Question about sparging

[ddrumdiablo]

So I'm thinking of getting into doing some homebrew. I used to do a small bit years ago. All extract kits and didn't enjoy it too much, but I was young and impatient. Now that I'm mid-30's, I want to get back into it, but I want to go all grain. Problem is, in searching through these forums, the info relating to sparge water seems to be ambiguous at best (to me anyway).

The way I understand it the steps are as follows

1. Mill your grain or get it pre-milled
2. Multiply your grain weight by 1.25-1.33 to get your strike water volume
3. Heat your strike water
4. Mash your grain
5. Rest
6. Sparge
7. Drain
8. Boil
9. Ferment

Obviously, it's a little more detailed but those are the fundamentals. My issue is, the sparge water. How do you determine the volume of sparge water? Is it purely down to the amount you want to make or is there a formula dependent on the amount of grain/strike water you've used?

I don't want to get into this and make a heap of mistakes that will eventually put me off brewing after spending good money investing in equipment. Thanks for the advice

 

[Spartan300man]

I have used the calculators to figure out the minimum amount of water needed based on the grains I am mashing, then I try to add more, but making sure I don't overflow my pot. I then use enough sparge water to make up the final volume of beer I want to ferment, plus some extra to make up for the boil-off. There have been a couple batches where I added some boiled water at the point when I transferred it into the fermentor, to get to the final O-Gravity I wanted. There has also been a batch where I had to put some extra wort into a 1-gallon glass jug because I had more than I expected, because I did not get the boil-off that I expected.

Getting all the calculations right the first time is tough, so don't dwell on it. It never works, you have to go with the flow. Make sure to write stuff down, then the next time you brew, you make the little corrections. This is how you eventually get to a repeatable excellent brew. At the point of making repeatable brews, this is when the fun begins, you can then start experimenting, splitting the batch in half, trying different hops or yeasts, small adjustments to grain bills, adding some orange zest, etc.

 

[Skep18]

Your sparge water will be the total target final wort volume (i.e. 5 gallons) for the recipe plus the volume of grain absorption plus the loss of volume to steam/boiling minus the strike water volume.

Sparge = Total Final + Grain Absorption + Boil-Off - Strike

You can search for grain absorption ratios as they may change to your setup but I've read and used (0.20 x grain in lb = absorption in gallons).

Boil-off can vary for each setup as well as local elevation, etc.

Edit: added boil off volume.

 

[kh54s10]

It is even easier that all that if you batch sparge.

You will have to determine your boil off rate. There are calculations based on pot geometry that will get you close.

1.25 to 1.5 qts per pound of grain.
Mash,
Drain,
Measure how much wort you collected
Subtract this from what you need preboil = how much you need to sparge with. (heat up a little more water than you think you will need for the sparge.

I boil off 2 gallons per hour so I need to collect just over 7 gallons to get just over 5 gallons into the fermenter.

 

[treacheroustexan]

I fly sparge, so I just heat up 5 gallons of water during the mash, and then when I go to sparge, I just keep adding water until I hit my preboil volume of 6.5 gallons. No calculating involved. I have never been more than a few points off on my OG, and comes out great every time.

 

[dude_brewery]

So I'm thinking of getting into doing some homebrew. I used to do a small bit years ago. All extract kits and didn't enjoy it too much, but I was young and impatient. Now that I'm mid-30's, I want to get back into it, but I want to go all grain. Problem is, in searching through these forums, the info relating to sparge water seems to be ambiguous at best (to me anyway).

The way I understand it the steps are as follows

1. Mill your grain or get it pre-milled
2. Multiply your grain weight by 1.25-1.33 to get your strike water volume
3. Heat your strike water
4. Mash your grain
5. Rest
6. Sparge
7. Drain
8. Boil
9. Ferment

Obviously, it's a little more detailed but those are the fundamentals. My issue is, the sparge water. How do you determine the volume of sparge water? Is it purely down to the amount you want to make or is there a formula dependent on the amount of grain/strike water you've used?

I don't want to get into this and make a heap of mistakes that will eventually put me off brewing after spending good money investing in equipment. Thanks for the advice

When determining sparge water, you need to consider the volume of beer that you want, and then add extra water to account for volume lost due to evaporation during boil, grain absorption (left behind during mash), equipment loss (liquid left behind during draining of kettle, mash tun, etc).

I usually use this site to help me determine my mash water and sparge water: http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php
You may have to adjust the values a few times to get it accurately working for you. I.e. - my trub loss is 0.25 and equipment loss is 0.3, but it'll get you in the ball park initially.

 

[unionrdr]

Since I'm still on the stove in the 5 gallon kettle I started with, I do pb/pm biab. I take what my mash yields. Then sparge with the amount of water that'll give me my pre-boil volume. Sparge is typically 1 1/4 -1 1/2 gallons. pre-boil volume is Usually 3 1/2 gallons, but no more than 4 gallons. I dunk (read batch) sparge with the bag of grains so I can stir it well, then soak 10 minutes before draining the bag. Then add that to the main mash wort in the BK.

