Blonde Ale All Grain...few questions before we start

[GrantH]

My buddy and I are plaining to brew the Midwest Blonde Ale kit as a second AG batch. We haven't done this in quite some time as school consumed the both of us. The time has come to attempt this yet again.

Equipment (sparse... but workable):
-52 quart igloo cooler turned Mashtun
-7.5 gallon turkey fryer pot

What a list! MAN! We are working with high end equipment boys!

I've always been a bit lost on water amounts. I need some guidelines I guess.

We are doing a 5 gallon batch and I need to know what amount of strike, mash out, and sparge water I need.

My idea of things are as follows:

-Strike with 3.5 gallons @ 168.
-Add grains and close cooler @ 152
-Sit for 60 minutes
-Mash out with 2 gallons boiling water
-Drain and vorlof for clarity
-Sparge with the amount of water to = 6-6.5 gallon wort.
-If you first drain to 3.5 gal. or wort, ad 3-3.5 sparge to mash
-Drain/Vorlof again.
-Go about boiling/hop additions as usual

I'm guessing I am wrong somewhere, probably more than 1 area. Can someone school me on the basics real quick? I've watched a few videos but none explain the water addition mathematics.

Do things change drastically temp wise between say, this Blonde Ale...and the DIPA I ordered for later?

 

[h22lude]

The amount of water you mash with depends on the style of beer and the type of mash you are doing but mostly the amount of grains you have. The rule of thumb is 1.25 to 1.5 quarts per pound. The temp will be different depending on the style of beer but 152 is a good average temp.

It is hard to tell you the amounts of water and temp at each step without knowing you recipe.

 

[GrantH]

5 lbs Pale Malt 2-row
4 lbs Wheat Malt
.5 lbs Cara/Crystal 10L
.5 lbs Flaked Wheat
.25 lbs Caravienne Malt

1 oz. Willamette Hops

1 pk. Dry Yeast, whichever MW supplies.

5*1.25 = 6.25 quarts
4*1.25 = 5 quarts
1.25*1.25 = 1.5 quarts

Total = 12.75 quarts, or ~3.25 gallons.

Does that seem right?

 

[GrantH]

BeerSmith seems to agree. 12.81 quarts Strike Water. Single Step infusion with addition of water @ 163.7 to Mash at 152.

 

[h22lude]

Yeah 3.25 gallons of water for your mash seems right on spot.

152 is a good temp for blonde ales. 152 to 154. The lower the temp the lighter the body. The higher the temp the fuller the body.

When you mash out, you don't want boiling water. You just want your mash to get to 168 and hold that for 10 minutes or so.

Vorlauf until clear is right.

Pick the type of sparging you want to do and go until you reach 6.25 gallons or so.

 

[GrantH]

Plan is to batch. Nice, simple, effective (seemingly).

 

[h22lude]

Plan is to batch. Nice, simple, effective (seemingly).

Batch sparging is just fine. I just read a good article in BYO about the different types of sparging and BIAB brewing. They wanted to find out which got the better efficiency. Long story short, none of the methods did better than the other (on average).

 

[brewskerdoo]

The tricky part is going to be making this all work with only one pot. What are you going to drain your cooler/mash tun into if your turkey fryer pot is full of sparge water?

 

[GrantH]

We have a 3 or so gallon cooking pot as well, just our main boiler is the 7.5

 

[h22lude]

The tricky part is going to be making this all work with only one pot. What are you going to drain your cooler/mash tun into if your turkey fryer pot is full of sparge water?

All you need for AG is a big enough pot for the batch you are doing, a mash tun and fermenting bucket.

Fermenting bucket is used to catch the wort from the mash tun. Once you get the volume you need, dump it into the empty brew kettle (which is also used to heat to mash water, mash out water and sparge water). Now you have an empty fermentation bucket to fill when the boil is done.

 

[brewskerdoo]

I understand that some people use their fermenter bucket to collect the runnings while the boil pot being used to heat sparge water. Then once all the runnings are collected up, you can pour them into the pot and proceed with the boil. Just another option

Edit: hahah h22lude great minds thing alike!

 

[GrantH]

One more thing, if ya'll don't mind.

BeerSmith shows this information..

ABV Est: 5.4%
Style ABV: 4.1-5.1%
Actual ABV: .6%
Calories: 43 cal/pint


The last all-grain we did, something happened, and it only went to 1% or so. Am I setting myself up somehow for the same things based on these stats? The Actual ABV and Calories sound off, by a long shot.

 

[h22lude]

You haven't entered the actual OG and FG for it to calculate

 

[GrantH]

All you need for AG is a big enough pot for the batch you are doing, a mash tun and fermenting bucket.

Fermenting bucket is used to catch the wort from the mash tun. Once you get the volume you need, dump it into the empty brew kettle (which is also used to heat to mash water, mash out water and sparge water). Now you have an empty fermentation bucket to fill when the boil is done.

I may have an Ale Pale I can use to collect wort if we feel the smaller pot isn't large enough and just siphon/pour it into the carboy when the time comes.

 

[GrantH]

You haven't entered the actual OG and FG for it to calculate

Oh. I thought it would calculate that itself through the program from igredients and mash profile...


Edit: It does. I now see it says "measured."

 

[h22lude]

Oh. I thought it would calculate that itself through the program from igredients and mash profiel...

That's the estimated ABV. It estimated the OG and FG based on ingredients you enter and then calculates the estimated ABV from those.

It will calculate actual ABV and calories based on the actual OG and FG you enter. Not that calories are anything craft drinkers should be worried about.