New to all grain

[wells11]

I'm in the process of buying the equipment to move from extract to all grain, I figured after about 20 extract brews it's time. My question is I have been printing out some receipes from different onlins sources and I noticed some of them do not have water temps for sparging or strike water. Is there some sort of math that determines that?

 

[tre9er]

I'm in the process of buying the equipment to move from extract to all grain, I figured after about 20 extract brews it's time. My question is I have been printing out some receipes from different onlins sources and I noticed some of them do not have water temps for sparging or strike water. Is there some sort of math that determines that?

It's based on the volume of grain, volume of water, and temperature of each. There are other factors though such as temperature of mash tun, ambient temperature, etc. My best method is to add strike water that is about 180* to the mash tun then let it sit covered for 10+ minutes to pre-heat. Then I stir it until it's just above where I want to strike, usually 168 or so, then dough-in slowly while stirring the whole time. Then I keep stirring until the mash temp drops to where I want it, usually only takes a few minutes.

Generally strike temps are in the 160's for a 5g batch, but again I like to preheat and stir-down as I've missed my temps low before and that is a PAIN to correct.

 

[mattmcl]

BeerSmith is a great piece of software that will calculate all this for you, and much more. Well worth the $20.

Once you do a few batches, you'll know how hot to make your strike water. I can usually nail it within a degree.

For sparging, you want to raise the temp of the mash to 170F. I do two rounds of equal volume batch sparges, and heat the first one to 200F, which usually does the trick. The second one can be heated to 175F or so.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

BeerSmith is a great tool and if you don't want to spend any money, Hopville's BeerCalculus is free and will do the calculations for you as well. I use BeerCalculus and it has done me well, I would buy BeerSmith, but it isn't compatible with my older Mac.

 

[henryred]

If u have iPhone brew pal and sparge pal work good

 

[wells11]

Thanks, this is why I love this site. within a half hour good advice from at least 4 people. This is a great site!

 

[tre9er]

I've started using my software just for recipe formulation (knowing what kind of gravity and IBU's I'll get from a recipe based on efficiency and batch size). The water volumes are coming easily without software. I pay attention to strike volume somewhat, but I tend to overshoot it a bit and sparge, well I just do that until I hit preboil.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Mr Malty is also an online resource that has a large collection of online calculators including mash infusion. The actual temps vary depending on your volumes and the temp of the grains. I have always used Mr Malt and have always ended up at just the right mash temp.