So tomorrow is my first all grain and I was playing around on beersmith. I will be making the rogue dead guy ale clone and it calls for 12.5lbs of grain. Ive been reading that you want to shoot for a 3-4 gallon sparge but on beersmith it says I can only do a 1.8/2gallon sparge. I only have an 8 gallon brewpot so I cant really go any higher than a 2 gallon sparge. Will this be enough? Or will my efficiency drastically suffer?
not enough sparge water?
- Thread starter cheschire
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ascha
Well-Known Member
not sure what you mean by not being able to go higher than 2 gallons with your 8 gallon brewpot
Brocster
Well-Known Member
I would think you would shoot for about a 4.5 gallon strike qty, and that would leave you with about the same in sparge qty. I am not near where I can run my program to check numbers. But this should leave you with about 6.5 gallons pre-boil.
cheschire
Well-Known Member
well it calls for 4.5 gallons for the mash, then 2 gallons for sparge. That would leave 1.5gallons headspace in my brewpot. Just barely avoiding a boilover. Maybe I havent figured out beersmith yet
Duffer
Well-Known Member
I think what you are missing is the liquid that is absorbed by the grain and therefore left behind when you sparge
Brocster
Well-Known Member
+1
I did some quick math, so this may not be accurate, but assuming 1.3 qts/pound mash, you will need about 4 gallons of strike water and 4.5 gallons of sparge. This is assuming no dead space in the MLT or Liqour kettle (or whatever you may be using)
This assumes .3 gallons per pound of grain absorbtion. This gives you 7.5 gallons of pre-boil liquid.
Cheers,
Broc
That's not that different from the 4.5 you originally had guessed for, so now you'll have 6.4 instead of 6.5? And as for the boilover, you just need to keep an eagle eye on it, primarily at the beginning. But 6.5 gallons in an 8 gallon pot is not that bad.
