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Batch sparge temp - can it be automatically calculated please?

Kurisu

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First of all, I love this software. But there's one thing that is causing me a lot of problems and I think it's easily fixable.

I'm draining the mash tun and doing a single batch sparge. Once drained, I need to find out the sparge temp needed to hit 168F (or 170F). Beersmith does not calculate the sparge temperature, it just has a default of 168. 168 is clearly wrong, because that results in a grain bed in the mid 150's -- I tried over the weekend.  After lautering, the grain bed drops in temp to around 140 (with a mash of 152). So what "strike" temp will I need to hit 170 on my sparge?

So, I'm using the infusion tool to manually calculate, but it's time consuming to have to manually enter all the numbers, and these numbers change with every recipe.

PLUS, I don't know how much to put under "starting water volume" -- do I add just the amount of water in my MLT deadspace? Or should I also include the water the grainbed has absorbed during the mash? Both give very different results.

Thanks!
 
Hi,
  If you make a copy of the existing batch profiles and add a "mash out" step similar to the ones you see in the other profiles you can have BeerSmith do the calculation for an infusion needed to raise the grain bed temperature before sparging.

  I'm not sure exactly which starting water volume you are referring to - could you clarify?

Brad
 
Hi Brad, thanks for the reply!

To clarify, I'm doing a "Single infusion, no mash out," with a "batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, add sparge water)."

Your suggestion gets to the heart of the matter, and ties into your question. I am draining the mash tun before adding my sparge water, so adding a mashout step wouldn't work because in calculating the sparge temp it would assume all my mash water is still in the tun (if I'm understanding things correctly).

That's also why I'm confused about how to figure out the sparge water temp -- in the infusion tool it asks for "starting water volume." So, if I were _not_ draining my mash tun, my "starting water volume" would be my "mash in" water volume. But, since I'm draining it, what value do I put into the "starting water volume" field?

After draining my mash tun, I am left with my mash tun's deadspace water (around 1.4 l)... but should I also add the water that the grainbed absorbed? Basically, I'm confused.

Right now, the "Sparge Temp" field never changes: it's just set to 168 as default, which assumes a mash-out step, I believe.

Hope that clarifies what I'm asking.  :D
 
One more thing -- I'm basically following Palmer's batch sparge instructions from "How to Brew." So I don't think what I'm doing is all that unique.  :)
 
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