Liquour in the front poker in the rear!

[orlando]

(My favourite bar advertisement of all time)

I have been investigating beer software of late and have been struck by the very specific quantities of liquor prescribed for strike water and sparge/lautering. Of all the forums I've perused books read (er 2) and You Tube videos watched I am yet to come across a depiction, description or discussion of what brewers actually do to accomodate such precise amounts. Does eveyone measure precisely the liquor they use at these junctures? Or do you just get close

[barney]

Hello Orlando,

I am a relative novice but I can hopefully give the benefit of my experience.

I struggled for a while getting the brewlength I was after at the strength that I wanted and I was using brewing software! The problem was that I was using it incorrectly, there are numerous tweaks that need to be made to the default settings that take into consideration the peculiarities of your system. You need to know a few facts

How much liquor the grain absorbs and is lost at the bottom of the mash tun.

The brewing software usually calculates water volume from that base for you so you get the right quantity of liqour into the boiler.

In the boiler liquor evaporates at an alarming rate, you will have to insert evaporation rates that are particular to your system. I used the base setting for ages and wondered why things never ended up right. Eventually I tweaked it closer and closer to the mark. My losses are currently 12% per hour, generally they are between 5% and 10% but I use a vigorous boil

Losses to trub and hops are similarly system specific, It annoyed the pants off me to keep losing good liquor to trub and I eventually modified my equipment to minimise the effect. You still need your own value for your system though.

Shrinkage, I couldn't believe the difference in measurements just before and after chilling. This is known to be around %4 and should be built into the software calculations.

Thats the reason that water volumes are so precise, you can lose an awful lot. It takes me 60.5 ltr of water to produce 40ltr of wort.

Its quite satisfying when it all falls into place.

Good Luck and Have Fun

[orlando]

Thanks Barney.

My last brew illustrated your points precisely. Wanted to end up with a 19 litre brew length started with I think 34 litres and ended up with 14 topped up to 15l. This was much more loss than my first AG so will have to pay more attention to my set up.

However, my question remains about measuring strike water and sparge requirements. Do you open the taps on your HLT into a measuring jug first or rely on a sight tube or some other method? Again same applies to sparging, how do you measure the amount or do you just run what is left until you reach a specific OG for the wort?

[barney]

I did wonder when I pressed the submit button if thats what you had meant. Just wasted half an hour there.LOL
My set up is a little odd as my lauter tun is only 25ltr and I have to split my water additions into 3 volumes.

I have my mash water grain ratio set at 2.5 ltr per KG and measure and heat that quantity precisely. I use that ratio for total volumes upto 35ltr because I just like the consistency, I have fiddled around with thinner and thicker mashes but settled on that as its easy to mix and I get a perfectly clear run off from my mashtun.
If my grain bill gets much over 12kg I have to think about having a stiffer mix.
the rest of the 60 ltr gets split into a 25ltr (max full boiler) and whatever is left goes for the second sparge.

I have a 10ltr bucket which is dead handy, I can see how a 1ltr jug would get tedious.

[orlando]

Do you recirculate, fly sparge or batch sparge?

[barney]

Combination, Fly with inch and a half pool over mash bed when the first sparge volume is drawing to the end I stop the flow until next lot of water is ready.