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Simplifying your brew day

G

ggltd

After listening to the last pod casts from “Can You Brew It?” a concept began to grow in my mind from what Jamil said. Just like the big breweries, mash and sparge water should be fixed for every brew day based on the size of your pots, not on ingredients. Think about this.  When Stone brews a 4% ale they use the amount of water that fills the mash tun, and transfers into the fermenter. Now tomorrow they brew Double Bastard with ABV about 10%. Obviously they add a bunch more grain. The vessels didn’t change; they use the same amount of water because of the fixed size of their equipment.  So the first mash was a little thinner, the second a little thicker.  At the end of the day both beers are great.  I post this here because since using BeerSmith for a long time I have been complicating my brew day.  I have fretted over the numbers for mash; sparge and final boil volume, because the software never gives the same results, nor is it written to.  My grain bill may change, but my ½ keg vessels do not.  At the end of the day based on 1.33 gal /hour evap rate/ 60 min boil time I am looking at a target final boil volume of 10 gal.  This is constant- it will not change. So to get to 13-13.5 gal pre boil volume I only need to do the following: 1] always use 6.75 gal to mash in.]2. Sparge should always be around 9.5 gal.  This maxes out my equipment and gives me consistent wort. Since I am brewing on a Brutus with constant recirculation, a thicker mash at times has not been a problem.  Am I totally crazy, or can brew day be easier?  And if this is a good idea, can there be a tab in BeerSmith to set these 2 numbers and leave it?
 
I'm completely new to this, but I see one potential problem with your logic: if you use a different amount of grain, more or less water is left behind during sparge, correct? Wouldn't that give you a different pre-boil and then post-boil/fermentable volume?

I think you're right that the commercial breweries are doing it like they do, because as you say, they have limits to their equipment. Our limit is (at least for me) the fermenter size. If I make 7 gallons of fermentable wort, I'm a little screwed.
 
I use the same amount of strike water each time.  I use more or less sparge water to achieve my boil volume depending on the recipe.  The gravity is always about right as my recipes are crafted for a pre-boil volume.

The risk is affecting the body by having a thinner or thicker mash.  On my 6 gallon batch size, this is not something I can detect.  Mast temp has a much more profound affect on body anyway.  I simply target a temp but am not so lucky to always nail that temp.  I go with it unless I am 4 or more degrees (f) off.
 
That wouldn't simplify anything for me. I scoop water out of my pot to my tun. Rounding BS's number and counting to 12 isn't too complicated for me most of the time. I'd think you'd have to be pretty automated for that to simplify things.

Simplified to me would be a really big dish washing machine.
 
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