strike and sparge water amounts

[wetchicken6]

I am doing a10 gallon all grain fat tire clone on Saturday. My grain bill is 20.5#so I figure at 1.33 L/# of grain will give me 6.81 gallons of strike water for my mash tun. Do I figure 10 gallons - 6.81 = my sparge water or how do I figure that out. Also, is anyone familiar with the product ph5.2? thanks

 

[pablo1337]

Well not quite, you will have some boil off, so you want to start off with more than 10g. In addition, the grain will absorb liquid, normally, for me slightly more than .33qt/lb. I normally start my boil with 6.5-7 gal, depending upon how much hops I'm using. (also I normally try to get 5.25 gal in the fermenter) Therefore, you have your strike water (6.81)- grain absorption (approx 1.71)+ sparge additions(x) = volume into kettle(13)
volume into kettle - boil off - loss to trub = volume into fermenter

So say you want to get 13 gal into your kettle then you want to use approximately 7.9 gal of sparge water. It is always better to have too much sparge water on hand than too little.

If you do not loose much to trub and boil-off then you may want to adjust your numbers. ( I have a fairly high boil-off because I use two pots for a split boil)

 

[CPooley4]

If you download the brew chart in my signature it will take care of all the math for you plus a whole lot more (it's free by the way). If you do and you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

cp