Single kettle partial mash, and how much h20?

[hammy48]

Hello,

I am going to do a partial mash dogfish 60 clone.

My grain bill is about 7.5lbs plus 5lbs of LME.

I am aware of the golden 1.25qt to lb rule and I have BS 2.1 but I am a really new brewer and not quite sure about my quantities.

BS wants me to do something like 10 gallons of total water... and the golden rule would put me little under that...

However, I was planning on steeping in my BK for 30 minutes and then stirring in the LME and bringing to a boil. Essentially my "sparge" would be me drawing off from the bottom of my kettle and pouring that over my grain bags before adding the LME.

If I am going to do it this way it seems like I would want my entire volume in my initial steep, which intuitively I would guess would be closer to 8 gallons (1 gallon of grain absorption and 1+ gallon boil off) in order to bring me to 5.5 gallons which will give me a 5 gallon kegging volume.

Can someone explain how much water they would use in this situation and why?

Thanks very much!

 

[lumpher]

you need to be careful on that. partial mashing and steeping are not the same. pm'ing is where you mash for 60 minutes, and then sparge, to get full efficiency. steeping is where you soak the grains for about 20 minutes, and you get the flavor, color, and almost no sugar. pm gives the grain time and temp to convert; steeping does not

 

[Yooper]

For a partial mash, I've never heard the "golden rule" of 1.25 quarts per pound of grain, although I've done that amount.

If you have 7.5 pounds of grain, I'd probably use more like 1.5 quarts/pound. That would be 11.25 quarts, or because I don't like math, call it 3 gallons.

Mash for 60 minutes (not 30) in 165-168 degree strike water so you hit 150-155ish and hold it there.

You don't want to sparge with wort. You want to sparge with water. The idea is that water "pulls" the sugars out of the grain through the process of difffusion. If you sparge with wort, you're just putting the sugars you just extracted back on the grain.

You can use a strainer and lift out your grain bag and then just pour 170 degree water (not wort) over the grainbag until you reach your boil volume.

If you don't want to do that, you can add the water you'll need to reach your boiling volume in another vessel (a pot, your bottling bucket, whatever) and dunk your grain bag in there well to rinse the grainbag.

Then proceed.

 

[dmbRedGetta]

I'm about to do my first PM using the same method so I've been researching things a lot lately. From what I've found, I would probably mash with your total volume, ignoring the golden rule. Then your "sparge" would be to drain your grain bag, squeezing the bag to get as much wort as possible.

I'd be curious to know if it's possible to mash too thin for certain grains, though - hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

 

[hammy48]

Thanks Yooper, I always appreciate how simple your advice is!

It sounds like I could do that all in one keggle right?

1. Steep for 60 in BK in 3 gallons of water @150+ degrees
2. Pour 4 (???) gallons of 170 degree water over my grain bag (boiled on the stove... or in another keggle)
3. Stir in LME and bring to a boil.

A couple more questions...

To address what RedGetta said, and my original question... It seems like the problem with just trying to steep in your full volume is that it is exclusively a steep... you are not doing as complete of a sugar extraction. Other than the loss in efficiency I'm assuming there is nothing wrong with that method. (I guess that wasn't really a question).

I am still wondering about my total water... how do I know how much I want me pre-boil volume to be? BS is telling me 8+ gallons... but that seems really high for a goal of 5.5 gallons in my fermenter. BS says that the evaporation rate is about 25%, which would mean that I would have 6+ gallons at the end of my boil... won't this give me a watery beer??

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

Thanks Yooper, I always appreciate how simple your advice is!

It sounds like I could do that all in one keggle right?

1. Steep for 60 in BK in 3 gallons of water @150+ degrees
2. Pour 4 (???) gallons of 170 degree water over my grain bag (boiled on the stove... or in another keggle)
3. Stir in LME and bring to a boil.

A couple more questions...

To address what RedGetta said, and my original question... It seems like the problem with just trying to steep in your full volume is that it is exclusively a steep... you are not doing as complete of a sugar extraction. Other than the loss in efficiency I'm assuming there is nothing wrong with that method. (I guess that wasn't really a question).

I am still wondering about my total water... how do I know how much I want me pre-boil volume to be? BS is telling me 8+ gallons... but that seems really high for a goal of 5.5 gallons in my fermenter. BS says that the evaporation rate is about 25%, which would mean that I would have 6+ gallons at the end of my boil... won't this give me a watery beer??

Thanks!

Have you ever boiled in that kettle before? If not, put three gallons of water in it tonight and boil it for an hour. After it cools, measure the amount remaining. That is your boil off. It won't change if you use wort or more (or less) liquid next time- your boil off is the same whenever you use that pot on the same burner.