New to AG, totally lost.

[Sharkness]

Alright, so I've done enough extract to have made some beers that are better than just 'hey, I made beer!' and have done the obvious things to improve quality: OCD sanitation, immersion chiller, yeast starters, pure O2. Now I've jumped to an all grain setup with my old turkey fryer as a HLT with a weldless valve, a 10 gallon igloo with a false bottom as a MLT, and a blinged-out 10 gallon V3 Spike kettle that my lovely wife allowed me to put on the wedding registry. I winged it a bit with my first AG batch, and against all odds made a pretty good milk stout that's as good as anything I've made so far, as far as I can tell from my 'gravity readings' (gravity hasn't changed in a week, I still feel the need to dip the beer thief most days.)

So on my last batch, when I mashed in I didn't hit the temperatures I wanted (150-152 mash for 60 minutes, 170 mashout for 10, then sparge, right?) and ended up needing to keep adding hot water to get up to those temps, which left me with a ton of liquid in the mash, and in turn needed even more added to raise the temp for the last 10 minutes. I topped it up with boiling water, and only got it to 167 or so, at which point I had so much liquid in play in the tun that I didn't really sparge in the sense that I drained it and re-circulated that back on top, but never really 'rinsed' it with additional water. Still, I hit my target gravity, and the boil-off rate of the wider Spike kettle actually brought me down to just about 5.5 gallons in primary. All's well that ends well.

Still, looking at books, various calculators online, youtube videos, and poking around threads on here, I still can't figure out exactly where to start on my brew process this afternoon. I have a 15.25 lb grain bill, and I'm shooting for 6 gallons in the fermenter after a 90 minute boil. Last batch I measured about .7 g/hr boiloff rate, so I think I want 7g in the kettle.

So, here are my specific questions:

How to I calculate how much strike water to hit it with? I see lots of different calculators that all contradict each other.

How do I raise mash temp at the end? Just add boiling water to the existing mash till I measure my target?

How do I calculate how much sparge water I need, and what temp should I sparge at?


Thanks a ton guys. If there's a thread that makes all this clear please just feel free to link to it, I'm sure the info is out there, I just keep coming across partial answers that don't seem to fit with other parts of the equation.

 

[Limbrizik]

This is what I used to use before I started using an app on my phone to calculate volumes. It's spot on; http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php
I also wouldn't do a mash out, IMO it's totally pointless. Typical sparge temp is 170 f but people debate about cold sparges and the like.

 

[jwm1485]

To get your sparge water volume you can use anywhere from 1 -2 qts per pound of grain. I use 1.25qt per pound. I wouldn't worry about doing a mashout with your setup. You could just sparge to your desired preboil volume or download a calculator to help with exact volumes.

 

[Sharkness]

Alright, thanks for responding. I've looked at this before. So I would mash in with the full volume this calculator suggests, drain liquid and pour it back over the top till it runs clear, drain it all into the boil kettle, and then pour the sparge water over it at 170 and drain that again?

 

[Amadeo38]

Yup, that's what I do.

 

[Sharkness]

Clarity! Thanks guys.

 

[jwm1485]

Alright, thanks for responding. I've looked at this before. So I would mash in with the full volume this calculator suggests, drain liquid and pour it back over the top till it runs clear, drain it all into the boil kettle, and then pour the sparge water over it at 170 and drain that again?

Pour your first runnings over the top until there isn't any grain coming out.

 

[Yooper]

Alright, thanks for responding. I've looked at this before. So I would mash in with the full volume this calculator suggests, drain liquid and pour it back over the top till it runs clear, drain it all into the boil kettle, and then pour the sparge water over it at 170 and drain that again?

I'm not sure what exactly you're doing, but I don't do a full volume mash so maybe that's the difference?

I add my strike water to the grain, using 1.25-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain. I use water about 11 degrees warmer than my desired mash temperature, in a preheated mash tun, stir then well, and cover then let it sit.

To sparge, there are two ways to do this. Continuous (fly) sparging means drawing out the wort at a slow rate while refilling with clean water at the same rate, to rinse the grainbed very slowly through the process of diffusion.

To batch sparge means to drain the mashtun completely, and then add all the sparge water at once (the 'batch' of water), stir well to 'knock' the sugars from the grain and add that to the first runnings from the mash tun.

Pouring wort over the grainbed until the runnings are clear is vorlaufing, and usually takes a quart or two, and is done before drawing off the wort to the kettle, but not everyone does this.

In your case, you did a full volume mash (I think) and no-sparge. That's a perfectly valid technique, as well.

All that said, to say this- in order to answer your questions, we'd need to know what sort of technique you plan to do. If you have a rectangular style cooler MLT, you'd be pretty much limited to batch sparging, or no-sparge. If you have a round MLT with a false bottom, you could do any of the above.

Like I said, for me, I mash in with 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain, as a rule. So, say I have a 10 pound grainbill I would use 15 quarts. Once the mash is over, the grain would absorb approximately .125 gallons per pound of grain, so I'd 'lose' 1.25 gallons out of that first nearly 4 gallons.

My boil volume is 6.5 gallons, so I'd need to sparge with 4 gallons of water.

