First AG - Question

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Vildara

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So I am brewing my first AG batch this weekend. I am encountering some issues:

My recipe instructed me to get 11 pounds of malt. But it says the boil size is 6.5 gallons. Based on the reading I have done I should have a lot more than that. 5 1/2 gallons of wort, and 7 gallons of Sparge water. That's a lot more than the boil amount.

So color me confused. Any suggestions?
 
Well I'm not sure how you did your water calculations im confused by your numbers...

Generally you need to 1-2 quarts of water per pound of grain divided by 4 and you get your strike water so let's just say this

11 X 1.5 /4= 4.125 gallons of strike water and depending on how much you lose to grain absorption and trub loss. To get sparge water you need to get to 6.0-6.5 gallons of wort before you boil.

You also need to figure out how much you boil off and how long you are going to boil the wort will help lead you to the correct numbers.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!
 
Those numbers seem weird. Measure the volume of your first runnings, then just sparge until you get up to your desired pre-boil volume.

You should be able to estimate how much you'll get – take your strike volume plus your mash-out volume (if you're doing a mash-out; lots of folks do, lots of folks don't), then subtract 0.125 gallons x your grain bill weight in pounds for grain absorption. Make enough sparge water to make up the difference between that and your pre-boil volume, plus an extra gallon or so to take into account "dead space" losses in your mash tun or any other "oh, crap" situations that arise – gypsum and campden tabs are cheap, better to have too much sparge water than too little.
 
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