Confused about the amount of water/liquor to use

[biggtime]

Afternoon all. It's been a while since I've been on, mainly for good reasons. I'm three homebrews into brewing, all kits beers so far, and all have gone well. Tomorrow I'm planning a bash at the real thing - full mash brewing. Woo hoo!

One thing still confuses me, however. How much water/liquor to use in the process. I'm starting with one of Graham Wheeler's recipes, but even in his very clear book, I can't quite make sense of how much to use. He says, for a 40 pint batch (23 litres), that one should have 32 litres in total ready, but use only 10 litres for the mash. If so, what is the rest for? Is it all for sparging? And if you're making 23 litres of beer, why do you not just use 23 litres of water for the process? Am I missing something obvious here?

Cheers!

Dave.

 

[Tankboi]

Although fairly new to this myself I would assume that ots for sparging and topping up when you boil and topping up in the fv

 

[pittsy]

Hi , to start you off your grain bill (say 5kg ) will absorb around 5 ltrs of water (if 4kg around 4 ltrs and so on ) so your 23 ltrs plus 5 gives you 28 ltrs , then there the dead space in your mash tun and your boiler ( the liquid you can't get out ) this may be around 2 to 3 ltrs so now making that total 31 liters (ish) and when you boil your wort you will lose more , maybe around 5 ish liters so now making that 36 liters total in and 23 liters out so a loss of 13 liters . How wide your pot is and how long you boil (and how vigorous ) and how much lost to dead space all may vary depending on your equipment .

 

[Hawks]

Hi , to start you off your grain bill (say 5kg ) will absorb around 5 ltrs of water (if 4kg around 4 ltrs and so on ) so your 23 ltrs plus 5 gives you 28 ltrs , then there the dead space in your mash tun and your boiler ( the liquid you can't get out ) this may be around 2 to 3 ltrs so now making that total 31 liters (ish) and when you boil your wort you will lose more , maybe around 5 ish liters so now making that 36 liters total in and 23 liters out so a loss of 13 liters . How wide your pot is and how long you boil (and how vigorous ) and how much lost to dead space all may vary depending on your equipment .

+1 to all of that.. and then there is the loss to hops, as they suck up a load as well.

IIRC Graham Wheeler does not include dead space and possibly not hop usage either :wha:

 

[hairybiker]

I cheat :

I use 3.5gal for a mash(~5K PA + adj.) & 5gal to sparge with, this gives me 6.5 gal in the boiler from which I get ~5.5 gal out.
YMMV :thumb:

 

[marksa222]

If using biab, is it the same, but just adding the full 32L upfront?

 

[biggtime]

Cheers all. Very useful to know. So, to be clear, even if only 10 litres of the 32 litres of liquor are used in the initial mash, you would expect to end up using all of the rest in the sparging? And when you start the boil you'd usually have well over the 23 litres needed by the end, because some of it will boil away and some will be absorbed by the hops. I suppose the bit that I wasn't too sure about was the idea that I'd end up using all of the liquor in the mashing and sparging processes - not that I had any ideas about what else the liquor might be used for.

 

[ibrewthereforeiam]

Cheers all. Very useful to know. So, to be clear, even if only 10 litres of the 32 litres of liquor are used in the initial mash, you would expect to end up using all of the rest in the sparging? And when you start the boil you'd usually have well over the 23 litres needed by the end, because some of it will boil away and some will be absorbed by the hops. I suppose the bit that I wasn't too sure about was the idea that I'd end up using all of the liquor in the mashing and sparging processes - not that I had any ideas about what else the liquor might be used for.

Simplify it. When you mash, use 1.2 ltrs per lb of grain.

Example: 10lbs grain...you would use 3 gallons of water or 11.3 liters. I'm used to gallons so sometimes I use decimals for liters.

Now, for your sparge water. I use 25liters of sparge water. Do I need it all? Most of the time...
Just use enough sparge water until you have about 23 liters in your brew kettle and the excess will boil off.

I aim for my batches to be 20 liters because I lose about 1.5 liters when I am transferring after fermentation.

 

[Fil]

Cheers all. Very useful to know. So, to be clear, even if only 10 litres of the 32 litres of liquor are used in the initial mash, you would expect to end up using all of the rest in the sparging? And when you start the boil you'd usually have well over the 23 litres needed by the end, because some of it will boil away and some will be absorbed by the hops. I suppose the bit that I wasn't too sure about was the idea that I'd end up using all of the liquor in the mashing and sparging processes - not that I had any ideas about what else the liquor might be used for.

Yes :) you mash the grain with some water.

then you rinse or sparge out the sugars with the rest of the water, which will result in a larger volume than you want out, the boil then reduces the volume to the target :)

It seems all a bit much before you get stuck into your first brew but it all slots into place fairly quickly.. dont let little drawbacks or errors stop your brewday, carry on.. i screwed everything up with my first brew, didnt hit temps without 3 kettles and cold water,, put the wrong set of hops in ie the 3/4 to save not the 1/4 to use.. and had 2 try n fish em out again !! then i overfilled the boiler after oversparging and had a boil over (Very messy avoid if u can)
-- The beer was surprisingly forgiving and was a lovely sup.

have a grand day ...

