Accounting for full HLT volume for HERMS

[HazeCrazed]

I just set up my 15g HLT with a HERMS coil and am in the process of planning my next recipe. I plan to batch sparge as I will be using a bag in my MLT. In order for my HERMS coil to be fully covered I’ll need at least 10-11 gallons of water in my HLT. I cannot figure out how to change my HLT water volume for “sparge”, I know I won’t use all 10-11 gallons or maybe even 15g as I’d like to have 5-6 gallons left to clean with but I want to be able to account for mineral additions and acid additions for my sparge.

 

[BeerSmith]

The sparge water is calculated based on what's needed to meet your preboil volume - specifically:
sparge_vol = boil_vol + grain_absorb - kettle_top_up + mash_tun_deadspace - mash_vol;

where:
boil_vol is the target pre boil volume
grain_absorb is the volume absorbed by the grain during the mash
mash_vol is the total volume of water added during the mash
mash_tun_deadspace is the deadspace value (from the equipment profile)
kettle_top_up is the top up water (from equip profile) added to the kettle pre-boil

Brad

 

[HazeCrazed]

The sparge water is calculated based on what's needed to meet your preboil volume - specifically:
sparge_vol = boil_vol + grain_absorb - kettle_top_up + mash_tun_deadspace - mash_vol;

where:
boil_vol is the target pre boil volume
grain_absorb is the volume absorbed by the grain during the mash
mash_vol is the total volume of water added during the mash
mash_tun_deadspace is the deadspace value (from the equipment profile)
kettle_top_up is the top up water (from equip profile) added to the kettle pre-boil

Brad

Thank you for replying Brad, I appreciate it and love using your software. So if I’m picking up what you’re putting down there’s no way to achieve what I’m looking for? Which is isn’t a problem in terms of the added mineral cost but I’m concerned if my ph of my sparge isn’t correct I’ll be extracting tannins. That said I’m using RO water and I’ve heard of using RO water for sparge PH isn’t relevant without the alkalinity but how to do I calc my salt additions? I don’t mind wasting some salts but how do I account for this??

 

[BeerSmith]

This might help:
https://beersmith.com/blog/2018/06/13/adjusting-your-water-profile-in-beersmith-3/

Also this one on pH:

 

[Kevin58]

When I used batch sparging before recipe software was popular I calculated the volumes by hand. Even when ProMash became popular it did not calculate volumes for batch sparging and users still had to calculate by hand. Perhaps this is your best option. Fortunately there are online tools to do so like this one: https://topdownbrew.com/batchSparge.html Or you can do a Google search for "calculating batch sparge volumes" to find another of your liking. Once you have worked out the volumes you will know how much extra to include for clean up.

Another option is to use "waste" water from chilling the wort for cleaning.

Lastly I am not sure if this helps you and your specific needs or not but Marshal Schott at Brulosophy uploaded a series of Beersmith related videos including this one for building batch sparge profiles: