New to All-Grain, need help understanding sparge

[dr0506]

Hello All,

So I am relatively new to all-grain brewing (wish I had switched sooner; I love the flexibility) and one concept that I have read about but am having trouble understanding fully is sparging. Let me give an example relative to me:

I typically brew 2.5 or 5 gallon batches. When I read about sparging for this batch size, I usually do my math and add 1.5-ish quarts of water per pound of grain to get my mash going. I would assume that I would want the math to go something like this:

mash + sparge = boil volume


But it seems that the sparge volume would bring my total wort way above what I should be boiling (around 3 gallons) if I were to follow what I read about how much water to use for the sparge.

Am I missing something fundamental? Thanks in advance!

 

[Yooper]

But it seems that the sparge volume would bring my total wort way above what I should be boiling (around 3 gallons) if I were to follow what I read about how much water to use for the sparge.

Am I missing something fundamental? Thanks in advance!

Yes, in order to maximize efficiency, more sparging would be done.

However, most homebrewers will simply sparge up to their boil volume, which may have an efficiency hit.

For me, I brew 10.5 gallon batches so start with a 12 gallon boil. Whether I have 15 pounds of grain or 25 pounds of grain, I still only sparge up to 12 gallons for my boil so the larger grainbills have a slightly less efficiency. That's ok with me, as I'd rather spend 75 cents more in grain than to boil for another hour.

 

[dr0506]

Thanks Yooper, but I guess I am still not seeing the math...

So let's say I am brewing a 2.5 gallon batch and mashing 9 pounds of grain. At 1.5 quarts per pound that gives me 3.4 gallons. I know that I will lose some liquor to the grain but then if I go by John Palmer's suggestions (1.5 times as much water is used for sparging as for mashing), that gives me another 5+ gallons of water which I believe would give me way more than 3 gallons of wort which would probably not boil down to my batch size within 60 minutes.

Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

Thanks Yooper, but I guess I am still not seeing the math...

So let's say I am brewing a 2.5 gallon batch and mashing 9 pounds of grain. At 1.5 quarts per pound that gives me 3.4 gallons. I know that I will lose some liquor to the grain but then if I go by John Palmer's suggestions (1.5 times as much water is used for sparging as for mashing), that gives me another 5+ gallons of water which I believe would give me way more than 3 gallons of wort which would probably not boil down to my batch size within 60 minutes.

Thoughts? Thanks!

Oh, geez, I hate math........................... but here goes.

1.5 quarts/pound= 13.5 quarts (3.375 gallons) in the mash. You should lose about .125 gallons/pound to grain absorption (1.125 gallons), so from the mash you'd get 2.25 gallons of wort.

If you want to start your boil with 3.5 gallons of wort (recommended for a 2.5 gallon batch, as you should boil off about +/- 1 gallon per hour generally), then sparge with 1.25 gallons.

I guess a better way to think of Palmer's guideline is that he is talking about the maximum amount of sparging to ever do, and how to maximize efficiency.

Homebrewers are more about getting a good efficiency, having quality wort, and still being able to do this in a reasonable amount of time.

If you have to spend $1 more on grain to get the same efficiency as boiling down for 2 hours, I'd consider the dollar well spent, as the energy savings alone should about cover it.

 

[dr0506]

Got it and sorry about the math :cross:. I think what you are explaining is more or less what I was thinking; that ultimately the total of the two volumes should equal the boil volume.

Thanks for the help!

 

[brewkinger]

Got it and sorry about the math :cross:. I think what you are explaining is more or less what I was thinking; that ultimately the total of the two volumes should equal the boil volume.

Thanks for the help!

Exactly...

Stick with the set in stone math here.

2.5 gallon batches use between 3.5 and 4 gallons PRE BOIL
5 gallon batches between 7 and 7.5 gallons PB

Regardless of the batch size, stick with the 1.5 qts/pound grain for mashing (the only caveat here is whether or not your mash tun can handle the combined volumes of grain and water)

Like Yooper said, you will average about 0.125 gallons (0.5 quarts) of water lost to the grain absorption.

Collect and measure your total runnings and subtract from the total pre boil volume and then batch sparge with the difference because the grains are saturated at this point and SPARGE WATER IN = SPARGE WATER OUT.

 

[dr0506]

I think that was the key that I was missing... I only need to sparge with the difference in volume. I guess the way I was reading about it, it wasn't clear. Thanks for the advice!


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