Total liquor calculation

[Jock392]

Afternoon all,

First post on this site so I hope I word things well enough to explain my problem.
I have been homebrewing for a couple of years and have started all grain brewing. Basically, my kit is a picnic cooler, 35l I believe that has a copper hose setup on the bottom to strain the wort. I have calculated the dead space at about .5l.
From that I have a 39l pot for boiling. Inside that is a tubular strainer that goes to an elbow joint and out to the tap. I think the dead space for that is a good couple of liters.
My actual question is two fold;
1) Supposing I work my dead space out to be, say, 4l in total (mashtun and boiler) do i compensate for that by just adding more water to my total? i.e. if the recipe asked for 32l, do i simply put in 36l? If so, how do I adjust the grains/hops etc for the extra 4l.
2) The second part is that I have started to leave the wort after boil to settle for about 30mins to let the crud drop out. The filter, at this point, will now be sitting below that and get constantly blocked but also, the fall out increases my dead space by alot! i.e. when it is all settled out it sits way above the filter and gets to a point where no more wort is draining out. I have gone from hitting decent amounts in the fermenter to getting a good few liters below.

What am I doing wrong. Should I just drain it straight away and get the maximum amount of wort out and just let it settle in the fermentor? Any advice on how to compensate for dead space?

Many thanks all
Graeme.

 

[DerekofPriory]

Hi, I'm a newcomer also and can't help a lot with the technicalities but having said that I'd put a couple of decent sized block or wedges at the back of the boiler to reduce the dead space a bit (inch and a half/40mm or so) and two of them so the boiler doesn't rock. It's probably not recommended but what would happen if the dregs were poured into a smaller sanitized container to settle and the good stuff added back?
Cheers Derek B.

 

[ManseMasher]

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/

Have a look at the calculators link at the top of this site. There is one for batch sparging that will give you total liqour required. Stick with the original grain bill from the recipe, and I wouldn't attempt to get the last bit out of the boiler - you'll end up with a lot of crud in your fv/beer. The link to jimsbeerkit will help too.

Have you measured your dead space? Maybe you need a false bottom rather than the tubular strainer?

When I made my keggle the tap had to be drilled a couple of inches off the bottom, which gave 6 litres of dead space! I added a couple of elbows to the back of the tap to get the pipework nearer the bottom - dead space now less than a litre.