How much water is required for all grain brewing?

[harvs]

Hi

This is my first post on this forum.... I've been hanging about for a while and building up my knowledge of all grain brewing. I've done a few kits before, but I'm getting interested in doing some real brewing!!

I think I have a good understanding of the main bits of equipment I'll buy / make:

10 gal boiler
30 litre mash tun
Immersion chiller

I also think I have a reasonable understanding of the basic steps. But I'm not sure what volumes of water / liquor / mash are required at the various stages. I think 5 gallons of finished beer is reasonable, but don't know what volume that means starting with. Would I be able to take this approach?..

Heat water up in the boiler
Transfer to mash tun
Mash
Transfer back to boiler
Top up with more water
Boil
Cool via immersion cooler
Transfer to fermenter

Would this work? Or would I need to use additional water in the sparging process which would necessitate having another source of hot water to run through the mash tun?

And advice welcome!!
Harvs

[Garth]

Would this work? Or would I need to use additional water in the sparging process which would necessitate having another source of hot water to run through the mash tun?
Harvs

Use your boiler again as an HLT and run-off your collected wort into a spare fv or summat, then when you've collected enough from the sparge, empty the boiler of any remaining sparge liquor, pour your fv full of collected wort into it and boil with your hops.

or alternatively heat your sparge liquor up slightly hotter than required in your boiler then transfer it to the spare fv and sparge from that through your mash tun directly into the boiler, might be abit quicker this way as you can turn on your boiler as soon and the elements are sufficiently covered by the collected wort.

[harvs]

Great, thanks Garth

I like the sound of the second option. How do you know how much water to use in sparging? Do you just keep going until there's enough to put in the boiler, allowing for dead space and evaporation to give the 5 gallon at the end?

[Garth]

That's exactly it, you'll also lose a bit which the hops will soak up, more hops mean more loss.

[boingy]

You can actually use the final FV as your intermediate vessel so you don't need an intermediate FV.
Once the boil is on you have plenty of time to clean and sanitise the FV ready for that lovely cooled wort.

As for the amount of water it depends on the dead space in your mash tun and boiler and on a few other variables.

Typical water losses for a brew:

Absorbtion by the grain. Typically 1 litre per kg of grain so for a 5kg grain bill that would be 5 litres
Deadspace in the mash tun. Varies but assume a litre or two.
Evaporation during the boil. Assume 3 or 4 litres
Deadspace in the boiler. Varies hugely on boiler design. Assume a litre.
Cooling (because the volume contracts as it cools!). Assume a litre.

So to end up with 23 litres you need to start with about 34-36 litres of water and be putting about 28-29 litres of wort into the boiler (I just know I will have messed up one of these calcs lol)

You can make these numbers more accurate by measuring the deadspace in the MT and boiler with plain water. If you are in doubt it is best to knock a couple of litres off so you can top up with cooled boiled water in the FV to get the final quantity.

There are some online calculators somewhere that will help you calc the sparge amounts but I can never find the damn things. Perhaps someone else can oblige.

(edit: grrr... Chris beat me to it...)

[Garth]

Chris is very right, you always need much more than you think, I nearly always run out during sparging

[harvs]

Fantastic, thanks guys - just the info I was looking for. It's all starting to come together in my head now.

Just need to persuade my other half to let me buy the bits and pieces to build everything!!!

[kevthebootboy]

Fantastic, thanks guys - just the info I was looking for. It's all starting to come together in my head now.

Just need to persuade my other half to let me buy the bits and pieces to build everything!!!

Get stuck in lad, its great buiding your own gear, you get a great sence of achievment from it.

[yashicamat]

Chris is very right, you always need much more than you think, I nearly always run out during sparging

One of the reasons why I'm now practicing the higher liquor:grist ratio as it means I need about 3 litres less sparge water, which makes all the difference when the HLT is 27 litres.

[DarloDave]

The best description for sparging I have seen was from Parva, ill post it for you.


You're pretty much spot-on there. I use this calculator here :- http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/batch_calculator.html

So, put in desired volume (23l), percentage loss during boil, put in 10% for a 60 minute boil, 15% for a 90 minute boil, go with the 3l loss to hops and trub, add your total grain bill (I've gone for 5Kg), deadspace in mash tun is easy to find, put some water in, drain off through tap, what's left when measured in a jug is dead-space (assuming 1l in these calcs). I always go for a mash ratio of 2.5l per 1kilo of grain.

Ok, click calculate and you get this :-

Wort Required for the Boil: 30.6L
Made up from two equal quantities of: 15.3 liters of wort collected from the mash.
Total Quantity of Water Required For Batch #1: 21.3L
Mash Volume: 12.5 L
Top Up With: 8.8L
Water Required for Batch #2: 15.3L

So, mash in with 12.5l of water at around 75c, add your grain and stir well and hopefully you'll end up with a mash that falls between 62c-68c. The nearer to 68c the better if you're doing a 90 minute mash (which is generally the norm). If you're too low then it's fine to add more (boiling) water to bring the temperature up, just subtract the extra added from the 'Top up' volume. Similarly, if too high add cold water and subtract this from the 'Top up' volume.

