How much water for mashing and sparging?

[Themysticmac]

Hey guys, I'm thinking of brewing my first batch of all grain brewing and I'm excited as hell but the problem is with the measurements of water. Is there a way i can find out how much water i should use for MASHING and SPARGING? I'd appreciate if the explanation is in Litres and kilograms so that it'll be easy for me to understand.
I'm hoping to end up with 19Litres of beer.

I'm making a hefeweizen
The quantity of grain are:

3.6kg wheat malt
1.8kg pilsner malt.

I'm sorry if this a dumb question to ask. I'm a noob at brewing but hopeful to get better with time. Thanks in advance!

 

[myndflyte]

There are a few factors that go into that calculation that are system dependent (kettle dead space, boil off rate, etc). Here is a good walkthrough on how to calculate how much brewing water you need: https://mashhacks.com/how-to-calculate-water-volumes-for-brewing/.

Basically in the end, you want to collect the same amount of wort from your first runnings as you do your sparge, but you have to work backwards to get there.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

It helps to know what your process plan is. Are you going to fly sparge, batch sparge? With batch sparge, it requires more precise amounts as you're pre-determining the volume collected before you ever add sparge water. With fly sparge, you just heat more than you need and collect until you hit your desired volume.

I batch sparge and I like to use brew365.com for my calcs. You put in amount of grain, desired mash temp, mash thickness (1.5 g/lb...sorry, I don't do metric) etc and it tells you how much water you need, the strike temp etc. It's been very accurate so far for me.

The other thing for batch sparging is that I like to make the first and second runnings equal. Since brew365 gives you the pre-boil wort produced and the second runnings are usually the same as the sparge water volume (since the grain has already absorbed as much as it's going to), it makes it pretty easy to figure that out. Unfortunately, it's all gallons/pounds etc.

 

[mongoose33]

I do single-infusion mashing (no sparge, in other words). In a recent brew I had

11.75#/5.33kg of grain
8.25gallons/31.23 liters of strike water.

That's to produce, nominally, a 5-gallon/19 liter batch.

Back when I sparged, I'd use very similar amounts, very close to 50/50: 4.25 gallons strike water, 4 gallons sparge water.

**********

As @Hwk-I-St8 notes, it would be helpful to know your process. If it's Brew-in-a-Bag, the numbers above will work fine for about that amount of grain. Your 5.4kg of grain is almost exactly the same as my 11.75 pounds of grain.

If it's a traditional mash-tun arrangement and you want/need to sparge, splitting the water in half for both strike and sparge will also work fine.

Then, take careful notes about your yield and adjust for future brews--though this will get you pretty close. When I used to use a sparge method, I would typically get about 6.5 gallons/24.6liters of wort as my yield, with the rest lost from grain absorption and deadspace. That would boil down to about 5.5 gallons/20.8 liters of wort into my fermenter.

 

[kevin58]

I do single-infusion mashing (no sparge, in other words).

I wasn't aware that single infusion and no sparge were the same thing.

 

[kh54s10]

I do single-infusion mashing (no sparge, in other words).

I wasn't aware that single infusion and no sparge were the same thing.

For my definition they are not the same thing. I do single infusion - batch sparge - light, medium or full body mash profile per Beersmith.

 

[kevin58]

For my definition they are not the same thing. I do single infusion - batch sparge - light, medium or full body mash profile per Beersmith.

My point exactly.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

They're different.

You can do single infusion mash with a sparge.

You can do single infusion biab with or without a sparge.

Youre probably thinking of full volume, which is the same as no sparge.

 

[Rev2010]

And important thing to know first is your boil off rate, this will affect the amount of your sparge water. You can test by boiling 6-7 gallons of water for an hour and then measure the volume in the kettle after you've cooled it down (because the level will be 4% more when at boiling temp due to expansion). My boil off rate when I used to boil outside on a propane burner was 1.5 gallons per hour. With my new electric Robobrew indoors I only boil off a half gallon. Once you know your boil off rate you will know how much wort you want into your kettle. So say you boil off 1 gallon in an hour and you want about 5.5 gallons of wort into your fermenter (to account for trub loss and such for a total of 5 gallons into your keg) you will want to start your boil with 6.5 gallons of wort. (*Note - If you're using a lot of hops in a beer keep note that each ounce of hops sucks up about 12oz of wort. So if using many ounces factor that loss in as well and use that much extra water). Now, say your recipe is 5.4kg as above (just about 12lbs US)... you can use a common water to grain ratio of 1.33 quarts per pound of grain (gonna do this all in US metrics). 12 x 1.33 = 15.96, so lets just say 16. Divided by 4 and that is a starting strike water of 4 gallons. There you go, you start with 4 gallons of water for the mash. Next, you use a sparge water calculator which will take into account grain absorption. I have one in a beer app on my phone. It asks me for the following info:

Grain weight: 12lbs
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons
Mash Water volume: 4 gallons
How many sparges: (this is in case you're doing a double batch sparge for example. For now we'll ignore this)

At the bottom of the app with this info entered it tells me to use 4.06 gallons of sparge water.

