Single Infusion Medium Bodied Sparge Q

[Netflyer]

I have a 7 gallon boil needed to get me a 5.25 product and Beersmith has me mashing about 7.8 lbs of grain with 2.45 gal. of water mashing out with 1.37gal. assumedly to compensate for grain absorption and sparging with 4.24 gal. After sparging it just says to add water to get me to my 7 gallon final volume. My question is why not run all the water to get me to my final volume in the sparge? Is it because beersmith has calculated that the amount of water, 4.24 gal in this case, is enough to lower the wort gravity to the low point and doesn't want me to add any more water through it? So instead I just add this water around the sparge into the boil?

Thanks for help!

 

[minnowcaptain]

I use a paint stirrer with the levels of each half gallon marked from by brew kettle. I just stick that in my pot and sparge until the runoff gets me to my desired volume, never had any astringency and I know several brewers who do this as well.

 

[Hammy71]

If your doing all grain, I personally wouldn't 'top off'. I use the ale pails with the gallon marks on them when I batch sparge. I use Beersmith to give me my strike water volume and temperature. Maybe when you say 'add water' you mean to sparge. After you drain your mash tun of the first runnings (which included your mash out water), you add enough water to reach your boiling volume (I usually split this amount in half and do it twice). Then drain your mash tun again. By using the ale pales, there is no guess work on how much "sparge water" I need to get to my boiling volume. If I end up with 2.5 gallons after the first runnings, (and I want 5.25 gallons in my pot), I simply add 2.75 gallons of water (usually around 175 degrees or so) to the mash tun, stir and drain. The grain is already saturated so there will be no more absorption. That's the short simple version....hope that helps.

 

[Netflyer]

Beer Smith is telling me in the brewsheet

'Sparge with 4.24 gal at 168 (I'm fly sparging)' Then the next line says:

'Add water to achieve boil volume of 7.02' - which is my calc. boil volume that evaporates and leaves excess, etc. etc. that gets me to 5.25

I was imagining since beersmith didn't tell me to add enough sparge water to get me to that final boil volume that I was supposed to add the 'difference' to the kettle directly. Does it mean to add more through the sparge to achieve the final boil volume? See I am confused where to add the final volume but I think Hammy explained it... So beersmith means to top off through the mash ton, post sparge I guess?

Thanks