Brew UK Forum | General Brewing Discussions
sparge water
hi guys ,when doing an all grain batch for say about 23litres how many litres of sparge water do you need to use , in GW brew your own real ale for each recipe he says total liquior and mash liquior is the mash liqior taken from the total liquior and the remainder of the total liquior used for sparging ??? 
cheers
Drinkin--buxton spa
plannin--galaxy pale
plannin--nelson bobek pale
fermentin--centennial pale 3.8%
plannin--galaxy pale
plannin--nelson bobek pale
fermentin--centennial pale 3.8%
Responses
Posted 10 months ago by Moderator
Imn ot at home to look at the book, but if you heated up 20 ltrs then you would have enough for a 23ltr brew. The grain will absorb its weight in water (eg 4kg grain = 4ltrs water loss). It also depends on how your sparging, fly or batch?
Plannin'-
Loads a beer after an upgrade!
nathbrew@gmail.com
Posted 10 months ago by Moderator
Yes but...
You won't really know how your kit performs until you've done a brew. Every brewery is slightly different, the diameter of the boiler will affect the evaporation rate as will the vigor of the boil.
As Nath says the grains will absorb their own weight of water, you can expect between 10 and 15% evaporation from the boil plus boiler dead space, so you may need to collect 27 litres in the boiler.
You'll have to make your best guess but I doubt you'll be far out.
Fermenting: Summer pale ale
Maturing/Conditioning: Marynka pseudo-lager
Drinking: Wheat beer, ESB, Vienna lager & shop bought stuff
Posted 10 months ago by Moderator
I normally heat up about 20 lts. I let the mash tun drain, sparge until I've either got SG 1.012 coming out of the mash tun, or until I've collected the desired amount for the brew, ie. 23 lts in the tub. I normally sparge in a bit of a mixed way. Let the mash tun drain, put 5 lts of sparge water in via a sprinkler, stir it, leave 5 - 10 minutes and drain and so on until either of the above conditions is met. It's more batch than anything else. When I've got 23 lts I check the SG and it's usually over the target so I decide whether to liquor back or, if it's been a bad day, go with the stronger brew. Any sparge water left over I use for topping up the boiler during the boil as I seem to lose a lot to evaporation.
Best advice is heat up plenty. You don't have to use it all.
Planning: - To get some more brews on now the weather's a bit cooler
Fermenting: - Ginger Beer experiment
Conditioning: - A normal bitter with Styrians
Drinking: - All of it!!
E-mail: arnyfris@gmail.com
Reply
You must log in to post.