tonyolympia
Well-Known Member
I noticed in Orfy's original posting that he recommends topping off in the fermenter, if necessary, to reach 5 gallons. I wasn't even aware that this was something all-grain brewers did! Is the purpose to keep the sparge volume down, to avoid extracting tannins? Or is it to keep the batch size at 5 gallons, so the OG stays true to style?
I'm going to do a 3.5 gallon batch BIAB for this recipe (my maris otter should arrive by mail today!) with a mash in one kettle and a dunk sparge in a separate kettle. My plan to avoid over-sparging was to mash at 1.5 qts/lb, a bit thinner than your recommended 1.25 qts/lb. I then planned to sparge to reach my full boil volume.
How important is mash thickness to this delicious-sounding beer? Would you recommend that I stick with 1.25 qts/lb, keep the sparge volume low, and top off to my batch volume?
Hopefully the above is not too confusing.
I'm going to do a 3.5 gallon batch BIAB for this recipe (my maris otter should arrive by mail today!) with a mash in one kettle and a dunk sparge in a separate kettle. My plan to avoid over-sparging was to mash at 1.5 qts/lb, a bit thinner than your recommended 1.25 qts/lb. I then planned to sparge to reach my full boil volume.
How important is mash thickness to this delicious-sounding beer? Would you recommend that I stick with 1.25 qts/lb, keep the sparge volume low, and top off to my batch volume?
Hopefully the above is not too confusing.