Brew UK Forum | Grain
Increasing volume?
Evening all.
Planning a brew this weekend, if Sunday isnt a write off after the GBBF. The last two I have done, I have been a bit disappointed with the final volume I get from the boiler. Think this is partly due to dead space, volume taken by hops, and not being able to drain every last little drop out. So anyway, I can live with this, but wondered if there is a simple rule of thumb about adding water and spray malt to keep the gravity the same, and just increase the volume.
The last Near a Nevada brew I did tastes amazing, and I'm gutted I only got 36 odd bottles from it. I'd have liked to have added say 5 Litres of water at the end, but how much spray malt should I have added? Or does it depend on the gravity of the beer at that point?
I guess I'm asking if there is a proper dilution rate for water and spray malt to make it have no effect up or down on the gravity.
Or am I being really thick... Have a feeling I should know the answer to this.
Cheers in advance.
Responses
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
Hi Stu, best thing to do is use Beersmith to work it all out for you. You can program your equipment into it, including losses then adjust the ingredients accordingly. If you can mash more grain but are limited by your boiler, then just increase the grain which will increase the gravity of the boil then just add water at the end. The reason its better to use Beersmith is that you will also need to adjust your hop rates as the higher the gravity the lower the IBU from the hops.
Does this help?
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Thanks Greg. It kind of does and doesn't help if that makes sense? I think I haven't explained very well, but you've given me more to think about!
I'm using beer alchemy on a mac, and although I've worked most of it out, the bit where you put your equipment volumes in has baffled me a little. Mostly cos I'm too lazy to keep trying different values to see how they effect the outcome
All I know is that my last brew was great but I would have liked more of it. I hit all the numbers the software told me to expect, but couldn't have got any more in the boiler. Perhaps the answer is to mash more and just keep it back from the boiler once full. Then combine the two post boil. Again I have a nagging doubt I'm missing something obvious.... Still very new to all this
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
Hi Stu, sounds like you are not allowing for losses during the boil in your software.
In beersmith you can go into the equipment settings and change the boiler to allow for losses to evaporation, hops/trub and deadspace. In my setup this accounts for around 6 litres (more if very hoppy).
You should then be able to setup your boil volume and required finished volume/gravity and the software will increase the amount of grain in the mash which will increase the gravity of the boil allowing you to add back some water in the fermenter to bring it back to the required volume.
I assume that you can also do this in beer alchemy but I haven't used that before.
Another way to do it might to to say that you require a larger finishing volume than you do (ie 26 litres) which will then give you what you need after losses (ie 23 litres) without changing the equipment settings although you need to make sure that your boil volume is correct otherwise your boil gravity will be higher than expected which will effect the bitterness extraction so I would only advise this if the first option is not possible in the software.
If you can't get it done in the software then you could use Spraymalt to increase the gravity by adding water to get you to the required volume, then adding spraymalt to get you to the required gravity but you would need to do this while the wort was still hot so the spraymalt could dissolve so its probably easier to try and get the software to do the calculations for you.
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Aha, those numbers sound right. And it's starting to make sense... Thank you!
I'll have a fiddle in beeralchemy and see if I can crack it. At least it's clearer in my head now.
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