I am sure something like this has been asked before, but I can’t quite think of what I would search for to find the topic, so please forgive what might be a re-ask or tedious question. Thank you in advance.
I have two pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/B9KdGeXxpsHgtC8s7. I grabbed them off a calculator I found online as I’m working through trying to understand how to do water/brewing calculations by hand. I know there’s nifty programs out there but I’ve always found that learning to do things the pen and paper way helps me in the long run.
My question is how is the sugar in suspension regulated between the two differing amounts of grain given that the rest of the calculations are “constant” and we’re trying to produce a “constant batch size” of 5 gallons of wort? Wouldn’t the batch with the 14lbs of grain have a higher sugar content, thus producing a differing alcohol content, or at least a different taste? What am I not understanding?
I think that is what I’m trying to understand/predict/calculate.
Mostly I’m trying to get my head around some of this, and I like understanding things (which I’m sure will be a long journey as I brew which is a big part of the fun).
I’m planning to run the following:
but was curious how the alcohol content / OG is calculated. Also working on the water calcs by hand. I’m guessing the OG calculations have to do with the expected extraction % from the grain, and is somewhat of a guesstimate?
Maybe this will help…first, you have to know or estimate your efficiency. That’s how much of the sugar you’ll get out of the grain. Most grain has a theoretical maximum of 36 ppg…that’s point/lb./gal. So, at 100% efficiency, 1 lb. of grain will give you 36 gravity points in one gal. of water. But you’ll never get 100%. 75% is a good average. I ballpark that at about 25 points. In that case, 1 lb. of grain in 1 gal. of water will give you an OG of 1.025. 5 lb. in 5 gal. will be 1.025 also. 10 lb. in 5 gal. will therefore be an OG of 1.050. Making sense, or am I repeating something you already knew?
It’s a guesstimate the first time, each successive brew will help you refine it to a predictable value, which will vary slightly but predictably with the amount of grain used (more mash means less sparge means decreasing efficiency.) You can simplify by just starting with a random number like Denny’s 75% and learn as you go. And good for you. I’m a calculate it by hand and learn to understand what you’re doing kind of guy too. But then when I started, there was no software. And we carried all our brewing water 6 miles uphill both ways.
Admittedly, I developed it, but I also use this calculator every time I brew and have found it to be a fairly accurate efficiency estimate: https://seanterrill.com/batchsparge/
Probably overkill for your first few batches, but food for thought. There’s also a page there that goes into the math behind it.
