First all grain

[GixxerBrewer]

Any advice
I'll be brewing my first all grain recipe. I've made a few pretty good extract batches but want to graduate.

To get 8 gallons of Wort using a mash tun
14 total lbs grain bill. How much is my strike water volume.?. I'm heating up the mash tun with a gallon of strike water. So how much strike water will I need

Next question. What's mashing out at 170° as opposed to sparging. If I strike with 3.5 gallons how mush sparge to get 8 gallons to boil. My hop additions are big so I'm going to lose some volume. Any help would be much appreciated

 

[hercher]

Generally, strike water should be about 1.3 quarts per pound of grain.

Regarding sparge volume, why are you looking to collect 8 gallons? I assume you are making 5 gallon batches. Thus you are looking to boil off 2+ gallons, which will require a long boil.

 

[kh54s10]

Agreed. Between 1.25 and 1.5 quarts per pound of grain so 1.3 sounds good.

My kettle and burner boils of 1 gallon per hour so I need a little over 7 gallons to end up with a little over 5 into the fermenter and 5 gallons packaged. You really need to know your boil off rate in order to collect the right amount of wort for the boil.

I measure the wort from the mash then add what I need for the sparge. There is no more grain absorption so if you collect 3 gallons from the sparge and you need 7 gallons for the boil you need 4 more gallons. To be more accurate, and not leave a lot of water/wort in the tun, I do this in 2 sparges. After the first sparge I measure the volume again then sparge with the rest needed.

If you are doing a batch sparge you don't need to do a mash out step. That is to stop conversion when doing a fly sparge that can last up to an hour or so.

I bag my hops in a 5 gallon paint strainer bag that is clipped to the rim of the kettle, that keeps a lot of hop debris out of the fermenter. I have not noticed that it lessens anything from the hops.

 

[GixxerBrewer]

Because the hops are so much that I'm gonna lose a lot of liquid. My lady dropped a pliney recipe on my for my bday. Its over my head but lucky I have the right equipment. I get the whole process just want to insure strike water and sparge are efficient enough. Boil is 90min1st hop
45
30
So 165 mins total..very long

 

[GixxerBrewer]

You guys are awesome. Wish I could pass my last batch in bottle through this forum..

 

[kh54s10]

165 minute boil?? I looked at Northern Brewer's Plinian Legacy and it calls for a 90 minute boil. I have seen this a few times but never 165 minutes.

 

[Sammy86]

That's 90 minutes total...hops should be added at 90 minutes (beginning of boil) 45 minutes (45 left in boil) and 30 minutes left in boil...DO NOT BOIL FOR 165 MINUTES!

 

[day_trippr]

Because the hops are so much that I'm gonna lose a lot of liquid. My lady dropped a pliney recipe on my for my bday. Its over my head but lucky I have the right equipment. I get the whole process just want to insure strike water and sparge are efficient enough. Boil is 90min1st hop
45
30
So 165 mins total..very long

I'll betting the recipe boil is 90 minutes total.

First hop at T0
Second hop at T45
Third hop at T60
.
.
.

btw, where are the rest of the hops?

Cheers!

 

[MaryB]

90 minute boil as mentioned. First hops at 90, then second at 45 minutes left then third at 30 minutes left... all recipes count down this way that I have seen.

 

[dmcman73]

Because the hops are so much that I'm gonna lose a lot of liquid. My lady dropped a pliney recipe on my for my bday. Its over my head but lucky I have the right equipment. I get the whole process just want to insure strike water and sparge are efficient enough. Boil is 90min1st hop
45
30
So 165 mins total..very long

As others have said:

1st Hops added at first sign of boil and start your timer countdown @ 90min

2nd addition of hops is added when there is 45 min left to the boil: add hops after wort has been boiling for 45 min

3rd addition is when there is only 30 min left to the boil: add hops after wort has been boiling for 60 min

There should be other hops addition here, especially an addition when there is like 15 min of so left of the boil, this is where the aroma hops are added. Not all styles have aroma hop addition, but I think the one you are brewing does.

 

[GixxerBrewer]

Yes I appreciate feedback. 90 total boil. And yes the hop order for this is large..going to brew tonight!!!!

 

[GixxerBrewer]

Had to buy 10 gal mash tun. Got a good efficiency, boiling time 90 mins 5 mins into first hop boil. Going to be up for a bit