That looks a lot easier to me, and less equipment to deal with. When/where are you measuring the end of running gravity?
I take a sample of the last sparge. Continuous sparge s probably better but you have to babysit it. You have to match the rate you drain the tun to the same rate you are adding the sparge water. But you have to be careful with batch sparge too. Sparge water is typically 168 F and if you fumble, could make for a nasty scalding.
So are you taking that measurement in your boil bucket before you start the boil? The low gravity is throwing me off. I take it the gravity of the wort rises during the boil?
I think it was the Laphroaige distillery that they peat their own grain and I got to shovel in some peat. Most distilleries don't malt or peat their own grain anymore but just purchase it. This a pic from their distillery page.
. So you put your strike water into your tun, stir in your grain and let it rest 75-90 minutes, or what ever your recipe calls out. Once your time is up, you drain (lauter) your wort into your boil kettle, shut the valve and add some sparge water, stir and drain that into your boil kettle. Close the valve, add the rest of your sparge water, stir and drain into your boil kettle but take a gravity sample of what is coming off of your last sparge That will tell you how effective your sparge (rinsing) operation is. The lower the gravity, the better the job you did of rinsing all of the sugar into your boil kettle. You have to keep in mind your volumes though. You want a ratio of about 1.5 quarts of strike water per pound of grain. This makes for a good mash consistency, but the grain is going to absorb some of that and it won’t make it into the boil kettle. You want to rinse it out well so it makes it into your boil kettle. It looks something like this. Strike water-absorption+ first sparge+second sparge=pre boil volume-boil off=fermenter volume. Or In reverse you know you want 5 gallons to go int your fermenter, but you know you will lose a gallon to steam while you are boiling, now you are at 6 gallons. You will lose another gallon to grain absorption, now you are up to 7 gallons. If your grain bill is 10 pounds, you know you want 15 quarts of strike water. That leaves 3.25 gallons to use as sparge water. That is just a simple example and I used whole gallons just to make a point.
Thanks again, Crownline - I really appreciate your advice and explanations. This is really going to help me go all-grain a lot quicker. Am I correct to presume that one of the things the BrewSmith software does is compute the different grain bills for each spargeing/extraction method? I was reading about the different long & short calculations in How to Brew last night.
Nice. I like seeing craftsmen doing things the old fashioned way. This video is rather amusing even though I can't understand half of what they're saying So, what's your favorite Scotch? I've never really developed a taste for Scotch but I've had some Chivas Regal I liked.
Yep beer smith calcs out your water quantities. You even put in the temp of the grain and mash tun and it will calculate how much you need to over shoot your strike water temp so you hit your target mash temp. Cool grain and tun is going to suck up some of the heat from your strike water.
I have a 5 gallon jug of strawberry-rhubarb wine that I made with the ex still sitting in the pantry. Its been there for years... I doubt its still good. One of these days I'll get around to finding out. But we did syphon a bit off some while back to test it (being very careful to not contaminate it, of course), and it was DANGEROUS. Apparently adding rock candy intermittently during the fermentation process allows the yeast to attain a FAR higher alcohol content before they all die off than would normally be the case. Its also Fing delicious. Part of the reason I havn't got around to bottling it is because I'm not looking forward to the hangovers that its undoubtedly going to cause me...
I don't know what the half-life is on that wine but a lot of brews get better with age. That concoction reminds of some plum moonshine a Bulgarian friend of mine made. It was amazingly good but it would completely erase your brain. Definitely something to be enjoyed in moderation...
Would like to get into beer, but no room or time. All the beer in the store is pasteurized crap. The kids can't brew honest beers so they flavor them with all sort of junk. Disgusting. I used to make wines. Natural. Natural yeast airborne and no preservatives. Blueberry, blackberry, plum. Very good. Made them on the sweet side. Also liked Meads. Monick Mead (Scotland) was the best. But it is long gone. An old timer made it in the 1990's. He didn't even own a typewriter. The kids take over the biz and it is ****ed. Same with olive oil. Used to buy good honest oil from an olive farm in CA. Kids got the biz and now oil is ****...diluted and adulterated. When you mention distilling...I do tons of distilling. Have a look see at what is in your water... https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/6035/ Good luck with your brews!
I'm only brewing ales and beers right now but I plan on getting into making wines and cider once my blueberry and blackberry bushes and apple trees get old enough to produce surplus fruit. We've also got some nice muscadine grapes that someone planted a long time ago but I'm in the process of rehabilitating them right now. I was thinking of doing something with them last year but the neighborhood crows got to them first. Those crafty bastards will eat all your berries and tomatoes if you don't fence them out. I even had to run rope across the top of my enclosures to keep them from flying in and out. It's really a game of wits with those birds - it's amazing how smart they are and sometimes you have to use their intelligence against them.
hefeweizen 5 gallon batch 9.3 gal water total 5.75# german wheat malt 3# german pilsner malt 13 OZ acid malt mash for 60 minutes @ 152F using 3.8 gallons water sparge with 5.5 gallons of 168F water boil .75 oz hallertauer mittelfrueh 60 minutes 1/2 whirlfloc tablet 5 minutes ferment 68-70F using WLP300 FG 1.010 bottle with 4 oz corn sugar. my water looked like this in PPM Ca-112.6 Mg-33.6 Na-4.4 SO4-130.4 Cl-179.2 HCO3-48 this beer takes quite a while to clean itself up. I brewed it in October '17 and drinking it now. probably didn't take that long but I sort of forgot about it. probably 2-3 months at least. it tastes awful when its young. oh, in reviewing this I didn't use pure RO water, I knocked back my tap water by adding RO and then brought my levels back up to where I needed them.
If you don't have a keg set up I'd recommend it. I hate bottling! Recipe looks good, I'll have to try that. What was your OG?
