all grain help

[Shawnylocks]

hey guys i am only 2-3 all grain batches in and i am super lost (possibly over thinking?). i am brewing the plinian legacy kit from NB this weekend and i have some questions.i am batch sparging with a 10 gal igloo cooler/false bottom and using a 10 gal bayou classic boil kettle


total grain is 14 lbs

total water needed 11.61 gal
strike water 5.5 gal
2 batch sparges at 3.02 gals each
pre boil vol. 8.97 gal
est post boil vol.7.28
cooling wart should yield 6 gal. of wort in primary

does this sound right to lose 1.25 gals. just cooling \

my Ag batches up until now have been just OK and i always miss my gravity so i really want to hone in on my equipment a bit more with this batch. i have DME on hand to help with a possible low OG. the recipe is formulated for 6 gallons to account for hop absorption.

 

[GrogNerd]

sounds a bit excessive. is that what the NB instructions say? or did you plug it into some brewing software?

my cooling loss for a 5.5 gal batch is around 1qt

 

[Shawnylocks]

this is what beer smith is telling me. nb's instructions for AG are not cut and dry like extract, im guessing because the differences in equipment

 

[GrogNerd]

in the recipe, on the VOLS tab, check the PCT COOL LOSS

I have 4% in mine

 

[seph]

in my 15 gallon pot, I lose about a gallon. That said You shouldn't have a problem with the volume. Like was said above, chances are that they write the instructions to be used with any system. And in turn over estimate losses in transferring to accommodate everyone.

 

[chickypad]

Beersmith defaults to the correct 4% so unless you changed that your cooling loss should be about 0.3 gal. Sounds like you have your kettle trub loss set high.

 

[Shawnylocks]

my % cool loss is set to 4% and my kettle trub loss is 1 gallon

 

[Yooper]

my % cool loss is set to 4% and my kettle trub loss is 1 gallon

I can't imagine that you will lose 1 gallon of wort to trub- that's like 25% of your batch to throw away!

How much did you leave in the kettle in the last two batches? I generally leave either none (for beers without a lot of hops) or about a quart of thick sludge. I'm using Beersmith today and brewing a 10 gallon batch. I have .25 gallon down for my loss to trub, and it's about right.

Generally, you want to use 1.25-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain to mash in. Since you have 14 pounds of grain, that's 20 quarts (nice round figure, you could go more or less). The grain will absorb about .125 gallons/pound, so you will 'lose' 1.75 gallons of that 20 quarts (5 gallons), and get out 3.25 gallons of first runnings.

How much do you boil off in an hour? I boil off nearly 1.75 gallons per hour in my kettle, but most people are more like 1-1.5 gallons with their Bayou kettles.

We can call yours a 1.5 per hour boil off, and be fairly safe. So now, you want to end up with 6 gallons at the end? Or 5.5? Either way, now it's simple math. Your batch sparge volume will be the difference.

Here's how it looks:

mash in: 5 gallons
lose: 1.75 gallons
total from mash: 3.25 gallons

Desired boil volume: 6.5 gallons
Total from mash: 3.25
Sparge amount 3.25


That should give you 5 gallons to the fermenter, so if you want more than that, increase your boil volume (and your sparge water). You can always sparge up to your boil volume, and it will always be the difference between the mash runnings and the desired boil volume.

Beersmith is great! But the settings are only as valuable as your input, so it takes a few batches (and a little math) to get it just right.

 

[GrogNerd]

Beersmith is great! But the settings are only as valuable as your input, so it takes a few batches (and a little math) to get it just right.

maybe something out-of-whack in the equipment profile.

 

[Shawnylocks]

i will be honest i haven not messed with beer smith too much yet (inputting recipes i have brewed)

last 2 batches what i have done is sanitize my auto siphon and i let it siphon out until i start to see the hop sludge start to pull through and i cut it then. honestly i have not measured it but if i had to guess id say definitely less than a gallon so maybe i will adjust that. is there a general place to start or a tutorial on beer smith for beginners to really grasp the use of the system?

 

[Shawnylocks]

thank you guys for all the help!

 

[chickypad]

is there a general place to start or a tutorial on beer smith for beginners to really grasp the use of the system?

There are tutorials on the Beersmith website, and lots in the beersmith forums. I found this thread particularly helpful, including the pdf attached in the third post.

 

[Shawnylocks]

There are tutorials on the Beersmith website, and lots in the beersmith forums. I found this thread particularly helpful, including the pdf attached in the third post.

Thank you!

 

[1MadScientist]

hey guys i am only 2-3 all grain batches in and i am super lost (possibly over thinking?). i am brewing the plinian legacy kit from NB this weekend and i have some questions.i am batch sparging with a 10 gal igloo cooler/false bottom and using a 10 gal bayou classic boil kettle


total grain is 14 lbs

total water needed 11.61 gal
strike water 5.5 gal
2 batch sparges at 3.02 gals each
pre boil vol. 8.97 gal
est post boil vol.7.28
cooling wart should yield 6 gal. of wort in primary

does this sound right to lose 1.25 gals. just cooling \

my Ag batches up until now have been just OK and i always miss my gravity so i really want to hone in on my equipment a bit more with this batch. i have DME on hand to help with a possible low OG. the recipe is formulated for 6 gallons to account for hop absorption.

What is your boil off rate for 90 mins.? I'll go with 2.7 gallons.

Northern Brewer recipes normally make 5.5 gallons of cooled wort in the boil kettle, not into fermentor, but this one says 6 gallons because of the extra hops.

For 15.25 # of grain and .75 # of corn sugar, I come up with a total water needed of 10.4 gallons to collect 9 gallons into boil kettle at boil temp. Subtract 2.7 gallons of evaporation is 6.25 gal. hot and 6 gallons at cooled ambient temp.

Northern Brewer uses a generic efficiency of ~ 70%-73%. I based the above example on this efficiency.