Water quantities for mashing and boiling

[atakanokan]

Hi guys,
I have a kilogram of malt and I am going to do an all-grain brewing but I couldn't find information about water quantities for mashing and boiling. What is the recommended amount of water per kg/pound of malt when mashing? And also, what is the recommended amount of water to add before boiling for an hour? I know that water addition is a compromise between gravity and fermentability and adding below or above it will alter the result, but I couldn't find a starting point of amount of water to add.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[duboman]

Sorry about lack of conversion but usually 1.25-1.5 quarts/pound for the mash.

As for boil volume you can expect about a gallon of evaporation typically but YMMV.

So if you want a full 5 gallons of beer shoot for 5.5 gallons into primary assuming half gallon trub loss

Cheers!

 

[unionrdr]

You mash with 1-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain. I'll mash 6lbs of grains in 2 gallons of water for an hour @ 152-155F. Then sparge with 1.5 gallons of water @ 165-168F to get my boil volume of 3.5 gallons in my 5 gallon SS kettle. Chill to 75F or so,& top off in fermenter with a couple gallons of very cold water from the fridge. I can easilly chil it down to 60-64F this way. Great for most ale yeasts.

 

[atakanokan]

I did some basic calculation. So when mashing the ratio is 1-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain, after sparging this number rises to 2.33 quarts per pound. So if I am not going to sparge, I should put 2.33 quarts per pound of grist at the beginning of mashing.
A question I have now is what should be the final addition when the wort is in fermenter? unionrdr, you mentioned you top it off with a couple of gallons, but is there a ratio that I can use for this addition also? Because if I top a 3 gallon batch in a 5 gallon fermenter, the results would differ from a lets say 4 gallon batch topped off in a 5 gallon fermenter. Thanks for the quick answer guys.

 

[unionrdr]

Most plastic fermenters have measuring scales on the side. I go by that & it hasn't failed me yet. I pour the chilled wort through a fine mesh strainer pearched on top of the FV to strain out grainy gunk,hop bits,etc. This also aerates the wort. The use thechilled water to top up to recipe volume. In my case,5 or 6 gallons depending on the recipe. So don't read too much into this. There is science involved,but it's only as technical as you wanna make it. And no,do not add the sparge water amount to the mash water amount to save a step. This is mashing,not steeping,& water amounts with mashing are far more critcal than steeping. Besides,you want to drain the wort off the grains,then sparge them to get more fermentables out of them to get your boil volume.

 

[duboman]

You will lose .12 gallons/lb of wort to absorption of the grain.

You will lose some volume to trub in the kettle so you need to account for that as well unless you just dump the chilled wort into the primary

If you are topping off any of the volume with water you need to calculate your grain bill to account for that or your beer will be diluted

Are you doing BIAB? Sounds like it. Ideally AG brewing is done with a full boil volume with no top off.

 

[atakanokan]

Thanks again guys. I am doing an all-grain batch but I do not aim for a specific gravity because I am doing a recipe that doesn't have a final gravity specified. The heaviness or the lightness of the body is entirely dependent on the water additions in this recipe.
I am just trying to figure out the minimum and maximum recommended ratio of quarts of water per pound of grist (which is in the wort) before the wort is left for fermenting. So that if I'm like under the minimum ratio that means I have a very heavy bodied wort which probably will not ferment unless water addition.
Thanks for the sparging method, I was going to skip it because of the fact that I don't have a mash tun with a false bottom.

 

[unionrdr]

Since I do partial boil,partial mash biab,I account for how much grain I'm mashing versus how much extract I'm adding at flame out. 5lbs of grain & 3lbs of DME will gove an OG of 1.042-1.050 ime. 6lbs of grain & the 3lb bag of plain DME will give a 1.060.
The pm belin wheat kits I've brewed up used 4lbs of grains & a 3.3lb jug of plain wheat LME. got an OG of 1.050 both times. 1.5 gallons mash water & 1.5G sparge for 3 gallon boil volume on both. These amounts should help you a little.