gerald8_kop
Member
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2019
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 4
Greetings guys and girls
I've been struggling to get above 8 percent on my Brewzilla since the efficiency plummets above 11lb of grain but in a couple of weeks have the chance to use a 21 gallon mash tun. For the sake of comparison (and because I love big beers) I want to give another imperial a shot but am rather unsure about water ratios.
The beer should be 9.8% for a 6 gallon batch (31lb), and I've set the Brewfather profile to 60% brewhouse meaning grain is increased accordingly but this means there's no sparge step then calculated. If I put the brewhouse back up to 70 (26.5lb) then theres still only minimal sparge - about 1 gallon. So what's best to maximise the outcome? I see it as these options:
1) 60% brewhouse = more sugar but thicker mash and no sparge
2) 70% brewhouse = less sugar but more lucid mash and small sparge
3) Ignore Brewfather and cap the striker water (what volume?) = much thicker mash but decent sparge
4) Oversparge but boil longer to incr boiloff (it's new kit so I don't know the rate) and use less hops to account for IBU = more guess work/scope for error
5) DME = feels like cheating/like I'm not learning as much/like it's less of a side by side comparison with the BZ
Any further thoughts or suggestion would be amazing. I don't really have my heart set on a particular method (ignoring #5) but want to place my malt miller order this week and so need to settle on a plan.
Thanks!
I've been struggling to get above 8 percent on my Brewzilla since the efficiency plummets above 11lb of grain but in a couple of weeks have the chance to use a 21 gallon mash tun. For the sake of comparison (and because I love big beers) I want to give another imperial a shot but am rather unsure about water ratios.
The beer should be 9.8% for a 6 gallon batch (31lb), and I've set the Brewfather profile to 60% brewhouse meaning grain is increased accordingly but this means there's no sparge step then calculated. If I put the brewhouse back up to 70 (26.5lb) then theres still only minimal sparge - about 1 gallon. So what's best to maximise the outcome? I see it as these options:
1) 60% brewhouse = more sugar but thicker mash and no sparge
2) 70% brewhouse = less sugar but more lucid mash and small sparge
3) Ignore Brewfather and cap the striker water (what volume?) = much thicker mash but decent sparge
4) Oversparge but boil longer to incr boiloff (it's new kit so I don't know the rate) and use less hops to account for IBU = more guess work/scope for error
5) DME = feels like cheating/like I'm not learning as much/like it's less of a side by side comparison with the BZ
Any further thoughts or suggestion would be amazing. I don't really have my heart set on a particular method (ignoring #5) but want to place my malt miller order this week and so need to settle on a plan.
Thanks!
