How much water per lb of grain do you use?

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Sharkman20

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I've seen a couple different measurements on how much mash water to use per pound of grain, but is there a good all around number to use per pound for a standard 5 gallon batch?

Also, does this number change when doing step mashing of any kind, or using a protein rest?
 
I just start with about 4 gallons. My grainbills are usually 10-14 lbs.

There is a pretty sweet Jamil podcast where Tasty (I think) talks about using a constant volume in his mash tun regardless of grain bill. I tried it out yesterday and felt good about it, thinking I'll stick with it for simplicity sake.

However to the O.P. it seems ~1.25 qt/lb is the standard starting point.
 
I'm generally around 1.2-1.3 qt/lb. I go a little thicker on big brews so that I have more sparge water. this combined with 90 minute boils on big beers gives me a pretty dependable efficiency regardless of the gravity of the brew.
 
I've seen a couple different measurements on how much mash water to use per pound of grain, but is there a good all around number to use per pound for a standard 5 gallon batch?

Also, does this number change when doing step mashing of any kind, or using a protein rest?


I have played from1.25 to 1.75 (with HERMS) I like a loose/thinner mash. it makes pumping much easier.
 
i use a 58 qt mash tun, and fill it up with grain and water for a 13g boil down to 11g. gets me about 80%, usually
 
I've recently tried thinning it down since I heard that podcast and read about it on Kai's website.

Basically I adjust the amounts until the mash and sparge are close to equal. So far it's been around 1.5-1.7.

One advantage is that I can heat 4 gallons of water on my stove, so if both mash and sparge are under that I am good to go. For some beers the sparge would have been too much for my stovetop to handle. Being able to heat mash and sparge inside keeps me from having to heat up water outside where it's cold, and where I can easily forget about it while doing other things and overshooting temp.

We'll see how it goes. But my initial opinion is that the grain generally sinks down into the water so all of the exnzymatic action is still going on in a decent thickness. The extra water more or less just floats on top and probably acts more like a pre-sparge when draining the mash.
 
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