First timer question about amount of water

[HorseHair]

I got a kit with DME and specialty grains and it says i should steep the grains then boil dme in 2.5G water and then add the rest of the water in the primary to hit 5G.

I was wondering if the beer would be improved if i sparged the grain in another 1-2G of water and then added it to my main kettle for the boil.


Hope that made sense haha

 

[jvcjbl]

I do a full boil on all my kits. I steep the grains in 6 gals (for a 5 gal batch) of water an then follow the recipe from there.

 

[HorseHair]

alright thanks

 

[RM-MN]

You can't really sparge grains that are steeped because they haven't converted the starch to fermentable sugars. Sparging is done when you are working with all grain and your process to convert starch to sugar also brings some protein. Adding hot water to the mash releases the sugar and softens the protein to let you get all the possible sugar in your wort. With steeped grain,all you can do is rinse for flavor and color and I doubt you will get enough more from them to be worth the effort.

 

[h22lude]

The way I read it is you want to steep grains in 2 gallons of water and then add that to another 2 gallons to boil the DME. I don't see how that is any different from steeping in 4 gallons, then bringing that to a boil. Why not just do a full boil?

 

[Maxkling]

On recipes you have to adjust your hop schedule and amounts when going from a partial boil to full boil recipe.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[jvcjbl]

I read it the same h22lude... hence why I just do it all in one shot. I follow the same hop schedule as well

 

[Maxkling]

Well 3 gallon boil kits usually increase bittering hops up roughly 25%.

Here is an example using beer smith.

5gallon boil
1oz cascade @ 60min
IBU=21

3 gallon boil
1oz cascade @ 60mins
IBU=15