I have never tried to batch sparge a large grain bill. I am wanting to try my hand at a BW that has a 19lb grain bill for a 5.25 gal batch. How do you still try to get close to equal runnings with a grain bill that big. I like to come close to 2qts per lb on my smaller beers, but that’s not going to leave room for much of a sparge. I have 2 qts of dead space in my MT. How would you do it? Thanks for any advice.
I don’t batch sparge and can’t help you . . . but before anyone can, you’re going to need to tell them how big your mash tun is. So post that, and then when one of the batch spargers logs on they can help you out. Just trying to save you some time. :-\
I will be using a 52qt MT for this batch.
How much wort are you looking to start with?
Easy, do 3 or even 4 sparges.
Assuming grain absorption of about 0.12 gallons per lb and 2 qts of deadspace you could go with 1.42 qts per lb to get a boil volume of 8 gallons. That’d be 27 qts strike water and 16 qts sparge water and should get you to about equal runnings.
If 8 gallons is more than you’re looking for you could boil it a little longer to concentrate that down.
I wouldn’t even worry about equal runnings in that situation and I certainly wouldn’t go to the extent of doing multiple sparges. You could even use enough water to do a no sparge batch and then do a second runnings beer.
I was going to do a 90min boil so 8 gal starting volume was in the reange I was looking at. What kind of hit do you think I will take in efficiency due to a mash this thin?
I have no plans on doing multiple sparges. How big of a hit in efficiency do you think I will suffer with a no sparge?
Without knowing your system, I’d say to plan on 60% efficiency and be happily surprised if you exceed that. Your other option is to go ahead and sparge ans just boil longer to bring down the volume. Your efficiency will increase at the expense of the time it takes you.
With big grain bills I will either go the no-sparge route or just add the remaining water as a little fly-sparge.
Kai has a great batch-sparge/no-sparge calculator on his site braukaiser.com , but it seems to down right now.
That’s a large enough volume and a small enough grain bill that I don’t think there’s any need to no-sparge it unless you want to brew a small beer with the second runnings. If you mash with 6.3 gal and sparge with 4.0 gal you’ll have equal runnings and only take up 32 qt of volume in the tun. With 100% conversion efficiency that will get you 8.0 gal of 1.063 wort, 5.25 gal at 1.098 post-boil.
Good pint, Sean. 19 lb. is only a bit bigger than the amount of grain I use for an IPA.
Thanks fellas, I’ll give it a go. I guess that I was just worried about the thickness of the mash.