Looking at first all grain batch

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mrduna01

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So me and a friend are talking about doing an all grain batch together so I have been reading up on it. Here is my question. All of the recipes I am looking at in a book that I have say to mash with 3 or so gallons of water then to sparge with 5 gallons of water in a 5 gallon batch... which had me questioning total volume of wort being more than 5 gallons. Then I read some websites and such and they say that you will be collecting 6 to 7 gallons of wort out of the mash tun.

For a 5 gallon batch why would you need to just stop collecting wort out of thet mash tun when you have reached 5 gallons?
 
So me and a friend are talking about doing an all grain batch together so I have been reading up on it. Here is my question. All of the recipes I am looking at in a book that I have say to mash with 3 or so gallons of water then to sparge with 5 gallons of water in a 5 gallon batch... which had me questioning total volume of wort being more than 5 gallons. Then I read some websites and such and they say that you will be collecting 6 to 7 gallons of wort out of the mash tun.

For a 5 gallon batch why would you need to just stop collecting wort out of thet mash tun when you have reached 5 gallons?



You will boil off during the 60 minute boil so at the end of your boil you want to have 5 gallons. Thus, you need more water pre-boil than 5 gallons.
 
So me and a friend are talking about doing an all grain batch together so I have been reading up on it. Here is my question. All of the recipes I am looking at in a book that I have say to mash with 3 or so gallons of water then to sparge with 5 gallons of water in a 5 gallon batch... which had me questioning total volume of wort being more than 5 gallons. Then I read some websites and such and they say that you will be collecting 6 to 7 gallons of wort out of the mash tun.

For a 5 gallon batch why would you need to just stop collecting wort out of thet mash tun when you have reached 5 gallons?

You want more than 5 gallons because you are going to lose a gallon more more when during the hour long boil.

If you stop when you hit 5 gallons:
(1) your volume at the end of the boil will be lower than 5 gallons
(2) you left a lot of sugar behind in the mash tun by not sparging enough
 
hmmm... by the way... are there any caculations to use to hit right at 5 gallons at the end of the boil or should I just pour in 5 gallons in to the fermenter and toss whats left over or what?
 
You'll have to learn your system and figure out how much your boil off actually is. It is possible to hit the 5 gallons perfectly.
 
Why do I get the uneasy feeling that you're going to try putting exactly 5 gallons of wort into a 5 gallon carboy? :cross:

Ya DO NOT do that. Unless you are not planning on putting yeast in there or want a big mess to clean up.
 
You'll have to learn your system and figure out how much your boil off actually is. It is possible to hit the 5 gallons perfectly.

Yep, it's all about calibrating your technique and measurements to your system. And if you really want 5 gallons of finished beer, you need to account for waste in the system (trub, yeast slurry, etc). In 5 gallon batches I usually left 0.5 gal of waste in the calculations and I have seen this number commonly used around the webtubes. Hence, for a 5 gal batch with 1 gal of boil-off per boil session (hypothetical scenario here), you would really calculate your preboil volume as 6.5 gal and your target recipe size as about 5.5 gal.
 
Ya DO NOT do that. Unless you are not planning on putting yeast in there or want a big mess to clean up.

ahh i do it all the time. Just use a nice blow off tube in the neck of the carboy and you are good to go. Yeah you get some blow off but hey it works.

I dont even own a 6.5 gallon carboy or ale pail. Is that bad? lol
 
I dont even own a 6.5 gallon carboy or ale pail. Is that bad? lol

It's so bad, oh man, sooo bad.

I had a dream where I had hooked up six 1-gal fermenters full of wort in series, tubes connecting them in a line (double drilled stoppers) and I only put yeast in the first one...
 
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