Igloo cooler mash tun question.

[ErickJ]

For a 5 gallon batch do I...

If I mash at 150 degrees in a igloo cooler, do I just run my entire 5.5 gallons of water plus the grain for 60 minutes? Or do I add 3 gallons for 60 min, empty the word, then 2 gallons for 60 minutes then empty to wort, then .5 gallons for 60 then empty the wort?

I'm new to this. Everyone keeps telling me to go all grain and skip the extract. I haven't even brewed my first beer, yet.

 

[GaBrewZoo]

The easiest thing for you to do would be batch sparge. But you're going to need more than 5.5 gallons to begin with, probably in the neighborhood of 7 - 8 gallons, depending on how much grain you have, how long to boil, dead space in mash tun, etc, etc, etc. Look at a mash calculator like Brewers Friend or Beersmith. It will tell you exactly how much strike water you need and what temp, how much sparge water you'll need. With a batch sparge, you'll figure how much strike water you need, then if you do two batch sparges, divide the rest of the water in two equal amounts.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[ErickJ]

Is this called steeping the grains in that mash tun for 60 minutes?

I'm trying to learn the terms. I'm going to research what sparge is right now.

 

[GaBrewZoo]

No. That's called mashing. You are extracting starches and enzymes from the grains and converting the starches into sugars. Steeping does not use base grains, so you don't get the enzymes that convert the starch to sugar.

 

[kev211]

I'm gonna get on my soapbox here. First off, welcome to the hobby! It's incredibly fun and a great way to enjoy your own creations. Now back to my soapbox...

I don't know who is telling you to skip the extract and go straight to all grain, but that just seems wrong to me. A lot of people do start with all grain (my first ever batch was a 1 gallon Brooklyn brew shop AG kit). But the majority of people start with extract. The reason is so you can learn the basics. The boiling/hop additions, cooling, pitching the yeast and fermenting are all basics that are important to understand before going all grain. And truthfully, its not like you'll be buying unnecessary equipment that you won't use when switching to AG when you're ready. Everything you need for extract will work for AG plus your mash tun and a few other things. So that's what I would do. Master or familiarize yourself with techniques, terminologies, etc (I.E. fermentation temps) and move onto AG when you're ready.

/End soapbox

If you are still convinced you need to start with AG then I would recommend what others are saying here. Use some Brewing software (free or purchased) to compile your recipes and get your water profiles right.

Good luck!

 

[madscientist451]

I'm gonna get on my soapbox here.

I don't know who is telling you to skip the extract and go straight to all grain, but that just seems wrong to me. A lot of people do start with all grain (my first ever batch was a 1 gallon Brooklyn brew shop AG kit). But the majority of people start with extract...........

Whoever started the idea of getting on soapboxes anyway? Doesn't the soap on them make it easy to fall off?

Yes, you can start with all grain; No, you don't have to "learn" anything using extracts.

You want to get started brewing? Do these two things:
Go on you tube and watch as many videos as you can that have brewers showing you how to brew.
Go and read the free book by John Palmer called "How to Brew"
just search for it on google and you can read it for free.
After you've done that, come on back with your questions, good luck!

 

[brewkinger]

I'm with kev and madscientist.
You can go straight to all grain, but I just don't think it's a good idea.
Do a couple of extract batches to learn the process and teach yourself the steps.

In the meantime, read all that u can and watch YouTube videos about all grain.
How to Brew is a good investment. The free online version is good but the newest edition (3rd I think) has been updated to reflect newer thoughts.

One exception though... i taught a new brewer to go all grain from the start.
He brewed with me 3x as an assistant and then bought all his own stuff. Then he brewed his next 5 beers with me as an assistant.

 

[RM-MN]

For a 5 gallon batch do I...

If I mash at 150 degrees in a igloo cooler, do I just run my entire 5.5 gallons of water plus the grain for 60 minutes? Or do I add 3 gallons for 60 min, empty the word, then 2 gallons for 60 minutes then empty to wort, then .5 gallons for 60 then empty the wort?

I'm new to this. Everyone keeps telling me to go all grain and skip the extract. I haven't even brewed my first beer, yet.

Yes! Or maybe that should be NO!

