Partial Water Volume

[The Carbonator]

Hi guys.

How much water per kilo of grain should I ideally add to my partial mash?

Thanks in advance.

[chris.]

Around 6-7L. Mash at 3kg per kg. Sparge with 4L per kg.

[Aussie Claret]

The figure I use is 2.6litres / Kg and sparge with 1.5x the volume of the mash.
So for example. 3kgs of grain 7.8litres to mash and 11.7litres sparge water.

AC

[bkmad]

AC,
How do you find your extraction efficiency with that amount of sparge water? I always thought more sparge water was needed, but if you're getting good extraction with that volume I might be able to up the amount of grain in my partials. I'm currently doing extract recipes with a mash of 1kg of grain, but with your sparge amounts I reckon I might be able to do 2kg of grain.

Cheers
BK

[Aussie Claret]

BKmad
I've started doing AG recently completed my 4th, extract efficiency using these volumes can be up around 75%. You'll need to take into consideration mash pH, whether you batch or fly sparge (I batch sparge), mash temperature and sparge temperatures.

As I batch sparge, I aim for two equal run offs so in the example I gave with 3kgs of grain, mash volume 7.8litres mash in depending upon style 67c for malty beers or 64c for less body for example. My sparge volume would be 11.7litres. You lose about 3 litres of water as the grains absorb this amount , plus you'll also lose litres to dead space and evapouration during your boil. Anyway to keep this simple, mash volume 7.8l - 3 grain absorption = 4.8l. Sparge volume 11.7 + 4.8l = 15.5litre pre boil.
I would be aiming to collect 7.75litres for the first run off and the same for the 2nd to make 15.5litres. I heat my sparge water to 98c, to increase the temperature at mash out, you CAN do this with batch sparging (without risking tannin extraction) as tannins are only extracted when there are no sugars left. Fly sparging is a whole different kettle of fish.

If you are doing a simple mash infusion with 2 Kgs of grain I'd be using 5.2 litres of water to mash with, then 7.8litres to sparge (13 litres total). I would add 2-3 litres at 98c after completing your mash to increase the mash temp. Drain all liquid, then rinse (leave to soak for about 10 minutes) with the remaining water approximately 5litres to dissolve any remaining sugars, and I'd give it a good stir.

You should end up with about 10-11 litres pre-boil and will loose around 10-15% due to evapouration when boiling for an hour. So you should end up with about 9litres after the boil.

Hope that this wasn't too confusing.

AC

[bkmad]

AC,
Thanks for that most excellent description. It looks like I can go up to 2kg of grain. I have been trying various methods of sparging, but I recently bought a hop sock from craftbrewer that can take a few kg of grain which I used last brew. Basically, I mashed for 60min, added some 80 degree water to increase the mash temp and then poured the lot through the hop sock into my pot and then just poured 80degree water through grains in the sock until I had my required boil volume. I probably haven't achieved the best efficiency with this, but it seems to do the trick. From memory efficiency was around 65% so not too bad really.

Cheers
BK

[The Carbonator]

Cheers guys.

Im gonna try 6L with my 2kgs, and sparge with 7L.

Thanks again.