5 gallon turned into 5.5 gallons

[tommyguner03]

I tried to search for a thread on this and then my internet went out so I'm on the phone app..anyhow.. Im sure I mashed with too much water. My mash was 8 gallons at 152 for 90 min. I did not sparge. And ended up with 5.5 gallons worth and finished at 1.053. The finish should of been 1.060 and 5 gallons.. So how did I do?

 

[bottlebomber]

Probably not the greatest efficiency, likely from doing a single infusion and no sparge. And I'm sorry to say, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that at least a half gallon of trub settles by the time all is said and done, leaving you with 5 gallons of OG 1.053 beer.

 

[tommyguner03]

Probably not the greatest efficiency, likely from doing a single infusion and no sparge. And I'm sorry to say, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that at least a half gallon of trub settles by the time all is said and done, leaving you with 5 gallons of OG 1.053 beer.

That's what I was thinking. My second all grain batch and next time I will take the time to sparge.

 

[HopOnHops]

@Bottlebomber, why do you predict the half gallon of trub?

Im wondering because i made a 1.125 barleywine that was closer to 1.5 gallons of trub and i have no idea why...

 

[Hang Glider]

Mash with 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water per 1 pound of grain. (this keeps your pH at about 5.2)
Sparge with water sufficient to bring boil volume to 6.5 gallons (plus or minus, depending on your flame size, evaporation rates, etc).
Expect your spent grain to hold almost a gallon...so have 8+ gallons of water at the ready for brew day.

 

[bottlebomber]

@Bottlebomber, why do you predict the half gallon of trub?

Im wondering because i made a 1.125 barleywine that was closer to 1.5 gallons of trub and i have no idea why...

There will be less break material coming off of a 1.050 beer than a 1.125 beer, but other things come into play too. Protein content of grain, and how much dumped in are also going to contribute. I always let my beer sit for awhile before I drain, so that the break material has settled somewhat, and I don't dump that part in.

 

[TopherM]

Tommy, sounds like you really need to get a handle on your system's boil off rate, loss to trub, loss to contraction, and loss to grain absorbsion. You can calculate EXACTLY how much water you need, and at what step, if you just put in the time to measure these constants, but it is unique to your processes and equipment. A program like BeerSmith ($22.00) does most of these calculations for you, and allows you to store the stats for your personal equipment so all of the numbers are automatically calculated after you lock in the numbers once. Well worth the $$$.


Specifically to your recent brewday, you can have checked your OG adjusted for temp during the boil. If you suspect you have too much water, just pull off some wort during the boil, toss it in the freezer for a few minutes to cool it a bit, and take a OG reading adjusted for temp. If your adjusted OG is too low, keep boiling until you hit your recipe OG. You'll get the hang of how much boil off you need to properly change the OG.

Hope that helps!

 

[silentmike]

save yourself the trouble, get beersmith 2 for $30...it will tell you exactly how much water to use