If you use the entire 7 gallons of water in the cooler with the grains and mash at 150, then drain the tun you have done a no sparge batch and that will be fine but you will leave some sugars behind in the grains and the sugars are what the yeast eat to make alcohol. It is the simplest way to go all grain though. Notice that I changed the quantity of water for you? That's because the grain will absorb part of the water and you won't get it all back, plus you will need to boil your wort that you drained out and some of the water will be lost to steam so to get 5.5 gallons to the fermenter you need to start with more. You will also lose a bit when you remove it from the fermenter as it will be mixed with the break proteins and yeast that you don't want to have in your bottles.

The other method uses a sparge step which allows you to use enough water in your cooler mash tun to get the grains' starches to convert to sugars but not the entire amount. The typical mash would be 1.2 to 1.5 quarts of water to each pound of grain. This makes the mash stirable but will only get you a fairly small amount of wort. Measure that amount of wort that you collect, compare it to the amount you need at the start of the boil, and add the difference to the grains in the cooler, stir like mad to dissolve the sugars left in the grain, then drain this wort into your pot with the other you collected and start the boil.

There isn't anything especially hard about all grain. There are calculators available to tell you how hot to get the water to mix with your grain to hit the 150 degrees that you want and if you don't get the efficiency you expect, it will still make beer. I was an extract brewer for several years before I had the confidence to go to all grain and looking back, I paid a price for that in that the extract kits cost a lot more than the grains that I use to make the same beer.

 

[mongoose33]

IMO, Kev, Madscientist and Brewkinger have excellent advice.

I started brewing at the end of November, 2015. My fourth batch is in the fermenter--so, I have fresh newbie experience.

The more variables you have when you're a beginner, the harder it is to isolate problems if you have any. IMO, starting with all-grain complicates things when you haven't even proven the process yet.

Get a recipe you like in an extract kit. Study the directions, then do them--AFTER you have read a book like Palmer's How to Brew. Learn the process without complicating it at first with mashing (and if you don't know it's called mashing, you have a lot of reading to do). BTW, I screwed up my first extract brew on timing and temperature, and while the beer is good, it was a learning experience.

I've made good beer with three extract recipes--the fourth batch, the one in the fermenter, was my first try at all-grain. Know what? It didn't go as smoothly as I'd like. I tried fly sparging instead of batch sparging (if you don't know what those are, one more reason to start with an extract recipe), and my efficiency was lower than it should have been. I believe I know--now--why that was the case, and I'm going to fix those things on the brew I'm doing this weekend.

If you want to accelerate your learning, see if you can find someone locally who brews, and ask them if you can watch them brew a batch. I did that, and it was invaluable--from seeing his setup, to watching him add the extract, to trying to catch the boilover, the hot break and cold break, the racking to the primary--all of it helped me make sense of what I'd read.

Good luck!

 

[jlinz]

I say if you want to go all grain out of the gates go for it. If you feel overwhelmed by it, there's nothing wrong with starting with extract batches. These can turn out fine. I did them for some time in the beginning and never really liked them and blamed extract. I eventually figured out the real problem was finding a way to keep fermenting temperatures low. Once I mastered that, the beers tasted good. I have since moved on to BIAB (brewing in a bag) which is much simplified version of all grain brewing. In hindsight, I could have started here, since it is not really rocket science. I have tasted one of my biab beers so far and it is an improvement over my extract beers. If you really want to start with all grain you might look into it.

 

[Munster51]

I agree with watching YouTube videos, and finding someone else who brews. I also recommend reading the ought the beginner brewing subforum here. You will find lots of answers to questions that you may not even know you need to ask.

 

[RM-MN]

The differences between all grain and extract is with all grain you might worry about efficiency, the amount of the starch you convert to sugars and the amount of sugars you get out of the tun and into the pot so you may get a different beer than expected but at a lower cost. With extract you know how much sugars you will get because you pay someone to get them and guarantee that is what you get. Come on people, this isn't hard science and it isn't terribly difficult. It can be even easier if you forget the cooler and go directly to BIAB.

 

[theseeker4]

Rather than saying either you definitely should start all grain, or you definitely should start with extract, I will say it depends. If you are anxious to get started, and just want to get a batch of beer going sooner rather than later, start with extract. If you find what you are reading about all grain overwhelming, start with extract. If you are patient, and plan to read a ton of information, ask questions, nod learn as much as you can before you even buy equipment or ingredients, and are not overwhelmed by the amount of information, you certainly can start with all grain. I would simply recommend, if you are going to try extract first, don't buy equipment that is only sufficient for extract brewing. For example, you can do five gallon batches of extract beer in a five gallon pot by using top up water, but you will want a ten gallon pot for five gallon all grain batches. Don't buy the smaller pot, just to have to buy new equipment two batches later when you go all grain.

