Help with All Grain planning using BeerSmith

[thaefathan]

Hi, I would like to do an all grain mash where I can run off about 4 quarts of 1.080 wort (for yeast starters in the future), and then run off 6 gal of 1.050 for the beer I'm brewing. I have beer smith, but I'm not really sure how to figure out how much grain I need.
thanks

-Also, am I correct in assuming that 1 quart of 1.080 wort, plus 1 quart of water= 2 qts 1.040 wort?

 

[JLeuck64]

Here's another way to think about it... I just built my first starter a few days ago using wort I gathered after the boil. This particular beer usually ends up being approx. 1.053

I wanted to pull off a couple of quarts so I just increased that volume by 1/2 gal in the pre-boil.

Sure, it has the hop additions in it but I can honestly say it took off on the stir plate just like it would if I had made that starter on the stove top. Only I didn't make anything on the stove top... just pulled my 2 quarts of wort out of the fridge, along with my pint of yeast. Decant everything into a flask and throw it on the stir plate. Took all of about 5 minutes?!

With good sanitation this beats the pants off making starters with DME or even canning wort in my opinion ( ;

 

[RM-MN]

How about you make this simple. Buy a bag of DME to make starters when you need them and make beer from all your wort. I'd suggest you only make up the amount of starter wort you need for a batch each time you want to brew. That eliminates the possibility of getting your starter wort contaminated in storage.

 

[thaefathan]

JLeuck64 - did you just boil the wort, sanitize the jar, and then keep it in the fridge? How long do you leave it in the fridge before using? If I brewed more often that would probably just fine. Drew Beechum makes 5 gal of a weak ale before making a strong IPA type beer, and I think he just pours the strong wort onto the old yeast cake.

But for what its worth, here's what I did:
I got 13 lbs German Vienna, my 5 gal mash tun can only hold about 3.5 gals with that much grain. So I mashed it and collected 3 quarts of 1.085 wort which I brought to a boil, poured into clean jars, and put the jars into boiling water for 10 min. It wasn't that much extra work since I needed to heat up some sparge water anyway. BYO has an article about it, you have to boil the jars about 10 min to kill botulism.
Beersmith says about 3.1 lbs grain should give you 1 gal 1.080 wort, and 9 lbs 10 oz grain for 5 gal of 1.050. My five gal of beer was at 1.053 in the fermenter, so I got pretty close.

I didn't want to use DME because at my LHBS 3lbs DME cost $14, so a starter should cost about $2.33, vs $.79 using 2-row ($1.05/lb)... And I'm reusing the yeast to save a dollar, so I might as well do this too.

 

[kh54s10]

I used Beersmith to calculate a BIAB batch to get about 3 gallons of 1.040 wort. It ended up at a little less than 1.030 so I boiled it down until 1.038 then canned it for starters. I will have to figure out why it came out low before I can some more. Much cheaper than using DME. It is great to just sanitize your flask, add the wort and yeast and let it go!!

I also freeze yeast with Glycerin, water and the yeast and have successfully used yeast stored for well over a year.

 

[JLeuck64]

JLeuck64 - did you just boil the wort, sanitize the jar, and then keep it in the fridge? How long do you leave it in the fridge before using? If I brewed more often that would probably just fine.

Yes, that was exactly what I did. I left it in the fridge a month before I got around to using it. Made a 1.5L starter and split it off three ways. All three beers took off within 24hrs. 2 are a 1.053 IPA and one is a 1.070 Imperial IPA. All recipes use similar grains/hops/yeast.

During brew day we decided to try it again, so I pulled a couple of quarts of wort as it was coming out of the CFC. I probably won't get around to using these starters as soon as I did previously. Will let you know how long they sit in the fridge this time ( ;