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Big Brew Boil Times.......
I'm planning a big brew........almost 20 Lbs of grain. Going with a standard 1.25lb/qt ratio, adding in mashout and sparge, gives me way more than I'm used to boiling. Somewhere around 10 gallons...I usually boil from 7.5 max....
How much longer do I need to boil for to eliminate the extra water, without disturbing the mash ratio?....
ricka182 wrote:
I'm planning a big brew........almost 20 Lbs of grain. Going with a standard 1.25lb/qt ratio, adding in mashout and sparge, gives me way more than I'm used to boiling. Somewhere around 10 gallons...I usually boil from 7.5 max....
How much longer do I need to boil for to eliminate the extra water, without disturbing the mash ratio?....
There are many different factors unfortunately that play into account for evap rates- how vigorous the boil, kettle dimensions, the wort gravity, but rule of thumb is about a gallon an hour.
My suggestion would be to premeasure 2 gallons of water, bring to boil in your actual kettle you will be using, wait one hour- then measure your remaining water. It will not be perfect, but should give you a close idea to how your system performs
Also keep in mind wort expansion when dealing with volume reductions. 10 gallons of boiling wort is equal to about 9.5 gallons of cooled wort. So if you have a target finish volume is 6 gallons in the fermenter cooled, you will need about 6.25-6.5 gallons postboil at 212 degrees. That is not taking into account any kettle loss due to remaning hop debris, trub, and break, lets say that is .5-.75 gallons, that means you should finish the boil at flameout w/ 7 measured gallons. If you are starting with 10 gallons, you are looking at roughly a 3 hour boil.
Now the big question is- why do you want a 3 hour boil? If you are looking for a certain OG, why not just use less grain, less runoff, and a shorter boil?
Example: 6 gallons at postboil for an OG of 1.080, will require a preboil gravity of 1.048 at 10 gallons. (6 x 80 = 480 / 10 = 48)
If you started at 8.5 gallons you could do a 1.5 hour boil and collect the volume for an 1.056 wort. (6 x 80 = 480 / 8.5 = 56) Save 1.5 hours.
Now I understand that you batch spargers are stuck with the volume of your split runoff, but why not just limit your second runoff to say 3.5 gallons instead of 5? That last 1.5 gallons that comes out will be the weakest anyway, and only dilute the wort not increase the gravity, so just runoff till you hit target volume and stop, no? Now I see what you were originally saying, but if you run with a slightly thicker mash, big deal if you leave a little behind.
I don't understand what your problem is.
What is your target OG?
Rather than plan a longer boil try these ideas to limit the volume some:
Use a thicker mash like 1qt/lb. ( usually mash at 1.1qt/lb)
Don't do a mash out, that will save on extra volume. Better yet, 45 minutes into your mash, pull 2 gallons of wort from the mash and bring it to a boil. Then add it back to the top of the mash and stir. That should get you closer to mash out temps without adding additional water.
Lastly, there is not rule that you HAVE to sparge with all the water. Draw off your first runnings, then check the gravity and the volume. See what the OG is. Then add in only enough sparge water to hit your 7.5 gallon starting volume. Draw that off and see where you are at.
The way I see it your mash will contain about 6.25 gallons of wort. Assuming a 70% efficiency, that's a 1.083 SG wort. You'll probably not get 6.25 gallons. But if you only sparge with another 2 gallons you'll likely get 7 gallons of greater than 1.070 wort. Boiled down to 5.5 gallons for the fermentor that would be an OG of ~1.090!!! SO that brings us back to the first question, what is your target OG?
Target OG is 1.114 I know, big. Shooting for a 12%er, Belgian style.....I was thinking of mashing in with 5-6 gallons, low temp, then pulling out 3-4 gallons for a side boil.......I usually shoot for 80-85% eff......
ricka182 wrote:
Target OG is 1.114 I know, big. Shooting for a 12%er, Belgian style.....I was thinking of mashing in with 5-6 gallons, low temp, then pulling out 3-4 gallons for a side boil.......I usually shoot for 80-85% eff......
OK little different story now. Almost any beer I do that is over 1.090 I like to include adjunct sugars to help get the FG down to tolerable. I am not sure what your recipe calls for (published or original?) but these sugars are going to add to your OG after runoff. I also like to use some DME to raise the OG as well, no shame in that. A 1.114 is a BIG beer, and you may want to think about including some of these candi sugars anyhow.
Original recipe that includes some Belgian candi syrup, the D2 kind.......Still working on it......I'm either going with ultra simple, 1 or 2 malts or using a lot of different malts, maybe 6-7.........All this is an idea still, but something I'd like to get done sooner than later...just like all brew sessions, never get enough....
1.114 is big indeed.
Now I'll ask an annoying question, what sort of terminal gravity are you looking for.
You can certainly shoot for 1.114 with all malt. Either with all grain, or adding some DME.
But if you want to get a decent finishing gravity (1.030), then using some sugar to get from say the 1.080s up to 1.110s like Thirsty suggests would be a good idea.
I'm hoping for 1.114 and 1.020.....that should give 12.1% abv........I want somewhere between 12.0 and 12.9, only because I've called this recipe "The 12".....Malt and D2 syrup, that's all I plan on adding. Which malts, I'm still working on. All I know so far is it's going to be dark, nearly black; very strong, and hopefully a very good abbey style ale......
I've since figured out some new numbers.....I plan on using a different ratio, as suggested 1:1.1......I'll pull a few gallons from the tun, boil that to save mashout volume, and wind up with 8.5 gallons in the cookpot post sparge......
That is still apretty low TG- needing about 84% attenuation to get there. You will definitely need some highly fermentable wort, probly a low mash temp 145-146, and a buttload of yeast.
It will also probably require some warm ferment, and this is where you need to be careful-too warm too soon will produce strong fusels, so a cooler ferment for the majority, but will need to ramp up to 75-80 deg to finish. I would recommend WY3787, it is tolerable, but will take a long time.
You're pretty close....I was going to mash at 148, but I can drop to 146 if you think that will work better... WLP500 is on the list, which I think is the equal to 3787. I also did plan on doing a ramped up fermentation. Around 60-65 for a few days, then up to 75 for a week, and then 80 for a few days to finish. Of course, this is all if I can control the temp as well as I need to make this work right.......
I was also going to make a starter with one vial, 2-3 quarts water, 1/2 lb DME(or some wort from a mini mash), and nutrients..upto a week before, then dump the whole thing right in....
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