Welcome to the hobby, and good luck!

 

[kev211]

Whoever started the idea of getting on soapboxes anyway? Doesn't the soap on them make it easy to fall off?

Only if you get the soap wet

Oh and OP, whether or not you start by going extract or AG make sure you do one thing for sure (theres a lot of things to do but this one is way important)...


TAKE NOTES!! Seriously though, reading books is a great tool. Watching youtube videos on brewing is also a great tool. Coming on HBT is also also a great tool. But you wont be able to learn/fix your mistakes and improve your brewing without a decent set of notes on how brew day went; what went right, and what went horribly wrong.

 

[Homercidal]

Welcome!

(pushes others off the soapbox and climbs on myself..) First, there is no good reason not to start with AG if you want to. It's not much harder to understand than extract, and only a little more time consuming. I wish I had started AG much sooner than I did.

Now, on to the brewing.

When you mix crushed grains and water at 148-160 degrees and let it sit, this is called Mashing. The enzymes in the grain are activated and convert the starches in the grain into sugars. This is called Conversion (and other terms) Now some grains, like Crystal Malts, or Roasted Malts, don't have enzymes because they have been killed during their processing. They don't have to be Mashed, but can simply be steeped in warm water. They are sometimes steeped in water when doing Extract brewing just for their flavors. They are often added to the mash grains for simplicity as well.

You can figure out how much water you will need for brewing AG if you know how much total grain you will be using. The dry grain will hold onto a certain amount of water, so you need to add more water than your desired batch size too account for this "Grain Absorption". Use a rate of .12 gallons of water per pound of grain. So if you have a 9 lb. grain bill you will need to include an additional 1.32 gallons of water.

11 x .012 = 1.32 Grain Absorption

Also, when you boil, you will boil some of the water out of the Boil Kettle, so you can calculate how much more water you need to add to account for that loss as well. It's hard to know exactly what your rate will be as boil-off changes with heat source, kettle surface area, and environmental conditions. Safe to start with a 1-1.5 gallons per hour. So if you boil for 60 minutes, you should probably add 1-1.5 more gallons of water. I would start with 1.25 gallons and see if you need to adjust this amount next time.

So, assuming we want a 5.5 gallon batch of Pale Ale, with an OG of 1.050, we would use 11 lbs of grain (I used Beersmith to quickly get this OG based on style and batch size...)

So take the 5.5 gallons and add 1.32 for grain absorption, and 1.25 gallons for boil off and you get just over 8 gallons. I'd add .25 gallons for hop absorption and kettle loss, but I'm not going to know what your actual equipment loss is. I'll comment on that last. So now you are up to 8.25 gallons of water and 11 lbs of grain.

Using the traditional grain to water ratio of 1.25 quarts per lb of grain starts you with 13.75 quarts of water, or just about 3.5 gallons. Out of the 8.25 gallons of water you mix the 3.5 gallons strike water heated to roughly 169F (This will vary depending on a few things like cooler size, temperature of grain, etc.) and it will settle down to a temperature close to what you want (152F approx).

That leaves 4.75 gallons for rinsing the grain (Sparging). I batch sparge, so after the mash is complete in about 60 minutes, I drain the sweet wort from the mash tun and fill it bakc up with sparge water, stir it up, and drain that.

Brew-In-A-Bag is a nice option for starting AG, as the cost to implement is much less than with other lautering (draining) systems. It's not complicated and isn't prone to stuck sparges. Many people start with BIAB and never change. It works very well (unless you are hung up on wort clarity...) When I BIAG I dunk the bag of grains into a second kettle of sparge water and then combine with the first kettle containing the first runnings of wort.

There are a few "fine points" to this whole process, and it might vary a little bit depending on your equipment and personal preferences, but that's the process in a nutshell. The most important thing you can do is to read and fully understand the basic process, and then take careful measurements of everything so you can adjust things later, or find mistakes.

 

[RM-MN]

Welcome!

Brew-In-A-Bag is a nice option for starting AG, as the cost to implement is much less than with other lautering (draining) systems. It's not complicated and isn't prone to stuck sparges. Many people start with BIAB and never change. It works very well (unless you are hung up on wort clarity...) When I BIAG I dunk the bag of grains into a second kettle of sparge water and then combine with the first kettle containing the first runnings of wort.