The first few times it's hard, because there are always so many things going on (like you missing the temperature), so I recommend having some extra hot water on hand, and a few ice cubes.

One thing to be aware of is that some things are not really necessary- like hitting the mash temperature exactly or mashing out. If you are a degree or two off on the mash temperature, often that's good enough and you don't have to chase a higher or lower temperature. Mashing out is not necessary much of the time, since you're putting the wort onto boil soon anyway and that will take care of the need to mash out.

So don't worry! There are a lot of valid ways to do this, and they all make perfectly good beer. We can help you get comfortable with whatever method that will be easiest for you.

 

[Sharkness]

Thanks a ton Yooper. I went with that brew365 calculator and it was incredibly accurate. 5 gallons in the mash, within a degree of the target. Vorlauf till no grain came through, fly sparged, 8 gallons in the kettle, 6 in the fermenter. The only thing was that my HLT cooled down quick from 170, down to 165 by the time I actually started it, 155 by the time I was done, but I'm not too worried about it. I do see how a cooler for the HLT would be nice, since I don't have a burner up that high and the kettle just sits on saw horses.

 

[jmitchell3]

Beersmith.

 

[MaryB]

You can sparge a rectangular cooler just fine! Really easy if you build a long sparge bar form copper pipe with .125 holes drilled along it to get the flow rate you need(more is better, you can close the valve on the HLT down to restrict it). I use one with my kettle...

I'm not sure what exactly you're doing, but I don't do a full volume mash so maybe that's the difference?

I add my strike water to the grain, using 1.25-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain. I use water about 11 degrees warmer than my desired mash temperature, in a preheated mash tun, stir then well, and cover then let it sit.

To sparge, there are two ways to do this. Continuous (fly) sparging means drawing out the wort at a slow rate while refilling with clean water at the same rate, to rinse the grainbed very slowly through the process of diffusion.

To batch sparge means to drain the mashtun completely, and then add all the sparge water at once (the 'batch' of water), stir well to 'knock' the sugars from the grain and add that to the first runnings from the mash tun.

Pouring wort over the grainbed until the runnings are clear is vorlaufing, and usually takes a quart or two, and is done before drawing off the wort to the kettle, but not everyone does this.

In your case, you did a full volume mash (I think) and no-sparge. That's a perfectly valid technique, as well.

All that said, to say this- in order to answer your questions, we'd need to know what sort of technique you plan to do. If you have a rectangular style cooler MLT, you'd be pretty much limited to batch sparging, or no-sparge. If you have a round MLT with a false bottom, you could do any of the above.

Like I said, for me, I mash in with 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain, as a rule. So, say I have a 10 pound grainbill I would use 15 quarts. Once the mash is over, the grain would absorb approximately .125 gallons per pound of grain, so I'd 'lose' 1.25 gallons out of that first nearly 4 gallons.

My boil volume is 6.5 gallons, so I'd need to sparge with 4 gallons of water.

The first few times it's hard, because there are always so many things going on (like you missing the temperature), so I recommend having some extra hot water on hand, and a few ice cubes.

One thing to be aware of is that some things are not really necessary- like hitting the mash temperature exactly or mashing out. If you are a degree or two off on the mash temperature, often that's good enough and you don't have to chase a higher or lower temperature. Mashing out is not necessary much of the time, since you're putting the wort onto boil soon anyway and that will take care of the need to mash out.

So don't worry! There are a lot of valid ways to do this, and they all make perfectly good beer. We can help you get comfortable with whatever method that will be easiest for you.

 

[prrriiide]

Here is a good set of calcs:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash/

If you need to raise your temp, but don't want to add more liquid, you can draw off some wort, boil it and add it back it. If you change the "first rest" parameter in the first calc to your current temp, then enter your target temp in the second calc, it will tell you how much wort to draw off, heat to boil and add back to hit your target.

 

[Sharkness]

Thanks guys. So far so good on this brew. Vigorous fermentation within 8 hours, puking through the blowoff tube, all gravity numbers and temps pretty much dead on. I took good notes and can do little tweaks next round to reduce volumes since I lost a little less than I'd planned on.

A couple mostly academic questions:

What are the dangers/effects of a longer mash than necessary?

What's the difference between sparging at 170 vs draining to boil kettle and raising temp fast?

I see folks mash at between 1.25 and 1.5 qts/lb of grain. How do you decide? Why?

Thanks,
Sam

 

[Limbrizik]

If you mash longer you may squeeze a few more gravity points out of your mash but 60 min will do you just fine. I've mashed for three hours without any problems and I have a friend who has mashed overnight with no ill effects.

You sparge to rinse your grain bed and extract more sugar. If you choose to do a no-sparge method then you would need to calculate that loss of water and would need to mash with more water. Basically you would just take a hit to your efficiency but you would save yourself 30-40 min of brewing time.

I see the mash thickness as a product of how much room you have in your mash tun. I typically mash at 1.25 qts/lb but that is because I use a 10 gallon cooler at make 10 gallon batches. Here is the website I use to see if I have enough space with my chosen grain bill. For example if you brew a high gravity beer you would need more space in your mash tun to fit the grain and water so to adjust you would do a thicker mash. http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml