New to AG...May be a stupid question...

[vdub117]

I've been reading up on how to go all grain for a while now, and today I finally got around to building my mash tun! Before I dive in though, I have a question about how long to boil for. This may be a dumb question, but here goes...

With a grain bill of 11.75 lbs, figuring 1.25 qt/lb of strike water, and .5 gallon/lb I'll have about 9.5 gallons wort which needs boiled down to 5 gal.

So I guess where I'm confused is when do I do hop additions etc?

It's going to take longer than 60 min to boil down 4.5 gallons right?

Thanks in advance!

 

[lumpher]

for 5g (rare for me), i start with about 6.5 gallons wort. where the extra water goes that you're seeing is the grain absorbs a lot

 

[phenry]

What are you figuring the 0.5 gal/lb for? You're right in using 1.25 qt/lb for the mash, but really all you need after that is to sparge with enough water to bring your total volume to 6-6.5 gallons, depending on your boil off rate.

 

[shecky]

Your math is off. For that grain bill at 1.25 qt/lb, you'll have 9.4 quarts of strike water, which is 2.35 gallons. Figure a .5 gallon loss to absorption, so you'll have about 1.8 gallons of wort for first runnings. You need to sparge with enough water to get to your target volume, which is dependent on your boil-off rate.

I generally shoot for pre-boil volume of 7 gallons to get down to 5.5 post-boil and close to 5 gallons post-cooling.

As for hop additions, it all depends on the brew. Generally, bittering additions go in at the start of a 60-minute boil, flavor and aroma additions later. There are times when you'll want to boil more than 60 minutes, but being your first AG I'm assuming you're not doing anything too complicated.

EDIT: Wow, I need to go back to grammar school.

 

[vdub117]

I was under the impression you used .5 gal/lb for sparge water...too much? And wouldn't my strike be 14.7 qts at 1.25x11.75?

 

[shecky]

I was under the impression you used .5 gal/lb for sparge water...too much? And wouldn't my strike be 14.7 qts at 1.25x11.75?

Yeah, my mistake there. It's late and it's been a long day. That's roughly 3.7 gallons of strike water, giving you about 3-3.2 gallons of first runnings.

From there, you'd need whatever amount of sparge water (split in half for two sparges, if you're doing batch sparging) to reach your desired pre-boil volume. So if you're looking for 6.5 gallons of pre-boil volume, split 3.5 gallons into two batch sparges.

 

[vdub117]

Thanks that makes much more sense than boiling off over 4 gallons!

 

[shecky]

Thanks that makes much more sense than boiling off over 4 gallons!

It'll save you a bit of time, too.

Sorry my math was so bad.