If you are hung up on wort clarity, work yourself loose and get your feet back on the ground. Wort clarity is not related to beer clarity which we want. Wort can be extremely cloudy and still make clear beer provided the starches were converted and not simply washed into the wort. :rockin:

 

[mongoose33]

The differences between all grain and extract is with all grain you might worry about efficiency, the amount of the starch you convert to sugars and the amount of sugars you get out of the tun and into the pot so you may get a different beer than expected but at a lower cost. With extract you know how much sugars you will get because you pay someone to get them and guarantee that is what you get. Come on people, this isn't hard science and it isn't terribly difficult. It can be even easier if you forget the cooler and go directly to BIAB.

My original plan was to "graduate" from extract to BIAB. I just needed to get a 10-gallon brew kettle and a bag and I'd have been set. I was looking for a deal that matched my finances....

...and then it happened. A guy on Craigslist was selling out of most of his brewing equipment and the price was stupidly cheap: a refrigerator (ferm chamber or cold crash chamber or just to keep my filled kegs in), 16 22-oz bottles, 5-gal kettle, 2 glass carboys, an inkbird temp controller, big funnels, stainless spoon, autosiphon, a lot of odds and ends and....

...a mash tun. All of that for $150. Well. I couldn't get there fast enough. The fridge works fine, I've since sold the two carboys for $25, so I'm out $125 for what probably was $350 of stuff.

So--I had the mash tun, didn't have the bigger kettle I needed for BIAB, so there I was. Second all-grain brew coming up this weekend. I've got the grain, splurged on a Barley Crusher....I'm all ready to rock. I think.

Thankfully, I've proved the process of boiling to bottling or kegging, so my focus is on getting the all-grain portion to work effectively. My first efficiency was low (on the order of 60 percent, I think--working on understanding that better), I believe I know what to do differently this weekend.

***************

I am trained as a scientist. One part of science is isolating variables to see how they work. It's anathema (I just LOVE that word) to me to have a process where I cannot isolate the factors responsible for the results. It's like an experiment where you have multiple independent variables and you cannot determine which, if any, are responsible for the results.

So, for me--given this strange character flaw my scientific background has produced--to voluntarily choose a process with more variables than one can easily control, well, I can't. It's why I was perfectly comfortable with trying extract brewing first. Not only could I see if I wanted to pursue it further, it limited the things to which I needed to pay attention.

 

[RM-MN]

My original plan was to "graduate" from extract to BIAB. I just needed to get a 10-gallon brew kettle and a bag and I'd have been set. I was looking for a deal that matched my finances....

...and then it happened. A guy on Craigslist was selling out of most of his brewing equipment and the price was stupidly cheap: a refrigerator (ferm chamber or cold crash chamber or just to keep my filled kegs in), 16 22-oz bottles, 5-gal kettle, 2 glass carboys, an inkbird temp controller, big funnels, stainless spoon, autosiphon, a lot of odds and ends and....

...a mash tun. All of that for $150. Well. I couldn't get there fast enough. The fridge works fine, I've since sold the two carboys for $25, so I'm out $125 for what probably was $350 of stuff.

So--I had the mash tun, didn't have the bigger kettle I needed for BIAB, so there I was. Second all-grain brew coming up this weekend. I've got the grain, splurged on a Barley Crusher....I'm all ready to rock. I think.

Thankfully, I've proved the process of boiling to bottling or kegging, so my focus is on getting the all-grain portion to work effectively. My first efficiency was low (on the order of 60 percent, I think--working on understanding that better), I believe I know what to do differently this weekend.

***************

I am trained as a scientist. One part of science is isolating variables to see how they work. It's anathema (I just LOVE that word) to me to have a process where I cannot isolate the factors responsible for the results. It's like an experiment where you have multiple independent variables and you cannot determine which, if any, are responsible for the results.

So, for me--given this strange character flaw my scientific background has produced--to voluntarily choose a process with more variables than one can easily control, well, I can't. It's why I was perfectly comfortable with trying extract brewing first. Not only could I see if I wanted to pursue it further, it limited the things to which I needed to pay attention.

Did you know that you don't have to do a 5 gallon batch BIAB? I quite often use my 5 gallon pot to do a 2 1/2 gallon batch because it is so simple and pretty quick and that smaller batch is much easier on my bad back.

