Mash tun drank my first runnings

[Nomad]

So I tried to brew a recipe for eight gallons a few weeks ago, with all the intentions of splitting the batch to test two hop schedules (one five and one three gal carboy). Grain bill was a typical English ale-- maris otter, crystal, aromatic + a few ounces of flaked oats; 21 lbs in all. This is the first batch I've done above five gallons on my system. I mash in a 10 gallon Gott cooler and I batch sparge. I did a 1.25 quart/lb strike water mash, which equaled about 6.5 gallons of water for the mash in. My sparge water was also 6.5 gal. I figured 10% absorption, but when I sparged I only got about 8 gallons of pre-boil volume. The first runnings were super-slow (no rice hulls this time, because I didn't expect 5 oz of oatmeal to slow things down).

Question-- how much absorption do people typically expect for a 20+ pound grist bill? Or any grist bill for that matter?

 

[Stauffbier]

I lose .12 gallons per lb of grist on all grain bills. I use a handfull or two of rice hulls in all of my batches for safe measure..

 

[tally350z]

Usually the grain absorption is around .125 gallons/per pound.

 

[Nomad]

It seems to be a theme that if I want to get better at brewing I'm going to have to do more math. I'll factor that in-- it's a great rule of thumb. Thanks.

 

[TyTanium]

It seems to be a theme that if I want to get better at brewing I'm going to have to do more math. I'll factor that in-- it's a great rule of thumb. Thanks.

Awesome post. Love it.