Water treatment calculator

[Julian Woodman]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if someone can definitively clarify how to use part of the home brew forum water calculator. I brew in 9 gallon batches to fill a barrel. I have all the details of my water and I put these into the calculator. I use 17 litres for mashing and that works fine, but then there is the total to insert. I use a further 49 litres, about half of which I use for sparging, making a grand total of 66 litres for the whole brew. After boiling I am left with about 47 litres of which 45 goes into the fermenter. Which figure should I use to treat the total volume of water, 66, 49, 47 or 45?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Just clarifying
You use 17 litres in the mash, Half of 49 litres for sparging ( lets say 25 litres) that makes 42 litres, but what do you use the remaining 24 litres of your 49 litres for?

 

[foxy]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if someone can definitively clarify how to use part of the home brew forum water calculator. I brew in 9 gallon batches to fill a barrel. I have all the details of my water and I put these into the calculator. I use 17 litres for mashing and that works fine, but then there is the total to insert. I use a further 49 litres, about half of which I use for sparging, making a grand total of 66 litres for the whole brew. After boiling I am left with about 47 litres of which 45 goes into the fermenter. Which figure should I use to treat the total volume of water, 66, 49, 47 or 45?

Thanks in advance for any help.

You could treat the 66 litres, or I would just treat the mash water with brewing salts and the sparge water with acid.
What are you brewing in? I sometimes brew 37-8 litres into the fermenter using a 65-litre Hop Cat and no sparge getting 2 kegs of 18 litres each.
Otherwise taking into account the buffering of the phosphate in the grain treat your mash water to achieve the pH you want and the remainder of the water (for sparging) gets the pH you want by adding acid.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@foxy
I don't understand how 17 litres of mash liquor and half of the 49 for sparge makes 66 litres of water used.

I would have thought that the brewing volume is 17 +24.5 ?

Hence my question above.

 

[foxy]

@foxy
I don't understand how 17 litres of mash liquor and half of the 49 for sparge makes 66 litres of water used.

I would have thought that the brewing volume is 17 +24.5 ?

Hence my question above.

I wasn't sure about that either, I think he splits it into two batches and missed out on the 17 litres for the second batch.

 

[MashBag]

Thanks chaps. I thought it was just me. Hence why I kept quiet

 

[RoomWithABrew]

That would compute @foxy.
Use 66 litres as total volume, treat mash as if it was 34 litres and divide.
Sparge treat with acid only.
Don't forget to treat 66 litres with Sodium metabisulphite to get rid of chlorine or chloramine.

 

[Julian Woodman]

Hi again,

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I draw off the first runnings from the mash. Meanwhile I have heated the 49 litres to sparging temperature. I use 25 litres of this for sparging, pour the runoff from the mash into what remains in the boiler, then add the runoff from the sparging. I batch sparge. So overall I use 66 litres. My question is what figure do I put into the total volume box in the calculator?

 

[Julian Woodman]

I've just realised that I'm using the old Home Brew Forum calculator whcih doesn't seem to exist anymore. I'm not using the brewer's friend one. This might account for some of the confusion.

 

[foxy]

Hi again,

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I draw off the first runnings from the mash. Meanwhile I have heated the 49 litres to sparging temperature. I use 25 litres of this for sparging, pour the runoff from the mash into what remains in the boiler, then add the runoff from the sparging. I batch sparge. So overall I use 66 litres. My question is what figure do I put into the total volume box in the calculator?

I would be adding brewing salts to the mash water and adding acid to the sparge water.