getting better but I still need Help!!

I am getting ready to brew today (@1:00...football and brewing,life is good.)...I have an 8lb grain bill for a five gallon batch of Pale ale. I am mashing with 1.25 qrts per pound(2.5 Gallons) Single temp mash @ 158 for hour(or until conversion, it took an hour last time.) I have an igloo cooler MLT with a fly sparge manifold built in to it. My question is how much water should I sparge with, and how much wort can I expect to collect after vorlauffing(sp? love the word, but my spelling sucks!) for the boil? Do i add water to the boil if I don't collect enough wort? Thanks!

 

Thanks , I am getting ready to start brewing in about 30 min.

 

I dunno.

You might try doing it like I do it. Collect your first runnings in a marked vessel of some sort. I use a plastic fermentation bucket with markings on the side. See how much you get, then figure out how much more you need to reach your desired boil volume. If you want 7 gallons in the boil and you collect 2.5 gallons from the first running, you'd need 4.5 gallons more. I'd then divide that by 2 and do 2 sparges with 2.25 gallons each. There should be little or no absorption with the sparges since the grain is already saturated.

That's what I do anyway. I might be all wrong.

EDIT: Oops. Didn't see that you're fly sparging. Ignore this advice.

 

This is a total newb question, but is it possible to "over sparge"? I am worried about rinsing the tannins and other stuff off of the grain bed and into my wort.

 

Yes, if you sparge at hotter than 170.

 

I'm new here, but all of the literature I've read states the recommended sparge temperature is 170F, not 160F. Also, the volume of sparge water is critical to reduce the amount of tannins released from the grain (i.e., over-rinsing).