I'm preparing to brew tomorrow, and I'll have a lot of "firsts" on this run. So I have some questions.
My brew process up until now has been a 5 gallon batch using a 13.2 gallon converted keg as both HLT and BK on a propane turkey fryer, while batch sparging in a 48 qt Igloo ice chest MLT. It worked great, and after my first few batches I was able to get consistently good beer and repeatable results on multiple brewings of the same recipe with that setup.
I decided I wanted a 10 gallon brewery, so I built myself a Brutus 10 clone. At this point, it is fully functional but 100% manual. I don't have the gas valves and pilots and temperature control system wired up yet, although I have most of the parts to do it. I'm still working on that but I'm ready for manual brewing.
This will be my first 10 gallon batch, first batch on my new Brutus 10 clone, the first time to use my new 15.5 gallon converted keg HLT, MLT, and BK, my first fly sparge, and my first time to use a recipe with water volumes and temps calculated by BrewSmith. I have brewed this recipe before on my old setup, but I calculated all the variables by hand.
My first question is about priming the march pumps. They are positioned on my brew stand exactly like Lonnie has his on his Brutus 10. Most Brutus 10 clone builders have done it the same way. It is really hard to get them going. It too me several minutes on my first test run (no grain) to get them to move any water. Once they got going they worked great and I got fast flow rates, and I was then able to throttle them to a trickle with the ball valve on the outlet side (top). What's the trick to priming these things?
Next question is about how BrewSmith calculates water for mash and sparge. I set the batch size at 10.5 gallons because that's how much I want in the fermenter at the end of the boil. BrewSmith says my boil size should be 12.57 gallons, which sounds about right. For the mash it tells me I need 26.73 quarts. That works out to 1.25 quarts per pound of grain for my 21.38 lb grain bill. So far so good. Then mash out water volume is 14.97 more quarts. That is a total of 41.7 quarts, or 10.4 gallons. It then says I need 4.71 gallons of water for sparge. Why BrewSmith gives you mash volume in quarts and sparge volume in gallons is a mystery, but I'm not complaining.
The total water amount then, is 15.135 gallons. The grain will hold about .1 gallons per pound that can't be drained completely from the mash, or 2.13 gallons, leaving 13 gallons. Maybe BrewSmith uses a little more than .1 gallons per pound of grain, but it's close enough to the 12.57 gallon boil size. There are other losses in the system anyhow (e.g., hoses and what the dip tubes leave).
My question is about the 4.71 gallons for sparging. According to John Palmer in How to Brew chapter 17, you typically sparge with 1.5 times the mash water. 4.71 gallons is .45 times the mash volume of 10.4 gallons (counting mashout). I've never fly sparged before, so I'm wondering if BrewSmith is calculating the sparge volume correctly or if I've misunderstood something about fly sparging.
My brew process up until now has been a 5 gallon batch using a 13.2 gallon converted keg as both HLT and BK on a propane turkey fryer, while batch sparging in a 48 qt Igloo ice chest MLT. It worked great, and after my first few batches I was able to get consistently good beer and repeatable results on multiple brewings of the same recipe with that setup.
I decided I wanted a 10 gallon brewery, so I built myself a Brutus 10 clone. At this point, it is fully functional but 100% manual. I don't have the gas valves and pilots and temperature control system wired up yet, although I have most of the parts to do it. I'm still working on that but I'm ready for manual brewing.
This will be my first 10 gallon batch, first batch on my new Brutus 10 clone, the first time to use my new 15.5 gallon converted keg HLT, MLT, and BK, my first fly sparge, and my first time to use a recipe with water volumes and temps calculated by BrewSmith. I have brewed this recipe before on my old setup, but I calculated all the variables by hand.
My first question is about priming the march pumps. They are positioned on my brew stand exactly like Lonnie has his on his Brutus 10. Most Brutus 10 clone builders have done it the same way. It is really hard to get them going. It too me several minutes on my first test run (no grain) to get them to move any water. Once they got going they worked great and I got fast flow rates, and I was then able to throttle them to a trickle with the ball valve on the outlet side (top). What's the trick to priming these things?
Next question is about how BrewSmith calculates water for mash and sparge. I set the batch size at 10.5 gallons because that's how much I want in the fermenter at the end of the boil. BrewSmith says my boil size should be 12.57 gallons, which sounds about right. For the mash it tells me I need 26.73 quarts. That works out to 1.25 quarts per pound of grain for my 21.38 lb grain bill. So far so good. Then mash out water volume is 14.97 more quarts. That is a total of 41.7 quarts, or 10.4 gallons. It then says I need 4.71 gallons of water for sparge. Why BrewSmith gives you mash volume in quarts and sparge volume in gallons is a mystery, but I'm not complaining.
The total water amount then, is 15.135 gallons. The grain will hold about .1 gallons per pound that can't be drained completely from the mash, or 2.13 gallons, leaving 13 gallons. Maybe BrewSmith uses a little more than .1 gallons per pound of grain, but it's close enough to the 12.57 gallon boil size. There are other losses in the system anyhow (e.g., hoses and what the dip tubes leave).
My question is about the 4.71 gallons for sparging. According to John Palmer in How to Brew chapter 17, you typically sparge with 1.5 times the mash water. 4.71 gallons is .45 times the mash volume of 10.4 gallons (counting mashout). I've never fly sparged before, so I'm wondering if BrewSmith is calculating the sparge volume correctly or if I've misunderstood something about fly sparging.