Making sure my place is suitable for homebrewing

[cmoon]

Right, and it is probably just the sort of beer I generally favor. I just recently made a clone of Arrogant Bastard with a grain bill of 18 lbs. Maybe I just like big beers (in general), but obviously 18 lbs is gonna call for almost 6 gallons of water for the mash.

Working backwards, if your average mash volume is 3 gallons, most of your beers must have a grain bill of less than 9 lbs.

I do like session beers, but most of my beers end up being IIPAs. :cross:

 

[cmoon]

And I split my sparges.

OK, so you're basically doing a double batch sparge. My set up is a very traditional cooler/fly sparge arrangement, but I'm blessed with a balcony; Beer practically brews itself.

 

[ayoungrad]

I'm not talking about mash volume. My mash volume is up to 5 gallons. But this is a combination of grain (and associated displacement) and water.

For example... 12 pounds of grain using a ratio of 1 quart per pound means I add 3 gallons of water to achieve a ratio of 1:1.

There are 4 quarts in a gallon. 4 x 3 is 12. This is a 1:1 ratio.

With displacement of approximately 0.2-0.4 quarts per pound (from memory - I could be slightly off on this), you have 3 gallons of water added and 2.4 to 4.8 Quarts for displacement and you are still below 4.5 gallons total.

I have made beers this way and have not overflowed. Trust me. My numbers could be slightly off as I don't have my software with me but they are almost certainly within the ballpark.

As I said I add DME to supplement beer over 1.060 or so and have made big beers with DME (yes, this would then really be a partial mash) but I can still make a great IPA without DME.

For the OP read the link. It's how I got started and it's really easy.

 

[ayoungrad]

OK, so you're basically doing a double batch sparge.

Yes. And I think it may be in the wiki section on here but there is an article that studied batch sparging. And 2 was found to be much better than one. And three was not much better than 2.

 

[cmoon]

I'm not talking about mash volume. My mash volume is up to 5 gallons. But this is a combination of grain (and associated displacement) and water.

Gotcha. We're both saying the same thing. When I said mash volume, I meant volume of water for the mash. Stupid shorthand. I never really consider the total mash volume because my mash tun is more than large enough to accommodate anything short of some absurd high gravity barleywine, and then like you, I'd use extract to supplement it.

I try to stick with 1.3 qt of water per lb of grain, not 1. That's why I figured your mashes really couldn't be much larger than 9 lbs of grain.

I didn't know about double batch sparging. There's a friend of mine who does batch instead of fly, and I'll make the suggestion to him.

 

[Seb]

Are 8 gallons kettles too big for 2.5 gallons batches?

I would love to buy a 8 gallon kettle in case I upgrade to 5 gallon batches some day.

 

[Wakadaka]

I haven't read through this whole thread, but I would just recommend trying out a full boil. My electric stove will get a full boil going in my aluminum pot.

Your in a better position than me if you have a basement. I live in a studio apartment, and brewing equipment has kinda taken over