Making up to the required volume

[jaquiss2005]

Just had my first attempt at an all grain brew having done a few partial extracts. Used the Hophead recipe off here as its one of my favourites.

Just got very basic equipment and mashed grain in a grainbag in my stainless steel boiler at the required temperature. Recipe called for 10 litres of water in the mash to do a 23 litre batch. After the 90 minute mash, took grain bag out and ran water boiled to around 80 degrees through it, but my question is how do you get to the 23 litres?
Is it running sufficient water through the bag, effectively sparging to bring to the 23 litres, plus a bit for loss during boil, or just sparge any amount, boil it with the hops and then make up using cold water.

Currently waiting for it to cool

 

[craigite]

Generally you do not want to sparge till the required volume in the boiler is reached. When sparging we normally stop when we have extracted most of the sugars, if we keep going we get off flavours.
To keep it simple, why not try sparging 15 litres then add about 5 litres of boiling water to the boiler. This total will allow for evaporation.
And yes, if you want at the end you can top up with water but I wouldn't. If you get a little less brew it doesn't really matter and the next time you can adjust your quantities.

Alternatively you could use the calculators, but as it's your first AG I'd keep it simple.

 

[Muddy Funker]

I brew AG biab style and always start with the total volume of water needed.

It took a couple of goes to work it all out but for around a 23l to 25l brewlength I'll use around 32l to 34l of water.

All water in and bring up to strike temp.
Bag in, add grain, seal up, mash.
Bag out and let drain in fv with colander.
Boil as usual, add what drained into fv (small amount usually)

I wanted to keep things as cheap and simple as possible hence why I chose this method.
I seem to be hitting the required OG most of the time and if not it will be over, if this happens then I'll liquor back to the correct gravity.

Maybe when I have more space and money I will move onto the conventional method with tun but for now I'm really pleased with what this set up can achieve.
Give it a try without sparging, just start with all the water you would need.

 

[jaquiss2005]

Sounds like filling the boiler and doing it that way makes a lot of sense. Overfill on basis will lose water during the boil to leave with the required volume after mashing will be used for the next brew

Thanks for the advice