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Batch Sparging Confusion

GoodisBeer

Grandmaster Brewer
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Jun 17, 2011
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I'm feeling confused. My last 5 g AG batch I mashed 14lbs of grain with 5.4g water and batch sparged with 5.07 g of water. Collected 50% of wort on first running (most likely less) with 1.078 gravity. batch sparged inwith5 one step collecting approx 4 g at a 1.030 gravity. Total 8 g of preboil volume with 1.036 gravity. One problem is I'm guessing on volumes. I was anticipating a preboil gravity of 1.057. So how did i miss it? I'm using 1.25 qts/lb of water and a 10g mash tun. Should I increase the water to grain ratio because i have room for it or increase grain bill with multi batch sparge steps? Do I sound confused..think I am.
 
Please measure volumes. Without knowing the volumes, all other measurements will be, at best, guesses. I use a 50 cent hardwood dowel with marks. A way to measure volumes should be included with every homebrew kit.
Once you control volume, control temperature.
Invest in a scale. I always weigh dry ingredients and go by volume on liquid.
Keep notes.
These are the basics I always go back to when I have problems, and find that it solves most of them.
And if something doesn't look right, no matter what the calcs in BS say, find out why.

Thanks, and happy brewing
Ed
 
Yes...yes..shame on me.  I'm usually really big on record keeping and takeing measurements..except I've been guessing with volumes. Just bought an aluminum measuring stick from home depot and did some volume measurements this morning. Now I feel I might be able to fix some problems. So simple. After measuring my keggle it looks like I had a 10gal preboil. Suspecting i diluted the heck out of my preboil wort which threw of my OG readings.  I also did some dead space and 'loss to keggle' measurments and hope to have my equipment profile dialed in.
 
Ah..yes..question. I have a bazooka tube on the outlet of my keggle and I have a measured 1.8 gal loss under the tube. Hey to me thats alot of wort. Should I forgo the bazooka tube and use a pick up tube and risk more break material going through my plate chiller...but but mre wort? Or should I take loss into account and increase grain bill and water volumes?
 
What if you tip the pot? I use a siphon to transfer out which lets me change how much gets left behind depending on how much slop there is.
 
Yes tipping helps alittle. Siphoning would be difficult because the wort comes out of keggle hot, gravity feed through my plate chiller. Thanks.
 
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