First Ag attempt sparge water amount

[buckeyebrew]

Hi there I am about to try my first ag brew and am planning on using my 6 gallon pot on my stove. I plugged the recipe I wanted to use into beersmith to make it smaller due to my pot size and it said to sparge in 4.5 gallons of water. So what i was going to do was mash in my 3 gallon pot and then sparge in the 6 gallon pot but my concern is that the 8lbs of grain that I will sparge in the 4.5 gallons of water in my 6 gallon pot would cause it to overflow. I just got beersmith today to scale it and was not sure if the program took that into consideration. Any help is much appreciated Thanks in advance!

 

[brentt03]

I would try and make a mash tun out of a cooler for mashing/sparging.....holding the temp steady for an hour in a pot may be difficult, will also be difficult to collect your runnings.


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cheap-easy-10-gallon-rubbermaid-mlt-conversion-23008/

 

[coypoo]

The grain will soak up about 10% of the water you strike with. So, at 8 lbs, you will lose 0.8 gallons (it will vary depending on your system, so take good volume measurements so you know how to correct for future batches).

Since you kettle is 6 gallons I would shoot for a preboil volume of about 5.5 to allow some room. You can strike with 3.55 gallons and collect about 2.75 gallons, then sparge with 2.75 gallons and you preboil should be right around 5.5 gallons.

You can top off after the boil to whatever your desired batch volume was

 

[buckeyebrew]

Thanks for the reponse! The progam had a default 1.25qt/lb for the initial stirke and mash if I use 3.55gal that would be more than the 1.25/qt do you think that would have an affect on it?

 

[bob1852]

Some suggest that a thinner mash can help improve conversion effeciency; which can mean better overall efficiency. 1.25 qt/lb is fine, but I've done 2 qt/lb with great results!

 

[coypoo]

I dont pay too much attention to the mash thickness. When I start calculating the numbers I start with 1.5 qt/lb, but I always end up moving some water around and it ends up changing the thickness.

Basically, if its really really thick it can be harder to lauter, and if its really really really really thin, then I guess that can be bad too. But generally speaking, I dont think it could be too thin for a normal batch and boiling for 1-2 hours.