I need help understanding this recipe...

[JayZeus]

Hi Guys, This may be a noob question. I've been brewing for a couple of years and I's got the basics down. However, I am confused by this format for a recipe on Brewersfriend.com...

What are these amounts supposed to be? Gallons? Note the first row description says strike at 181 but the temp field says 158. I know the difference between Strike and Mash temps but 181 is way too high for 12lbs of grain to end up at 158. Am I missing something? Perhaps it has something to do with "infusion"? I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean.
And if the amount IS gallons, why on earth do I need to mash in 9 gallons? I thought you could just adjust your salts to any volume of water for mashing and it wouldn't matter so long as your preboil volume is on target. No?

The full recipe can be found here...
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/6257/basic-amber
Any advice is appreciated.

 

[BrewZer]

Quarts -- export the recipe to TXT or HTM.

 

[dmtaylor]

Indeed, I was trying to say this for the past 5 hours (website is STILL busted, but there is a workaround... logout, draft your post, then hit reply, THEN log back in)...

Looks like the volumes are in quarts, not gallons.

 

[doug293cz]

The water volumes have to be quarts (31.2 qts/7.8 gal total brewing water) for 6 gal pre-boil target. However, 12 lb of grain mashed in 9 qts of water is a super thick mash - 0.75 qt/lb. Most brewers don't want to mash below about 1.2 qt/lb.

I'd recommend forgetting about the second infusion for mash-out (just skip the mash-out.) Then Mash with 4.7 gal, and batch sparge with 3 gal. This should give you 6 gal pre-boil, assuming a grain absorption rate of 0.12 gal/lb, and an MLT undrainable volume of 0.25 gal. You can use this calculator to compute your correct strike temp, depending on your grain temperature.

Brew on

Edit: I typed this a couple hours ago, but was unable to post due to site problems. Website issues seem to be resolved now.

 

[Brewsmith]

The temps on the left is the water addition temp. The temp on the right is the resulting mash temp.

9 quarts @ 181 for a 158 f mash
4.2 quarts at boiling for a mash out to bring up to 172
18 quarts of sparge water at 172

I’m not saying it’s good or not, just what the recipe is saying