 

[mongoose33]

Did you know that you don't have to do a 5 gallon batch BIAB? I quite often use my 5 gallon pot to do a 2 1/2 gallon batch because it is so simple and pretty quick and that smaller batch is much easier on my bad back.

Oh, I know--the problem was twofold. One is that I like to do larger batches if I'm going to spend the time at all, and the second is my boil kettle has a thermometer probe extending into it. I figured I'd eventually want a 10-gallon kettle anyway, and it just happened that I stumbled onto the mash tun, so I went that direction.

Part of me is not convinced that BIAB isn't at least as good a method as using a mash tun (did all those negatives cancel out correctly? ). It was no indictment of BIAB, just a chance to do mashing.

My thing with hobbies is that once I become interested in them, I like to plumb the depths such that all the mysteries are eventually revealed to me. So using a mash tun was going to happen eventually--it just speeded up.

I'm sure I'll eventually do a BIAB as well. Seems inevitable.

 

[jlinz]

2.5 gallon batches in 5 gallon pot biab is what I do. Very easy and manageable. No need for a pully or Hulk strength.

 

[Homercidal]

My personal take on BIAB and wort clarity is that I'm accustomed to using my cooler mash tun and vorlaufing to get clear wort. That's what I do when I'm doing 5 gallon batches on the stove or outside on my brew rig.

I usually do BIAB when I'm doing half-batches on the stove because the thermal mass of the mash doesn't hold temp as well, and BIAB is so easy. So my wort is cloudy. I haven't seen where it makes any difference at all in the finished beer flavor or clarity.

I know several people who BIAB every time and their beer is as good as anyone else's in the homebrew club.

If having clear wort makes you happy, then I say be happy. But in my experience it makes no difference in the end.

 

[dsaavedra]

The other method uses a sparge step which allows you to use enough water in your cooler mash tun to get the grains' starches to convert to sugars but not the entire amount. The typical mash would be 1.2 to 1.5 quarts of water to each pound of grain. This makes the mash stirable but will only get you a fairly small amount of wort. Measure that amount of wort that you collect, compare it to the amount you need at the start of the boil, and add the difference to the grains in the cooler, stir like mad to dissolve the sugars left in the grain, then drain this wort into your pot with the other you collected and start the boil.

This right here is what really made all grain brewing click for me.

At first I was all kinds of hung up on volumes of this and that until I realized batch sparging is just desired preboil volume minus first runnings. Now its as easy as picking a mash thickness ratio, multiplying by how much grain I have, putting my grain weight and water volume and desired mash temperature in a calculator to get my strike temperature, heating the water to that temperature and mashing in. Then I drain it after the mash, keeping track of how much I collect, and use my desired preboil gravity (on my system I need about 7 gallons to end up with 5.5 gallons into the fermenter) minus the volume I collected (called first runnings) to determine how much water to sparge with (I usually add a little more to my sparge because I have a hard time getting 100% of it back out).

 

[mongoose33]

This right here is what really made all grain brewing click for me.

At first I was all kinds of hung up on volumes of this and that until I realized batch sparging is just desired preboil volume minus first runnings. Now its as easy as picking a mash thickness ratio, multiplying by how much grain I have, putting my grain weight and water volume and desired mash temperature in a calculator to get my strike temperature, heating the water to that temperature and mashing in. Then I drain it after the mash, keeping track of how much I collect, and use my desired preboil gravity (on my system I need about 7 gallons to end up with 5.5 gallons into the fermenter) minus the volume I collected (called first runnings) to determine how much water to sparge with (I usually add a little more to my sparge because I have a hard time getting 100% of it back out).

I tried all that calculating stuff with my first AG brew, and my efficiency was low. I did some more reading and came to the same conclusion. I'm doing my second AG brew this weekend, and this is exactly how I'm going to do it.

The thing that made sense to me once I thought about it is that there will be little absorption of the sparge water since the grain is already virtually saturated. Talk about a DUH moment!

 

[tagillis]

Welcome to the hobby! It is a lot of fun and can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. I agree 100% with the others, read How To Brew by John Palmer (www.howtobrew.com).