 

[ibrewthereforeiam]

Cheers all. Very useful to know. So, to be clear, even if only 10 litres of the 32 litres of liquor are used in the initial mash, you would expect to end up using all of the rest in the sparging? And when you start the boil you'd usually have well over the 23 litres needed by the end, because some of it will boil away and some will be absorbed by the hops. I suppose the bit that I wasn't too sure about was the idea that I'd end up using all of the liquor in the mashing and sparging processes - not that I had any ideas about what else the liquor might be used for.

Yes :) you mash the grain with some water.

then you rinse or sparge out the sugars with the rest of the water, which will result in a larger volume than you want out, the boil then reduces the volume to the target :)

It seems all a bit much before you get stuck into your first brew but it all slots into place fairly quickly.. dont let little drawbacks or errors stop your brewday, carry on.. i screwed everything up with my first brew, didnt hit temps without 3 kettles and cold water,, put the wrong set of hops in ie the 3/4 to save not the 1/4 to use.. and had 2 try n fish em out again !! then i overfilled the boiler after oversparging and had a boil over (Very messy avoid if u can)
-- The beer was surprisingly forgiving and was a lovely sup.

have a grand day ...

People in general have to appreciate a perspective like this. Beer IS forgiving. Give your first shot a whirl and learn as you go. My first few batches tasted like a wet towel in a dusty basement. We all get better and the process gets very smooth.

 

[Duxuk]

If using biab, is it the same, but just adding the full 32L upfront?

There is no dead space in BIAB when using a stockpot without tap. I just add 5l to my desired volume, so 25l for a 20l brew. This week I only got 19l, probably due to the hot weather giving more evaporation. Didn't bother to liquor back to 20l. I was happy with the higher OG 0f 1054.

 

[biggtime]

Cheers all. Very useful to know. So, to be clear, even if only 10 litres of the 32 litres of liquor are used in the initial mash, you would expect to end up using all of the rest in the sparging? And when you start the boil you'd usually have well over the 23 litres needed by the end, because some of it will boil away and some will be absorbed by the hops. I suppose the bit that I wasn't too sure about was the idea that I'd end up using all of the liquor in the mashing and sparging processes - not that I had any ideas about what else the liquor might be used for.

Yes :) you mash the grain with some water.

then you rinse or sparge out the sugars with the rest of the water, which will result in a larger volume than you want out, the boil then reduces the volume to the target :)

It seems all a bit much before you get stuck into your first brew but it all slots into place fairly quickly.. dont let little drawbacks or errors stop your brewday, carry on.. i screwed everything up with my first brew, didnt hit temps without 3 kettles and cold water,, put the wrong set of hops in ie the 3/4 to save not the 1/4 to use.. and had 2 try n fish em out again !! then i overfilled the boiler after oversparging and had a boil over (Very messy avoid if u can)
-- The beer was surprisingly forgiving and was a lovely sup.

have a grand day ...

People in general have to appreciate a perspective like this. Beer IS forgiving. Give your first shot a whirl and learn as you go. My first few batches tasted like a wet towel in a dusty basement. We all get better and the process gets very smooth.

Cheers guys. I am well underway now and it all seems to have gone to plan. With the combination of mashing and sparging I ended up with about 25 litres of wort in all. Boiling away nicely now, with the aim of ending up with 23 litres by the end of it all. I guess I'll only know if the mashing/sparging worked reasonably well when it's cooled and I take a gravity reading. Finger's crossed. Love the spirit of forgiving beer. Forgive me, for what I am about to drink!

Now... I just have to work out how on earth to attach my immersion cooler to a tap. Any ideas?

 

[hairybiker]

Usually with a hose and and a hose tap connector.

 

[Fil]

garden hose with a jubilee clip is a snug fit on 15mm copper tube a hot mug of water and fairy liquid will help it slip on.. wash off any fairy b4 use tho :)

 

[biggtime]

garden hose with a jubilee clip is a snug fit on 15mm copper tube a hot mug of water and fairy liquid will help it slip on.. wash off any fairy b4 use tho :)

Ah, I should have planned ahead on this then. I'm brewing upstairs in the bathroom! Need to work out something as it is the 'wrong' kind of tap, unfortunately.

 

[Fil]

shower hose attachements fit 1/2"bsp and 15mm compression fitting threads if any help..but pressure test it all before use:) . while crash chilling helps clarity, lots of aussie brewers where water is short swear by nochill where they pour hot wort into the fv to pasturise it and seal to chill naturally for pitching yeast the next day or week even.

 

[biggtime]

Cheers all for the help. All finished, and as was suggested, learnt a lot simply by doing. Ended up with about 19 litres of wort after the boil, with a gravity of around 1044. Was aiming at 1040 so added some cold water to get it about right and ended up with 21.5 litres at about 1040.
Improvised on the chiller front... had a pressure keg with the right sized tap, filled that with cold water, and used that to run through the chiller coil, topping up as needed. Worked, albeit a bit slowly. Remaining worry is the yeast. Used a single tube of White Labs Burton Ale yeast, but struggled to get it all to leave the tube, and hoping enough made it in to get the fermentation going properly. Will probably rouse and aerate it again tomorrow, just to be on the safe side.

A few pics from my first full mash day here, for anyone interested: https://twitter.com/KewBrewery

Cheers all! Hope you're having a good Friday night (i.e. some good ale) :)