The table gives mash thicknesses which are independent of the actual grain weight. To get the grain weight you have to play around with the desired SG and preboil volume. To calculate the amount of water needed you’ll have to add the absorption of wort by the grain. That is usually around 0.12 gal/lb.
Kai
Excellent work Kai.
I was thinking about making a chart like this.
mucho thanks - looks like if I target 1.5 qt/lb I’ll be right where I want to be.
well, I did this (and an Old Ale) yesterday and had a great time, but I doubt I’ll be doing a partigyle and another batch in one day - I am beat today.
anyhow, I nailed the Barleywine - 1.104-6 actually, which was well over what I’d wanted (1.095ish) but that is okay. ~100 IBUs, it will be yummy I’m sure, just will put you under the table in one pint. Weird, b/c when I tested the first running as I was vorlaufing, I got 1.080 (just under 20 brix) which corresponds to kai’s chart, but there’s no way I boiled off enough in 90 minutes to get up to 1.104.
for the ESB, the second runnings tested ~1.035, so I added a 1/2lb of c-60, 1/4lb victory, 2lbs of basemalt (MO) and a lb of carapils (to counteract the ‘thinness’). I miscalculated on my water addition temp, so I ended up ‘mashing’ for 25 min at 147, but the main mash was 154 so I expect it to be ‘okay’. I ended up 1.052 which was right where I wanted to be - the wort tasted very yummy.
The one thing that really puzzled me was the amount of protein silt that I had to vorlauf out with the second runnings. Also, there was an absolute ton of cold break for the small beer. All in, I think I liked doing the big beer this way - just gotta get a better handle of efficiencies/ratio to end up on the right gravity.
It looks about right to me: post-boil 5 gallons * 104 pts/gal = 520 pts
pre-boil 520 pts = X gallons * 80 pts/gal, 520 pts/80 pts/gal = 6.5 gallons pre-boil
Sound about right?
actually, yeah, its about dead on. I guess I am just used to my smaller beers where I know I will “gain” 12-15 points over the boil, but being that this is so much denser, the ‘gain’ is much larger. duh!
I ended up with just shy of 6g in the fermentor, and I started with an 8g boil, and that math works out almost perfectly…especially if you use 1.106 as the OG.
Remember that if you want to brew 10 (or 12) gallons, your boil-off percentage will drop by 50% so you won’t get as much increase in gravity through the boil.
Brew on
I can’t figure why Beersmith goes by percentage. I use a gallons per hour figure that comes pretty darn close depending on the weather.