mash volume

[aufgehdraht]

working on a beer that's going to max out my mash tun and I didn't really find anything that gave a clear answer to what I wanted to know so I pieced together a calculator that I found more helpful so I thought id share it.
g= set to lbs of grain you want to use
m=set to the size of you're mash tun in quarts
t= set to mash ratio in qt/lb
black line: how much volume(y-axis) needed for lbs of grain (x-axis)
purple line: extra space in mash tun(y-axis) for lbs of grain(x-axis)
blue line: mash tun size(in qt)
yellow line: lbs of grain you want to use

It is kinda complicated but nice to see when its all laid out graphically in one spot.

 

[ba-brewer]

I looked at your calculator, looks complicated for sure.

Have you tried the "Can I Mash It" calculator here?
https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Someone here came up with a formula too, but I dont recall the post. Not graphical but is easy to see your gain limits for a given mash tun size.

I use beersmith and it tells me how much volume I use in the mash tun.

 

[aufgehdraht]

yea that was one that I wasn't thrilled about due to the "guess and check" that's systemic to the interface for that type of calculator. the way mine is set up you can put in your mash tun size and then u']se a slider on mash thickness and instantly see where it lands. I had also thought of making one chart with a handful of mash thicknesses.

 

[ba-brewer]

Maybe explain how to use your calculator, it does not look intuitive to me, too much information I think.

Also I had to go back and between this thread and calculator maybe put some how to use information in the calculator, names of the variables instead of just letters.

That table came from the post I mentioned
this is the equation information
The 17 is max gravity points per quart of mash tun at 80% efficiency. Another way to say it is that it would be 21 gravity points per quart at 100%

You can rewrite the formula like (desired OG x Batch Size in gallons) / (21 x estimated efficiency in decimal) = mash tun size in quarts.

I think it's safe to assume a 70% efficiency though so just use 15 gravity points per quart of mash tun as an estimate.

 

[bleme]

I like the sliders but why would you allow -10 pounds of grain?

 

[ba-brewer]

OK, third or forth try I figured it out. Think the X was confusing me, easier when you get rid of the purple slope line.

Now that I know how it works it is easy to see how much grain a mash will hold for a given thickness or how much volume a certain amount of grain would use.

 

[kevin58]

Not sure what you mean by "guess and check"? The Green Bay Rackers calculator couldn't be any easier. Enter two numbers and you get your volume.

 

[bleme]

Not sure what you mean by "guess and check"? The Green Bay Rackers calculator couldn't be any easier. Enter two numbers and you get your volume.

With the Green Bay Rackers calculator, you start with your recipe and see if it will fit. With the graph the OP created, you find your limits and create your recipe from there. It's just a different way of going about things.

 

[ba-brewer]

Once I got a hang of the graph, it was easy to tweak the mash thickness to see if you could squeeze in more gain. Works OK for a tradition sparged mash, but does not work well as is for full volume.

I added an equation to show the resulting water making it easy to identify the dough in volume, but for me determining how much grain you can fit into the mash tun is sort of a one time thing, but I tend to brew mostly similar gravity beers. If you brew a wider range of gravities I can see it being more useful.

 

[kevin58]

With the Green Bay Rackers calculator, you start with your recipe and see if it will fit. With the graph the OP created, you find your limits and create your recipe from there. It's just a different way of going about things.

Gotcha. I was going under the assumption of starting with a predetermined recipe and then seeing if it would fit in my mash tun.