So there's a general idea. Know your boil off, use whatever water-to-grain ration you want, anywhere between 1.25 - 1.5 quarts per pound of grain works well, and use a sparge water calc. Keep in mind, the higher your water-to-grain ratio the less water you'll have for sparging. Hope this helps a bit.


Rev.

 

[Themysticmac]

And important thing to know first is your boil off rate, this will affect the amount of your sparge water. You can test by boiling 6-7 gallons of water for an hour and then measure the volume in the kettle after you've cooled it down (because the level will be 4% more when at boiling temp due to expansion). My boil off rate when I used to boil outside on a propane burner was 1.5 gallons per hour. With my new electric Robobrew indoors I only boil off a half gallon. Once you know your boil off rate you will know how much wort you want into your kettle. So say you boil off 1 gallon in an hour and you want about 5.5 gallons of wort into your fermenter (to account for trub loss and such for a total of 5 gallons into your keg) you will want to start your boil with 6.5 gallons of wort. (*Note - If you're using a lot of hops in a beer keep note that each ounce of hops sucks up about 12oz of wort. So if using many ounces factor that loss in as well and use that much extra water). Now, say your recipe is 5.4kg as above (just about 12lbs US)... you can use a common water to grain ratio of 1.33 quarts per pound of grain (gonna do this all in US metrics). 12 x 1.33 = 15.96, so lets just say 16. Divided by 4 and that is a starting strike water of 4 gallons. There you go, you start with 4 gallons of water for the mash. Next, you use a sparge water calculator which will take into account grain absorption. I have one in a beer app on my phone. It asks me for the following info:

Grain weight: 12lbs
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons
Mash Water volume: 4 gallons
How many sparges: (this is in case you're doing a double batch sparge for example. For now we'll ignore this)

At the bottom of the app with this info entered it tells me to use 4.06 gallons of sparge water.

So there's a general idea. Know your boil off, use whatever water-to-grain ration you want, anywhere between 1.25 - 1.5 quarts per pound of grain works well, and use a sparge water calc. Keep in mind, the higher your water-to-grain ratio the less water you'll have for sparging. Hope this helps a bit.


Rev.

Thank you sir! it helped me alot. I now have a better understanding and I'm hoping to have a good brew session soon!

 

[Themysticmac]

It helps to know what your process plan is. Are you going to fly sparge, batch sparge? With batch sparge, it requires more precise amounts as you're pre-determining the volume collected before you ever add sparge water. With fly sparge, you just heat more than you need and collect until you hit your desired volume.

I batch sparge and I like to use brew365.com for my calcs. You put in amount of grain, desired mash temp, mash thickness (1.5 g/lb...sorry, I don't do metric) etc and it tells you how much water you need, the strike temp etc. It's been very accurate so far for me.

The other thing for batch sparging is that I like to make the first and second runnings equal. Since brew365 gives you the pre-boil wort produced and the second runnings are usually the same as the sparge water volume (since the grain has already absorbed as much as it's going to), it makes it pretty easy to figure that out. Unfortunately, it's all gallons/pounds etc.

Thank you sir. I will check out the website. I appreciate all the tips.

 

[Themysticmac]

Is sparging necessary for BIAB? And in all the articles I've read they all say that more water is required to BIAB? Can anybody back up that claim?

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Is sparging necessary for BIAB? And in all the articles I've read they all say that more water is required to BIAB? Can anybody back up that claim?

Sparging is not necessary for BIAB (or any other brew system) but will improve efficiency. In the end it is typically only a couple of dollars (or less) worth of grain difference though at homebrew level.

BIAB will use the same or less water than other systems. Less water if you squeeze the grain bag (less water left behind in the grain) or the same otherwise.

I'd guess the 'more water' statement is the amount for the mash. A lot of BIAB brewers use more water in the mash than others (less or none for the sparge). This depends on the individual system though.