 

[doug293cz]

So I'm thinking of getting into doing some homebrew. I used to do a small bit years ago. All extract kits and didn't enjoy it too much, but I was young and impatient. Now that I'm mid-30's, I want to get back into it, but I want to go all grain. Problem is, in searching through these forums, the info relating to sparge water seems to be ambiguous at best (to me anyway).

The way I understand it the steps are as follows

1. Mill your grain or get it pre-milled
2. Multiply your grain weight by 1.25-1.33 to get your strike water volume
3. Heat your strike water
4. Mash your grain
5. Rest
6. Sparge
7. Drain
8. Boil
9. Ferment

Obviously, it's a little more detailed but those are the fundamentals. My issue is, the sparge water. How do you determine the volume of sparge water? Is it purely down to the amount you want to make or is there a formula dependent on the amount of grain/strike water you've used?

I don't want to get into this and make a heap of mistakes that will eventually put me off brewing after spending good money investing in equipment. Thanks for the advice

First question is are you planning to fly sparge or batch sparge? If you plan to batch sparge proceed as follows:

• Determine the volume you want in your fermenter. This is your batch size.
• Add the estimated boil kettle to fermenter transfer losses (aka trub losses) to your batch size. This is your target post-boil volume. For a new brewer 0.5 gal is a reasonable estimate for trub losses. You should adjust the trub loss numbers after you have actual data for your system.
• Add the estimated boil off losses to the post-boil volume. This is your target pre-boil volume. Your boil off volume is the boil off rate (in gal/hr) times the planned boil time. A good first time estimate for boil off rate is 1.0 to 1.5 gal/hr. You can measure the actual rate by boiling some water in your pot and taking before and after volume measurements. Again you should adjust the boil off rate as you get experience with your system
• Determine your estimated grain absorption. This is the total grain weight times the absorption rate (in gal/lb.) A good estimate for grain absorption rate is 0.125 gal/lb. Again, adjust based on your actual system performance.
• For strike water volume use (0.5 * pre-boil volume) + grain absorption
• For sparge water volume use 0.5 * pre-boil volume. The grain is saturated prior to sparge, so will not hold on to any sparge volume when drained.

For fly sparging, determine your target pre-boil volume the same way as for batch sparging. Then:

• Determine strike water volume from your desired water to grain ratio. This is usually about 1.25 to 1.5 qt/lb.
• Prepare sparge water volume greater or equal to your target pre-boil volume.
• Fly sparge until you reach your target pre-boil volume (or your run-off SG drops to 1.010.)

Brew on

 

[ddrumdiablo]

OK. Cheers for the responses lads. All very informative and a little (a lot) over my head... For now. Haha.

Right, so say I have 12 lbs of grain. I should bring 16 quarts up to temp, mash in the grain, rest and then sparge.

From the info I've gathered both here and elsewhere, I should add about 14.5 quarts of sparge water? Giving me a 30.5 quart pre-boil volume (about 7.625 Gallons)

Assuming a boil loss of 1 gallon per hour and an equpment loss of about a litre (?), I should have a post boil volume of roughly 6.5 gallons?

Does that sound right?

 

[kh54s10]

OK. Cheers for the responses lads. All very informative and a little (a lot) over my head... For now. Haha.

Right, so say I have 12 lbs of grain. I should bring 16 quarts up to temp, mash in the grain, rest and then sparge.

From the info I've gathered both here and elsewhere, I should add about 14.5 quarts of sparge water? Giving me a 30.5 quart pre-boil volume (about 7.625 Gallons)

Assuming a boil loss of 1 gallon per hour and an equpment loss of about a litre (?), I should have a post boil volume of roughly 6.5 gallons?

Does that sound right?

That seems about right assuming 1 gallon per hour. And that you want 6.5 gallons into the fermenter. Also make sure you have a fermenter that can handle the 6.5 + krausen...

I boil off about 2 gallons per hour on my rig. I would go for 1.5 gallons per hour unless you know that you will only get 1 GPH.

Heat up more sparge water than you need then only use what you need.

I'll respond to your other thread here also, Just get started, keep it simple, things get more easy pretty quickly after you gain some experience.

 

[bbohanon]

I fly sparge, so I just heat up 5 gallons of water during the mash, and then when I go to sparge, I just keep adding water until I hit my preboil volume of 6.5 gallons. No calculating involved. I have never been more than a few points off on my OG, and comes out great every time.

This is my sparge routine as well on my E-Herms setup. Works will and I usually end up with just enough hot water left in the HLT post sparge to clean up post brew.

 

[ddrumdiablo]

That seems about right assuming 1 gallon per hour. And that you want 6.5 gallons into the fermenter. Also make sure you have a fermenter that can handle the 6.5 + krausen...

I boil off about 2 gallons per hour on my rig. I would go for 1.5 gallons per hour unless you know that you will only get 1 GPH.

Heat up more sparge water than you need then only use what you need.

I'll respond to your other thread here also, Just get started, keep it simple, things get more easy pretty quickly after you gain some experience.

That's brilliant. Exactly the info I needed. I feel confident enough now to go and find a great recipe and get some kit. I'll be getting a 33ltr fermenter, so even at 6.5 gallons, should have plenty of krausen space. Now to find a recipe. Much appreciated people.