Quick help with first step mash

[malkore]

this is a Marzen style ale.
8lbs Vienna malt
1b Munich malt
.5 lbs CaraMunich
.5 lbs crystal 80L

calls for 30 mins alpha rest at 140F
and 30 mins beta rest at 158F

(this is from Palmer's How to Brew book)

if I'm using promash correctly:
I need 7.50 quarts of 157F water for dough-in/alpha rest
then 3.29 quarts of boiling water to raise to 158F for the beta rest

That's 2.69 gallons into the mash...I'll be lucky to collect 2 gallons with grain aborption + a little deadspace. Sound ok?
then I'll batch sparge w/ 5gallons at 165F.

that way I hit my pre-boil volume.
many thanks. got a few hours til brewing starts.

 

[Ender]

Take this with a grain of salt. I've batch sparged, but have not step mashed. According to Denny's site http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/ you are supposed to colledt half your total volume from the first mash, and half from the sparge. He recommends adding enough water at the end of the mash and letting it sit for 10 mins to bring up your volume to the correct ammount.

Not sure if step mashing changes anything though.

Ender
-I'm smelling a lotta IF comming offa this plan-

 

[Got Trub?]

Ender is correct - to maximize yield the sparge should be evenly split. I'm assuming you need 7g at the start of your boil and going with your estimated 0.69g lost to absorption and tun you would need to add about 1.5 gals of hot ~190F water to your mash to raise it to 165+, drain off about 3.5g and then add 3.5g of 165+ water for the second sparge.

GT

 

[malkore]

Thanks guys. I figured out how to tweak promash based on GT's rough numbers, and I understand now. promash defaulted to 210F water for the step to beta rest, which gave me too little in the mash. I see that by dropping it to 190F, that raises my water volume required.

Well its time to get brewin'...I forgot to grab the crystal 80 and caramunich on my first LHBS run today...now I'm armed and dangerous!

--

quick update, I missed the first infusion by a degree. looks like I got the second infusion on the mark. also discovered a leaky keg lid seal on my kolsch which explains why it won't fully carb. luckily i didn't drain my entire CO2 cylinder.

 

[malkore]

Well my efficiency sucked and I have too much wort. 5.5gallons since its a 40 minute boil, and an OG of 1.042 instead of 1.056.

I don't think I over sparged...I think I just had low eff. and didn't boil down enough.

*sigh*