• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

sparge water amount question

aps0311

Apprentice
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
I am doing something wrong or I am not understanding the process.  I changed my boil off from .50 to .75 in my equipment profile and doing so changed my sparge volume to decrease.  I would think that the sparge volume would increase to give me a larger pre-boil volume to compensate for the increased boil off amount.  Any suggestions?
 
Looking at it closer, I realized that I have a setting or equipment profile value wrong.  When I scaled Beersmith's Wit to my equipment (3 Gallon) it has me mashing with 8.03 quarts of water and fly sparging with -9.81 quarts of water.  It appears to be giving me a negative fly sparge value.  When I change my boil off value from .50 to .75 it tells me to mash with 8.03 quarts of water and fly sparge with -8.81 quarts of water.  Increasing the boil off amount changes the sparge water volume in the right direction; it was confusing me because I didn't notice that it was giving me negative values.  When I change the mash profile to single infusion/medium body/batch sparge, it tells me to Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, 2.67 qt) of 168.0 F water.  Not sure what I am doing wrong.  I was hoping to brew my first all grain batch tomorrow!  Probably best to wait until I get this figured out.
 
What a knuckle head!  I just realized I had 5.25 in the Kettle Top Up field.  I can't believe the amount of hours I spent trying to figure this out!
 
We've all been there in one way or another. Welcome to the club.
 
Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.  I'm just happy that I got it figured out so I can still try brewing this weekend.  We will see how it goes. 
 
I was going to answer this thread, then saw that you figured it out. Indeed, little things like that have tripped us all up.

But, don't let a program stop you from brewing. You still have your recipe and you know the steps to take (or can write them down). There's no sin in having a little extra water for sparging as long as you get to the preboil volume you know you need.

Chances are that you'd have found the issue while making notes while you were brewing.
 
I'm going ahead with the brew this weekend.  I just didn't want to screw it up.  I know that I am probably biting off more than I can chew being that I am going all grain on my first brewing attempt.  I probably should have gotten a dozen or so extract brews under my belt first, but where is the fun in that!  Bring on the challenge! (Probably going to screw it up)
 
You won't if you get a good helper!  I don't know your set up but here's mine and I only have done my third and thought I could do it alone because it was only a 5.5 g batch.  WRONG!  My brewing equipment profile:  a keggle, and a coleman cooler.  My set up has seen 15 G batches from previous owner.  I  want to do 5 or 10 G for the most part.  My last two have been 5.5.  It's a lot of work and worth it.  Lot's of fun but not by yourself unless you are using a March pump which I do not have.  Plan on spending most of 5 hours start to finish.  I will post my brew day of the "collaboration Porter" as soon as I can.  It turned out and I got my gravity numbers that where called for.  Just glad my neighbor decided to show up at the time of the sparge additions!
 
Back
Top