Amount of water for the boil (Partial mash)

[Mysticqc]

I have two recipe books at home. Clone Brew by Tess and Mark Szamatulski & Brewing Classic Style by Zainasheff & Palmer. The 3 batches that i have done were form CB recipe.

They both focus on Partial mash and 5 gal batch. In CB most recipe are as follow:

Steep the grain in 3.8 L water, sparge with 1.9 L and top with water to make 5.7 L and bring to a boil. Add extract, and top with water to get to 9.5 L that you will boil for 60 min. When it’s done you cool down, drop in your primary and add water until you get 19.5 L (5 1/8 gal.)

In BCS, they are not following the same steps (actually there is no step). They simply mentioned that the pre boiled water is 7 gal (more or less depending on the recipe)

My questions are: In BCS do I steps my grain in the total water in my brew pot (I guess not since I think its something like 1 gallon of water per pound of steeping grain ...) ?

Will I end up with a 5 gal batch?

Which procedure is better?

Thanks!

 

[masterfool101]

First off, a question... Are you just steeping grains? Or is it an actual partial mash? There is a big difference. With steeping (crystal malts, brown malts, chocolate mals, etc), how much water you steep in is nearly irrelevant. In fact, the more the merrier. And sparging is not really necessary. However, with a true mash (using base malts) you want to use only about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain to mash, then sparge with about 1.5 quart per pound. I recommend batch sparking, as its easier.

As for your boil, if you have the capability, I recommend a full boil, starting with between 5 and 6 gallons. Otherwise, boil what you can, and add the rest as top water. Keep in mind, even with a full boil, you'll lose enough water to evaporation that you'll have to add some top water at the end.

 

[Mysticqc]

I didn't know the difference ! I look at my recipe and its always chocolat,crystal, caramel, etc. So I guess it steeping.

So If I undersrand; If I have a brew pot big enough (and a way to cool down the wort like a chiller). I would be better to have as much water as possible in the boil.

 

[masterfool101]

I didn't know the difference ! I look at my recipe and its always chocolat,crystal, caramel, etc. So I guess it steeping.

So If I undersrand; If I have a brew pot big enough (and a way to cool down the wort like a chiller). I would be better to have as much water as possible in the boil.

Pretty much. There are. Few important things to remember when steeping:

1). You don't want the temperature to go over 170. You may extract bitter tannins if you do. Ideally, you steep at about 155.

2). You shouldn't steep longer than about 30 minutes, for the same reason. But you need at least 20 mins for full sugar extraction.

3). You can steep in your full boil volume if you follow the above rules. If you do this, there's no real need to sparge. Just gently squeeze the grain bag to get most of he water out if it (some people recommend against this ... But many if us never have a problem with it).

Now, generally speaking, I drop my steeping grains in the pot at about 100 degrees, then just let them sit there until the temp comes up to 165 or so. On my stovetop this takes 25-30 mins with 4 gallons of water. But you might have to adjust based on our own set up.