How do i account for boil losses and grain absorption? i can figure out tub loss.
boil loss is something you test with your equipment.
Set up your equipment and boil off water for 1 hour exactly. You need to know how much water you started with and how much you finished with.
You don’t need a full kettle for this, but you do need to know how much you boil off in one hour.
ex.: my Anvil 10.5 gallon AIO system boils of a tick over .5 gallons in 1 hour ( 110 v ). My anvil 18 boils off 1.75 gallons in 1 hour at 220v.
I set up the kettles with a known amount of water using the lines in the kettle, boiled 1 hour, let it settle and took the measurement. This is approximately how much wort boil off you will have.
Grain absorption is a dark art; like sorcery. If you figure it out, LMK... On 2nd thought... I may not want to know.
"
Style:
American Wheat Beer
Boil Time:
60 min
Batch Size:
5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Pre Boil Size:
7.02 gallons
Post Boil Size:
5.5 gallons
Pre Boil Gravity:
1.039 (recipe based estimate)
Post Boil Gravity:
1.049 (recipe based estimate)
Efficiency:
70% (brew house)
This says that you are targeting a final size of 5.5 gallons; a pre-boil VOLUME of 7.02 gallons, at 1.039 gravity. A post boil size of 5.5 gallons at 1.049 gravity.
What equipment are you using and do you have?
NO judgment here, a lot of us started with 6.5 gallon plastic bucket fermenters and large, stove top boil pots! You can still make really good beer that way.
this recipe calls for 8.58 gallons (34.3 quarts) of water.
But not all at once !
strike water is 3.94 gallons (??temp??)
~ 4 gallons of water at 10.5# is pretty thick. typically, your wheat beer will be 149-154-ish. lower temp in the mash, generally will be drier, higher temp will leave more unfermenatble sugar. 152F is a happy medium for a single infusion mash.
that recipe calls for blueberry and vanilla extract, at what point are they added?
| 1 oz | Blueberry extract | | Flavor | Primary | 0 min. |
| 1 oz | Vanilla extract | | Spice | Primary | 0 min. |
in the primary fermentation.
if i want 5 gallons of beer, according to that recipe.
10.5 pounds of Mash at 150F for 60 minutes. 6.5 gallons (15.75 qts) at 160F to bring 10.5 pounds of Mash up to 150F if Mash is at 80F.
Sparge with 1 gallon of water at 170F
If you want 5 gallons of BEER, not including yeast and true, you need about 5.5 - 5.75 gallons give or take. and to achieve that you will mash 10.5# of malt at 150 ( I like 152 ) for
60 minutes enough time to make slightly higher than your pre-boil gravity, so that when you sparge, your wort gravity will only drop slightly to the pre-boil gravity and...
VOILA! You have recreated the recipe ... for the most part.
Don’t just blindly mash 60 minutes, you mash until your numbers are met. Also, a 1 gallon sparge is pretty much a gesture that won’t gain you much other than effort and experience. Even though I use an all in one, I sparge for 3 gallons minimum all said and done and the traditional brewers sparge more.
Sparging is helpful to efficiency and extraction but isn’t strictly “necessary” for a home brewer. It is if you’re trying to extract every last bit of fermentability out of the mash.
