Pounds of Grain per Volume of Water

[b_mckendry]

What is a good rule of thumb on pounds of grain per volume of water? I lose a lot of wort during my boil and I know all styles beers are different on the amount water you start with but what is a safe amount of water to start with if I am making a 5 gallon batch?

 

[fastengine]

I mash with 1 to1.2 quarts of water per pound of grain, most of my batches are 10 lbs. of grain per about 5 gallons, give or take a little, and I start my boil with just about 6 gallons of wort.

 

[Sammy86]

1.25-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain depending on how thick or thin you want your mash and the style of beer you are brewing.

Cheers!

 

[b_mckendry]

I mash with 1 to1.2 quarts of water per pound of grain, most of my batches are 10 lbs. of grain per about 5 gallons, give or take a little, and I start my boil with just about 6 gallons of wort.

How much of that is your strike water and how much is mash?

 

[b_mckendry]

How much of that is your strike water and how much is mash?

 

[fergusmj]

I've heard the 1.25 to 1.5 fairly regularly. I usually go for the 1.25 to have more to sparge with.

 

[acidrain]

Strike is what you do when you add the grain to the water (or vice-versa) and is the start of your mash volume. Then you sparge to get the pre-boil volume. You have to know how much your boil-off rate is to know how much you need pre-boil.

 

[Sammy86]

Here is my equation...

12 (lb grain) X 1.5 (quarts H2O)= 18 quarts

18/4= 4.5 gallons of strike water

Then based on your system your sparge water is going to be however much more you need to get to your boil volume. So for me I need 6 gallons preboil wort so I add about another 3.5 for my sparge water

Cheers!

 

[fastengine]

How much of that is your strike water and how much is mash?

For 10 lbs of grain I will use 10 to 12 quarts of water. I use an old stoneware canner and this about fills it up. I just picked up a 10 gallon water cooler so I can start step mashing and using more strike water. Not sure if this answers your question, I don't really understand what you mean by " how much is mash ".

 

[blizz81]

My math:

1.25qt * lb of grain / 4 + 0.875gal (volume under false bottom) = strike water
lb of grain * .115 = absorption volume
strike water - absorption volume = first runnings
(for most beers) preboil volume - first runnings = sparge volume

Most of the time preboil volume being a simple example of target volume in fermenter + (boiloff rate in quarts per minute * minutes) / 4 , ie 5.5gal + 1.33gal in 60 minutes = 6.83gal.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

The more water you add during mash, the less you will need in reserve for sparge and the higher the risk of poor efficiency.

The less water you add during the mash, the hotter it will need to be to attain strike temp, but you will have more water in reserve for an efficient sparge.

It's a brewhouse tradeoff and only YOU can decide what works best for your brewhouse. IIRC, a thin mash works best in a static tun (no recirc) where a thicker mash work best with a herms/rims system.

 

[TexasWine]

What is a good rule of thumb on pounds of grain per volume of water? I lose a lot of wort during my boil and I know all styles beers are different on the amount water you start with but what is a safe amount of water to start with if I am making a 5 gallon batch?

I'll give you another data point different than the others here. With full volume BIAB folks regularly use 2.5-3 quarts/pound.