After 90 minutes, you have to top up the mash with the 8.8l (minus any additions you did to achieve your target mash temperature). Ideally, when topped up the temperature of the mash will be 75c-82c so add the 8.8l of water at 80c-85c, give it a stir and leave for 10 minutes. This is where you drain off into the boiler. First couple of jugs return to the mashtun and after that the wort should run fairly clear. Once fully drained off into the boiler add the water for batch two (15.3l), stir, leave 10 minutes then first two jugs returned to mash tun then drain the lot to the boiler. If all has gone well, you have your pre-boil volume and you're good to go.

Fly-sparging is generally more efficient than batch sparging and it's ideal if you want to get say a 10 gallon brew out of a 30l coolbox mash tun, it's pretty difficult to get a fairly high strength 10g brew out of a Thermos box mash tun using batch sparging techniques. The biggest problem with fly-sparging is that you need to match the rate at which the wort drains off with the rate at which you 'rain' water onto the grain bed to maintain about an inch of water on the top.

My last 10g brew I batch sparged but I mashed in twice before boiling rather than risk a seriously iffy full mash tun (Thermos) or attempt to sparge it three times. Fly-sparging would probably suit me perfectly now for making 10g brews from a 30l Thermos but I'm so used to batch sparging that it's like second nature and whilst I know how to fly-sparge I'll take the additional time hit and mash twice.

[Parva]

You made me blush there Borodave. My technique works for me and that's what I described above but we all find our own ways that work the best for us. Indeed the first brewday I was invited to watch (by IanB) was a fly-sparging job and I didn't have a fly-sparging arm when I came to try my first AG so I went with much of what I read here and batch-sparged. IanB's technique was fantastic and worked really well, I just didn't have the equipment to do it and matching the in-flow to the out-flow for fly-sparging was going to be a tricky affair on my setup. I did however learn loads that day and am really grateful for the opportunity to see it.

There are so many methods for batch-sparging too, you can pre-heat the mash tun with boiling water before adding the 75c mash water and grains or you can hit the cold mash tun with 82c water and just chuck the grains in (which is what I do now). There's just so many variables and people will always find what works just right for them.

Indeed my refined instructions now are a constant 82c in the MLT, I pour this into the cold mash tun, add grain, stir and usually hit 67-68c. Cover, stir after 1 hour and check temp and as long as it's not below 64c leave for another 30 minutes. Add the first batch-sparge at 82c (hoping to get above 70c - always works), stir, 10 minutes rest then drain. Refill with 82c, stir, 10 minutes, drain, boil, done.

You're aiming for 62c-68c mash over 90 minutes and ideally 72c-80c during sparging. 82c water just works for me from start to finish without having to pre-heat the mash tun (Thermos box).

Ultimately, it's what works for you.

[harvs]

Thanks guys

I've been giving it some more though (oh dear....) and seen that you can get the 45l igloo cool boxes. I guess this would mean that it will hold all the wort required for a 23l final volume, with no need to batch or fly sparge.

This sounds like a simpler way to do it (to me anyway!). But are there any downside to taking this approach?
Cheers
Harvs

[Parva]

You have to fly or batch sparge, you can't simply fill it and forget it. The grains are mashed at 62c-68c to get the sugars out of them and then fly or batch sparged at 72c-80c to stop the conversion process and rinse the sugars out of the grain. You would get incredibly low efficiency if you were to attempt what you suggested, why do you think breweries have the huge fly-sparging arms to rinse the grains? The larger coolbox is a good idea though, you should be able to brew 10G and still batch sparge (if that was your preference).

[harvs]

Ah, thanks guys

So there's a benefit of doing batch sparging in more than one batch - to increase the efficiency of sugar extraction. Also, a smaller mash tun will be cheaper. So unless going for a 10G brew, then a smaller mash tun will be better all round!
Cheers
Harvs

[Deebee]

There is an interesting artical on no sparging on the promash site.

The reccommendation is to increase the grain bill by 30% or more in order to compensate for the reduced efficiancy.

If you are short of time and are only going to do a short ( 10 liter) brew of somethin you don't drink that much of, then i can see the benefits of doing a no sparge ( i'll be trying it soon) say 2.5 kilo grain ( just to find a number) 7.5 liters water for standard mash, 9 liters for the sparge, in the mash tune and leave it, runit off into the boiler stright from the tun.

I suggest that this will boil faster than 25 liters and is often ( depending on how you do it) at a higher temperature than if you have to sparge the water in.

For a longer brew length i can see no sparging being a pain.