AG brew volume n00b question(s)

[PseudoChef]

So I'm looking to make the PM/AG plunge using the touted 5 gallon converted cooler (AG for the "normal beers" and more of a PM (but more mash than extract) for the big beers.) However, in reading Palmer, I can't get a good grasp on beginning boil volumes (forgive me if I'm missing something).

"Sparging is the rinsing of the grain bed to extract as much of the sugars from the grain as possible without extracting mouth-puckering tannins from the grain husks. Typically, 1.5 times as much water is used for sparging as for mashing (e.g., 8 lbs. malt at 2 qt./lb. = 4 gallon mash, so 6 gallons of sparge water). The temperature of the sparge water is important. The water should be no more than 170°F, as husk tannins...etc."

So you start with that 10 gallons wort and boil down to 5? So if the total grain bill is 10 lbs or so (touching the upper limit of space in the 5 gallon converted cooler) that means 2 qt/lb = 5 gallon mash and 7.5 gallon sparge? So now you're boiling 12.5 gallons down to 5?

Sorry if this simple seeming question was too long winded and thanks in advance.

 

[Brewsmith]

What you aren't seeing in that calculation, but Palmer does talk about somewhere, is grain absorbsion of water. You will lose some of that volume.

An easy rule is to just collect what ever it takes you to boil down in an hour, at least for a normal gravity beer. Higher gravity beers will need more sparging and a longer boil.

Example, I brewed my Scotish Ale yesterday with about 9 lbs of grain for a 5.5 gallon brew. I mashed in thick with 10 quarts @ 172 (2.5 gallons) to mash at 156 for 1 hour, added 1 gallon of boiling water at mashout, and then had somewhere around 6 gallons heated for sparge. I colleced a total of 7 gallons of wort, which I then boiled for one hour to get 5.5 gallons.

Just make sure to have enough water on hand. You don't need to be exact before hand, you just don't want to run out and then have to stop to heat up more.

 

[Brewsmith]

Also, the 2 qts/lb is the upper limit of water to grain. The other opposite end is about 1 qt/lb. I generally mash closer to the thicker end so I have enough room in the cooler for mashout. For smaller brews (8-9 lbs of grain) it's not a problem, and mashing at 1.5qt/lb works great. For beers a little bigger (up to about 12 lbs) I generally mash under 1.25 qts/lb because the cooler has little room left. In my 5 gallon cooler I have mashed up to 14 lbs of grain, but that's mashing at 1 qt/lb and no room for mashout.

 

[Muss]

I'm jumping in here as I'm in the same boat as PseudoChef, except i'm converting to metric using this site: http://www.thetipsbank.com/convert.htm

Gallons - Litres = 4.546
U.S. Gallons - litres = 3.785

Quarts - litres = 1.136
U.S quarts - litres = 0.9463

I would normally assume to use the U.S specs as this site is in the USA (is it?), however I always thought you used 4.546 litres to a Gallon there.

When I read quarts and gallons on this site which ones should I use to convert?

Thanks.

To make matters worse we even spell liters litres here.

 

[PseudoChef]

Also, the 2 qts/lb is the upper limit of water to grain. The other opposite end is about 1 qt/lb. I generally mash closer to the thicker end so I have enough room in the cooler for mashout. For smaller brews (8-9 lbs of grain) it's not a problem, and mashing at 1.5qt/lb works great. For beers a little bigger (up to about 12 lbs) I generally mash under 1.25 qts/lb because the cooler has little room left. In my 5 gallon cooler I have mashed up to 14 lbs of grain, but that's mashing at 1 qt/lb and no room for mashout.

Great...this is actually what I wanted to hear about the upper limits. My only problem now seems to be boil capacity as I only have 30 quart at the moment. I thought I did good with buying that pot for extract brews...argh!

 

[PseudoChef]

I'm jumping in here as I'm in the same boat as PseudoChef, except i'm converting to metric using this site: http://www.thetipsbank.com/convert.htm

Gallons - Litres = 4.546
U.S. Gallons - litres = 3.785

Quarts - litres = 1.136
U.S quarts - litres = 0.9463

I would normally assume to use the U.S specs as this site is in the USA (is it?), however I always thought you used 4.546 litres to a Gallon there.

When I read quarts and gallons on this site which ones should I use to convert?

Thanks.

To make matters worse we even spell liters litres here.

Use US to metric conversions. 1 gallon = 3.785 litres. I work in a biochem lab and we use only metric, so once I come home after a long day at the office, I always have to start mentally converting. Metric system >> US system.

 

[Brewsmith]

Great...this is actually what I wanted to hear about the upper limits. My only problem now seems to be boil capacity as I only have 30 quart at the moment. I thought I did good with buying that pot for extract brews...argh!

I have the same thing. Just use a big pot from the kitchen to collect the rest. I put 6 gallons in the turkey fryer and the rest in the spagetti pot (which is convienently marked every 2 quarts). I now have two burners and can have that pot simmering and adding to the big pot as boil off happens. Before that I had the smaller pot on the kitchen stove. By about 30 left in the boil, everything is in the big pot.

 

[AiredAle]

I just last week did my first batch sparge AG beer. I followed the instructions in this webpage: http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/ and it worked out perfectly for me, so be sure it will for you too.

I do have a 10 gallon pot to boil in, but that is irrelevant to the instructions Denny Conn gives so clearly for calculating mash-in water, mash-out water and sparge water volumes and temperatures. The only problem I had was not taking account of the heat absorbed by mycooler/mash tun. The good advice I got on this forum was next time, overheat the mash-in water, add it to the cooler and let it come to the correct mash-in temp, then dough in the grain.