While making a 13 lb grain bill yesterday, my mash calculator determined that I would need approx. 4.75 gallons of water for the mash. In previous batches with less grain, I have been able to keep the mash volume and the sparge volume in equal parts.
So calculating my mash water went something like this.
1.5 quarts * 13 in gallons (type this into Google and will do the math for you)
Results: 1.5 US quarts * 13 = 4.87500 US gallons
I know that I could drop down to 1.2 US quarts but I would still end up with 3.9 gallons of mash water which exceeds the size of my kettle if I sparge with an equal amount of H2O.
My kettle which can only hold 7.5 gallons of total volume, but let's call it 7 gallons because I need some headspace in the kettle for a rolling boil. (Even that is snug, I prefer a full gallon of head space.)
Based on my kettle am I limited to only make 10lb-11lb grain bills? and only left with DME,etc.. to raise my gravity? If I want to make higher alcohol content based beers do I need a 10 gal kettle?
Thanks,
jlanier01
So calculating my mash water went something like this.
1.5 quarts * 13 in gallons (type this into Google and will do the math for you)
Results: 1.5 US quarts * 13 = 4.87500 US gallons
I know that I could drop down to 1.2 US quarts but I would still end up with 3.9 gallons of mash water which exceeds the size of my kettle if I sparge with an equal amount of H2O.
My kettle which can only hold 7.5 gallons of total volume, but let's call it 7 gallons because I need some headspace in the kettle for a rolling boil. (Even that is snug, I prefer a full gallon of head space.)
Based on my kettle am I limited to only make 10lb-11lb grain bills? and only left with DME,etc.. to raise my gravity? If I want to make higher alcohol content based beers do I need a 10 gal kettle?
Thanks,
jlanier01