How much water for this grain bill

[boomtown25]

I am contemplating brewing a 5 gallon batch which calls for a 21.25 lbs grain bill. If I did this I would be using a 48 qt cooler maash tun. Only problem is, the most grain I have ever used before is 10 lbs and that was BIAB. How do I determine how much strike water and sparge water to use for such a large grain bill? I know with BIAB, I usually use 1.25 qts per lb, but that comes out to be somewhere near 26.5 qts. Just seems like a whole lot of water for 5 gallons of wort. Additionally, to be more specific- how do you determine the amoutn of water for each the mash and then the sparge?

 

[Golddiggie]

BeerSmith

 

[bonzombiekitty]

If you did 21.25 lbs of grain for a 5 gallon batch, you would still keep with the 1.25 qts/lb thing. That would mean you would have about 6.6 gallons of mash water, which, if you account for absorption and 1 gal dead loss, will be less than 5 gallons on the first runnings.

According to http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php - you would need 6.64 gallons of mash water, and 3.49 gallons of sparge water.

With that, there'd still probably be some more sugar left in the mash, so you could probably get a second, smaller, low gravity beer out of it.

 

[BigB]

Yes, that is a lot of water for a 5 gallon batch, but that is also a lot of grain. That probably has one very high OG. At any rate, remember that you will lose approximately 2.25 gallons of water to grain absorbtion as well. For the sparge, I usually figure that I will lose .1 gallons per pound of grain. Plus, for my equipment, I lose 2 qts that I just can't get out. Then, I deduct that sum from my starting water. I then split the balance in two (I double batch sparge) and use that figure for each of my sparges. However, a batch with a large amount of grain that I will get a large amount of mash wort from, I will just do a single sparge.

On a side note, if you have extra equipment, hops, and yeast, consider doing a second runnings beer- great way to make that gigantic grain bill pay for itself.

 

[boomtown25]

Yeah, I wanted to do a Maharaja Clone so my OG target was 1.090, but after reading all over here and doing some research on the online brew supply stores I use, Simcoe is either unavailable or more expensive the Gold right now.

 

[boomtown25]

With that, there'd still probably be some more sugar left in the mash, so you could probably get a second, smaller, low gravity beer out of it.

QUESTION- Let's say I do my double sparge and end up with about 6.5 gallons of wort for my boil (which I would be looking for with this recipe). But there are still a lot of sugars in the wort that are collectable (just a lower gravity). Is there any damage to the "second beer" if I gather the wort through sparge and freeze it for a later date to use? I Figure I will be boiling it and it could be a money saver on grains.

 

[Golddiggie]

If you sparge with more, you could just do a longer boil to hit your target volume into primary. If you decide to collect more wort after that, I would boil it to get it to starter strenght and use it for that. IMO, that would be a better idea.

 

[rycov]

parti gyle!

 

[boomtown25]

parti gyle!

I love this website! I learn something every day!

 

[Golddiggie]

If you go that route be sure to have enough grain to make it work. Chances are you'll also want to add some grain to the mash after the fiist runnings are collected. From what I've read about it, it's not as straight forward as you might think.

 

[rycov]

I love this website! I learn something every day!

it is a great web site. right now I'm in a thread learning how to make wine. last time i learned about skeeter pee, before that it was graff. great info on here!