 5 gallons will be looking for about 7 gallons preboil and will need a sparge to get to that amount. The mash will be at about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. So the amount of the water in the mash and sparge will be a little different for each recipe.

 

[ArthurDigbySellers]

Thank you!
Is there a rule for the temperature of the sparge water?
The recipe I'm doing only states that it's a 5 gallon batch. Boil volume is 7gallons and to mash at 153 for 90min.

I punched in the numbers in a mash calculator and it said to use 4.18gallons of 168 strike water to get to 153 "depending on the grain/equipment temperature" but it says nothing about sparging temperature..

Thank you!! Very excited to brew again!

Typically you sparge with water at 168 degrees (or less than 170) to avoid extracting harsh tannins from the grain.

 

[kh54s10]

Thank you!
Is there a rule for the temperature of the sparge water?
The recipe I'm doing only states that it's a 5 gallon batch. Boil volume is 7gallons and to mash at 153 for 90min.

I punched in the numbers in a mash calculator and it said to use 4.18gallons of 168 strike water to get to 153 "depending on the grain/equipment temperature" but it says nothing about sparging temperature..

Thank you!! Very excited to brew again!

Typically you sparge with water at 168 degrees (or less than 170) to avoid extracting harsh tannins from the grain.

168 degrees is what I always do but the temperature is not critical. You are just washing most of the rest of the sugars from the grain. Some say you will extract tannins if you exceed 170 degrees. But it really takes high temperatures and a certain level of pH, unlikely that you would encounter. Hot/pretty warm water will loosen the sugars more easily.

Get a copy of Beersmith. Look at all the instructional videos included and mess around with it until you think you understand it. The equipment setup is critical and will take some fine tuning. You will learn a lot about brewing by just learning what this program does.

But a word of caution, BS is a tool. You will have to learn how to use it properly.

This is where I got my download:http://www.birdmanbrewing.com/