I highly recommend starting with an extract or extract w/steeping grains recipe for no other reason than simplicity. It will take you a few brew days to learn your equipment, adjust your setup, and tweak your process. The more variables in the process, the greater the chance of being thrown a curve ball. Even for experienced brewers, any time a new piece of equipment is used there is going to be a learning curve and potential for a surprise. I recently got a new pot and didn't realize until brew day that my old chilling method wouldn't work. Fortunately, I discovered it before I started and not as I was holding 5 gallons of boiling hot wort. Two months later and I'm still trying to hone in on the pot's boiloff rate (which can impact flavor and color just like grist ratios and mashing techniques).

There is no one right way to make beer and there is no shame in extract brewing. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Extract<>bad beer. All-grain<>great beer. There are extract beers out there that outshine (and have the medals to prove it) thousands of all-grain beers. I firmly believe that beer quality has less to do with the ingredients you start with and more to do with precise control over the process. Just one detail like fluctuating fermentation temps could negate any benefit received from all-grain or plate chilling.

My last piece of advice: plan on your first brew day taking twice as long as you think it will. If you're lucky you'll be done early and able to kick back and relax (soon you'll be relaxing with one of your homebrews) If you're not, well, at least you planned on staying up until 3am.

 

[ErickJ]

Yes! Or maybe that should be NO!

If you use the entire 7 gallons of water in the cooler with the grains and mash at 150, then drain the tun you have done a no sparge batch and that will be fine but you will leave some sugars behind in the grains and the sugars are what the yeast eat to make alcohol. It is the simplest way to go all grain though. Notice that I changed the quantity of water for you? That's because the grain will absorb part of the water and you won't get it all back, plus you will need to boil your wort that you drained out and some of the water will be lost to steam so to get 5.5 gallons to the fermenter you need to start with more. You will also lose a bit when you remove it from the fermenter as it will be mixed with the break proteins and yeast that you don't want to have in your bottles.

The other method uses a sparge step which allows you to use enough water in your cooler mash tun to get the grains' starches to convert to sugars but not the entire amount. The typical mash would be 1.2 to 1.5 quarts of water to each pound of grain. This makes the mash stirable but will only get you a fairly small amount of wort. Measure that amount of wort that you collect, compare it to the amount you need at the start of the boil, and add the difference to the grains in the cooler, stir like mad to dissolve the sugars left in the grain, then drain this wort into your pot with the other you collected and start the boil.

There isn't anything especially hard about all grain. There are calculators available to tell you how hot to get the water to mix with your grain to hit the 150 degrees that you want and if you don't get the efficiency you expect, it will still make beer. I was an extract brewer for several years before I had the confidence to go to all grain and looking back, I paid a price for that in that the extract kits cost a lot more than the grains that I use to make the same beer.

Thanks man. Great reply. I appreciate the details.

So, I'd definitely want to do a sparge batch. So I do the initial for 60 minutes and the sparge for about how long? And I also need to stir the heck out of it?

I'm about to order the igloo and the false bottom set up.

What program do you recommend?



Thanks to everyone.

 

[zchwlsn]

Only if you get the soap wet

Oh and OP, whether or not you start by going extract or AG make sure you do one thing for sure (theres a lot of things to do but this one is way important)...


TAKE NOTES!! Seriously though, reading books is a great tool. Watching youtube videos on brewing is also a great tool. Coming on HBT is also also a great tool. But you wont be able to learn/fix your mistakes and improve your brewing without a decent set of notes on how brew day went; what went right, and what went horribly wrong.

I second this. I have an undergrad in biology so it came natural to me. It is great for identifying what went wrong and how to improve your next batch. Like most I started with extract. I'm glad I started there and all the while, over a year and half, I had squrreled enough all grain equipment and did my first all grain batch this last Saturday. It might cost a bit more andight have that extract taste to it, but I recommend starting there. By the time I did my first ag batch I had the 60 min boil, sanitation and gravity reading and recording mastered.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks man. Great reply. I appreciate the details.

So, I'd definitely want to do a sparge batch. So I do the initial for 60 minutes and the sparge for about how long? And I also need to stir the heck out of it?

I'm about to order the igloo and the false bottom set up.

What program do you recommend?



Thanks to everyone.

Yes, you will do the 60 minute mash, drain the tun and add the sparge water. Stir it well, it needs to be well mixed with the grains to get the sugars dissolved from all the grain. Then drain. No real wait involved in batch sparging.

I've been using Brewtarget for tweaking recipes. It isn't perfect but it works for me. It does take some setup where you will be telling it the volumes but I think all brewing programs do or at least should since your equipment and methods are not the same as mine.