First Time AG Saturday

[Bmorebrew]

I have a couple of questions about my upcoming AG tomorrow. I’ve decided to brew up something called Big Basin Amber Ale from John Palmer’s book that I have instead of EdWorts recipe (I had originally planned this one) – my wife likes reds. I’ll be getting everything from MDHB but I’m wondering about my efficiency. If I expect about 65% from their grain – do typical AG recipes assume 75% efficiency?

1. If so, should I up my grain bill by 10% to 15% to compensate for this?
2. And if I do, should I increase the amount of strike water by 10% or is it easier to increase the temperature a few degrees?

And then regarding the sparge – I’ll be doing a batch sparge. With the remaining volume of water, how much of an efficiency increase will I see if I use that volume of water to do one, or two, or three successive sparges? That is, if I have about 3 gallons or so of sparge water, would I rinse once at 3 gallons, 2 at 1.5 each, or 3 at 1 gallon each?

Thanks

 

[Netflyer]

Eff. depends upon so many things... I mash/lauter in a 10Gal. igloo, what do you have? I have used milled grain from MDHB and gotten 75%+eff pretty consistently. I would say not to adjust anything until you know what eff. you will get and don't necessarily think you will get lower eff. because it's your first batch. Depending upon your grist to mash tun volume ratio your eff. may vary from mine. Eff. can decrease with an increase in grist/increase in expected original gravity of the beer. So if I fill my tun up near the top I will most likely have an eff. decrease. Typically I make 5.25-6 gal. batches so I only at most fill my mash tun 1/2 way up. Now as far as batch sparging I do that also. I do two batch sparges each with about 2.5-3 gallons. I have been getting about 83% Eff this way. I attempt to get 7.5 gallons in my kettle to make 5.5 to 6 gallons of brew. Sometimes more if it is a windy or very dry/cold day out as I will evaporate more.

Not to stand on a software soapbox but dude, go spend $18 bucks on Beersmith. You've planned for weeks maybe more for this great All grain brew get some awesome software to help you figure out all the important stuff like batch sparge volumes, strike temps for your sparge water, OG's, IBU's, carbonation, etc. etc. You have made a giant investment into the art of brewing get some software to compliment it. I know MDHB pushes promash but I personally like BeerSmith because it is supported as opposed to Promash which is no longer supported.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bmorebrew]

Thanks, great advice there. I have the 48 quart Igloo Cube and a 32 quart boil kettle. Working with these volumes shouldn't be an issue. I will download Beersmith tonight and start plugging my numbers.

 

[hibbleton]

I'm also doing my first AG batch Saturday and can say that having Beersmith has taken a lot of the uncertainty and trepidation out of it. Now let's see how well I can follow its instructions!

 

[mightynintendo]

To answer your first question: not really. 10% won't be enough grain increase. 15% would probably get you in the ballpark.

To your second question, you should always adjust your mash and sparge water volumes to pair with the amount of grain you're using. And you should also adjust the temperatures accordingly.

Like Bmorebrew said, beersmith is probably a good idea. You might consider branching out someday and learning how everything works together. Or maybe not. I'm an engineer so I had to build my own spreadsheet but many people are probably not like that.