L
linusstick
A few questions.
First off my last batch was a saison. I used Beersmith software. I had 11.75lbs of grain. In the back of the clone recipe book, it said to use about 4 gallons of mash water and 5 gallons of sparge water. I did this and ended up very light in my preboil gravity. Normally I would just fill up the kettle until I knew I would have just around enough to get 5 gallons after the boil. This time I filled up to about 6.75 gallons (all the sparge water). My OG was 13 points light. When I put the recipe into Beersmith it was callilng for less mash water and a lot less sparge water. I never heard of using equal runnings. I would empty mash tun- fill up with sparge water, stir lets sit for 10 minutes. Then fill again with remaining sparge wate(what was left) stir and let sit for 10 minutes
So my questions are this:
I ended up light on my preboil gravity because I used too much sparge water right? That would do it?
I only stirred the mash about 5 times in 90 minutes. I should have done that
a lot more to help the efficiency right?
Does a lower efficiency mean a lower gravity and the two are correlated? I figured my mash efficiency around 62. Does that guarantee the beer will be watered down? Does a lower efficiency always mean a lower gravity?
How do most of you calculate the mash water and sparge water needed? Do you ever have more sparge water left and have enough wort collected you don't need the rest of the water? If you don't have enough sparge water to get your target wort volume do you heat water and add until you get it?
How do you calculate the wort volume you need preboil
Sorry for all the questions. My first 5 batches I just followed instructions and was using general info. I want to get this down to specifics now. Thanks!
First off my last batch was a saison. I used Beersmith software. I had 11.75lbs of grain. In the back of the clone recipe book, it said to use about 4 gallons of mash water and 5 gallons of sparge water. I did this and ended up very light in my preboil gravity. Normally I would just fill up the kettle until I knew I would have just around enough to get 5 gallons after the boil. This time I filled up to about 6.75 gallons (all the sparge water). My OG was 13 points light. When I put the recipe into Beersmith it was callilng for less mash water and a lot less sparge water. I never heard of using equal runnings. I would empty mash tun- fill up with sparge water, stir lets sit for 10 minutes. Then fill again with remaining sparge wate(what was left) stir and let sit for 10 minutes
So my questions are this:
I ended up light on my preboil gravity because I used too much sparge water right? That would do it?
I only stirred the mash about 5 times in 90 minutes. I should have done that
a lot more to help the efficiency right?
Does a lower efficiency mean a lower gravity and the two are correlated? I figured my mash efficiency around 62. Does that guarantee the beer will be watered down? Does a lower efficiency always mean a lower gravity?
How do most of you calculate the mash water and sparge water needed? Do you ever have more sparge water left and have enough wort collected you don't need the rest of the water? If you don't have enough sparge water to get your target wort volume do you heat water and add until you get it?
How do you calculate the wort volume you need preboil
Sorry for all the questions. My first 5 batches I just followed instructions and was using general info. I want to get this down to specifics now. Thanks!