Recipe question..

[adrianmole72]

Hi all,
As I gathering my gear to come over to the darkside, and checking out recipes, I have a million and one questions, but the one that is stumping me at the minute is:

If a recipe says 19l brew length, does that mean I use 19ltrs of water ? And should I boil more for evaporation losses,etc...

Is there a calculator to alter recipes, etc...?

Hope you guys can help out..

Stephen

 

[Muddy Funker]

19l brew length would mean that's the final amount of wort you should be left with after mash/boil ect,,,

You will have to factor in losses to grain and hop absorbtion, boil off and dead space in boiler/tun ect.

Someone more experienced will explain it better I'm sure.

The calcualtors in the top left part of this page will help also :thumb:

 

[richc]

I keep pointing people at this calculator that I find really useful
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

 

[adrianmole72]

Thanks for that, although it may as well in in Mandarin, because I don't know where to start !

I think I'm running before I can walk.. :?

Stephen

 

[keith1664]

19L is what you aim to end up with in the fermenter, you'll lose some to the grain (slightly under 1L/kg) some to the dead space in the mash tun, then you lose to evaporation, hops and deadspace in the boiler. For a 20L batch I start with around 33 litres of water.

 

[Aleman]

You mean like The Homebrew Forum Recipe Tool And there is always The Homebrew Forum Calculators

 

[adrianmole72]

I guess i'll have to experiment, then, because neither give me the answers I need. My boiler is a converted 25lFV

 

[jamesb]

I guess i'll have to experiment, then, because neither give me the answers I need. My boiler is a converted 25lFV

Everyone's equipment is slightly different and will give different results. Experimentation is the only way of doing it properly. The recipe tools can only get so close.

 

[Aleman]

OK Lets take this step by step (and assuming that I haven't got the wrong end of the stick with your question)

Recipes are generally published assuming that you will end up with the stated volume of liquid in the fermenter at the stated gravity . . So If it says 19L at 1.040 that is what you should end up with.

Unfortunately it is not as simple as that. Firstly you may for whatever reason extract more or less sugars from the grain (the mash efficiency) than the author. so your beer may be weaker or stronger than specified. Secondly you may loose less or more wort in pipework and dead space than the author meaning you end up with more or less wort in the FV. Thirdly you may have more or less evaporation during the boil than the author meaning you end up with less (but stronger) or more (but weaker) wort than the author.

So after all that it would seem that formulating a recipe and brewing all grain is akin to plotting the path of antimatter in hyperspace. :ugeek: Actually it is not so in practice, as these factors tend to average themselves out. Generally speaking efficiency is accepted at 75% which is a safe average. . . . The loss to pipework you can measure before you start (And add that volume to you boiler) . . . Evaporation in the boiler, an ideal to aim for is 10% . . . however electric powered boilers can loose up to 25% an hour unless you fit some sort of power controller to your system to control the boil.

Now if you mash a kilo of grain with 3 litres of water, the grain will absorb 1L (more or less), which means when you drain the tun you will get 2L out. so for a recipe with say 4Kg of grain mashed at 3L / Kg you will drain 8L into your boiler which is not enough for you to boil with. . .so you sparge (rinse) the grain with water to extract more sugars and give you a sensible pre boil volume) . . . A good guess as to the amount of sparge liquor required is to sparge with the same volume of liquor as you want beer in the FV . . . in your case 19L . . . Which together witht eh 8L you got when draining the tun will give you a preboil volume of 27L which is more than you boiler volume ( a 33L FV would make a better Boiler TBH) . . . However you can collect the last few litres in a bucket and add it to the wort as its boiling to replace evaporative losses. Alternatively you may find that the gravity of the wort in the sparge drops below 1.010 (temperature corrected) at which point you should stop sparging . . . and then you boil with the volume you have. . . and correct for gravity and volume by topping up in the FV with cooled boiled water.


Does this help??

 

[robsan77]

couldnt have put it better myself

 

[adrianmole72]

Aleman,

Actually, that is a great help. For some reason, I just couldn't get it right in my head, but now its getting clearer.

I would put my dumbness down to having a "blonde moment", but I have no hair, so can't blame that..

Might have to invest in a 33l tub then...will make things even easier !!

Thanks for your detailed help ! :thumb: :

Stephen