Hefeweizen sparging

[maplemontbrew]

Using 4 gallons to mash 8.5 lbs. of grain then sparging with 3.75 gallons at approx. 1 pint per minute. That sound right?

 

[Yooper]

I normally use 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain in my mash. So for me, I'd use more like 3 gallons of water in the mash.

With 4 gallons and 8.5 pounds of grain, you'll have a thinner mash. No problem if your mash pH is good.

8.5 pounds of grain will absorb about 1 gallon of liquid in the mash, so you should get 3 gallons of wort from that.

My boil volume in a 5 gallon batch is 7 gallons so I'd need to sparge with 4 gallons.

Since you're going to be getting out about 3 gallons from the mash, instead of calculating it, you can just plan on using about 3-4 gallons of water in the sparge and just sparging up to your boil volume.

I would be concerned about oversparging with a 8.5 grainbill, though, so make sure you check your sparge runnings near the end and stop when you get to 1.010 or below.

 

[maplemontbrew]

By over sparging do you mean doing so for too long?