Brewing all grain beer kit in a hopcat. water quantity question.

[Jamesman]

Hi everyone, when I brew I usually find a recipe and buy the grains, hops and yeast separately and put all the ingredients into brewfather with the hopcat 30l profile to find out the mash and sparge water quantities. Now I've bought 2 kits from dark rock. The instructions says 20 litres mash and 13 litres sparge water. Will that be the right amount of water for an all in one hopcat though? Or do I have to compensate for the mash tun dead space? Any help would be appreciated. Cheers.

 

[The Baron]

Yes that will be near to the mark but your AIO and your brewing technique will need fine tuning to suit your set up and your method.
I would do as the instructions say and see where you go with it and measure your losses in Boil Off, Grain Absorption and Trub loss so that you can set a profile up to be more exact but to repeat it will get you very near to the mark. I am guessing it is a 23ltr kit
Or sparge with a little less to say 11 ltrs and if you are under you can just add some boiling water to get it exact for the first time

 

[Jamesman]

Yes that will be near to the mark but your AIO and your brewing technique will need fine tuning to suit your set up and your method.
I would do as the instructions say and see where you go with it and measure your losses in Boil Off, Grain Absorption and Trub loss so that you can set a profile up to be more exact but to repeat it will get you very near to the mark. I am guessing it is a 23ltr kit
Or sparge with a little less to say 11 ltrs and if you are under you can just add some boiling water to get it exact for the first time

Ok thanks for the quick reply. I'll give it a go. Have a good weekend. Cheers.

 

[Jamesman]

Yes that will be near to the mark but your AIO and your brewing technique will need fine tuning to suit your set up and your method.
I would do as the instructions say and see where you go with it and measure your losses in Boil Off, Grain Absorption and Trub loss so that you can set a profile up to be more exact but to repeat it will get you very near to the mark. I am guessing it is a 23ltr kit
Or sparge with a little less to say 11 ltrs and if you are under you can just add some boiling water to get it exact for the first time

Sorry, just to be clear. Do you mean sparge with just 11 litres and add the extra 2 litres to the mash water? Could I just mash with most of the water say 26 litres then sparge with the remaining 7 litres.? Would that be ok aswell? Cheers.

 

[The Baron]

No I so that meant sparge with 2 litres less so that if you find it gives you too much volume using the full 13 litres you can always add but can not take away unless you boil it down for longer to evaporate any excess off which lengthens your brew day.
I am only suggesting that as it takes a while to get everything in the right proportions for you equipment and method

 

[Jamesman]

No I so that meant sparge with 2 litres less so that if you find it gives you too much volume using the full 13 litres you can always add but can not take away unless you boil it down for longer to evaporate any excess off which lengthens your brew day.
I am only suggesting that as it takes a while to get everything in the right proportions for you equipment and method

Oh, I see. Thanks.