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Where did the 1.25 water/grain ratio come from?

Uncle Blow

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Hello!  I just started using BeerSmith, and I gotta say, man oh man has this thing got a lot of knobs!  Not a complaint, just an observation and a bit of a learning curve/challenge for me.

I searched this forum a (very) little for the origins of the 1.25 water/grain ratio, but all I found were threads about how to change that figure.  When J. Palmer and others suggest a standard of 1.5 - 2 quarts of water for every pound of grain, why does BeerSmith default to 1.25?  Why not 1.5 or 2.0 or something in that range?
 
The first thing I would recommend is for you to set up your equipment and mashing profiles to match how you want to brew.  These are meant to be customized!  The profiles set in BeerSmith are really templates for you to use and not "this is how is should be done."

Brad has put a number of introductory videos and there are some excellent instructions on the forum here on how to customize the equipment profile and mashing profiles for your particular brewing style/proceedure.
 
Thanks for your quick reply, Oginme!  You're right about the adaptability of the software and I intend to take full advantage of it.  I know that 1.25 ratio isn't sacrosanct, but I don't think Brad just pulled it out of thin air either.  There's a reason he chose it and I'd like to know what that reason was, especially since it's not in band with what other top brewers have suggested.
 
I don't know where Brad got it, but I seem to remember the Papazian books (worth reading) recommending that ratio.  You'll have to ask him.
 
To me, 1.25 is just the middle of a range from 1 to 1.5 that is the minimum for an effective mash:  enough to get good water-to-grain contact, without being too dilute for effective enzyme-to-grain contact.  Up to 2 is fine, although things start getting somewhat dilute above that.
 
The ratio doesn't have a traceable origin. It has English and Dutch brewing roots from rather ancient measurements that were easy for brewers to follow. Surprisingly, ancient and modern have been pretty well aligned.

In this case, it is 1 barrel of water per 100 weight. A modern barrel is 31 gallons (124 quarts), so 1.24:1 becomes the ratio.

Two centuries ago, a barrel of beer was 36 gallons (144 quarts), and a "hundredweight" was about 115 lbs. Translated to modern units, that's 1.25:1.

Some texts fail to do the correct adjustments to the hundredweight or the bushel amounts described in very ancient recipes. The ratio ends up translating the 36 gallon barrel into 100 modern pounds for a 1.44:1 ratio. That ratio happens to work for modern brewing, too.

These days, commercial brewers are taught to use water weight instead of volume. So, the ratio is 2.5:1 since 2.5 lbs of water is 1.25 quarts.
 
I'm only two all grain batches in so I'm just beginning to observe the numbers that will require a bit of tweaking, but it looks like the 1.25 is a good number for me personally.  For my next batch I'm going to bump up my evaporation rate and make sure that my striking water is a bit hotter (11-12 degrees) so I hit my Mash in temp.
 
I can't be the only one who has noticed this effect, but I recently moved up from about a 1.2:1 ratio to a 1.5:1 ratio and have found that it is a bit more forgiving concerning hitting and maintaining mash temps. I use a 10-G cooler for my tun, and this ratio is what works for me.
 
philm63 said:
I can't be the only one who has noticed this effect, but I recently moved up from about a 1.2:1 ratio to a 1.5:1 ratio and have found that it is a bit more forgiving concerning hitting and maintaining mash temps. I use a 10-G cooler for my tun, and this ratio is what works for me.

That makes sense.  It's a larger mass, thus a larger heat sink and will have the effect that you're seeing.

Did you notice your efficiency go up when you went to a thinner mash?
 
Scott Ickes said:
Did you notice your efficiency go up when you went to a thinner mash?

Ever so slightly, now that you mention it - seems I might be getting better conversion...
 
philm63 said:
Scott Ickes said:
Did you notice your efficiency go up when you went to a thinner mash?

Ever so slightly, now that you mention it - seems I might be getting better conversion...

(Am I really responding to and quoting my own post?!)

As a note to my earlier response - I just did a basic IPA over the weekend to use some experimental hops I found in my freezer and noticed my efficiency was lower than my last brew - at a 1.5:1 water-to-grain ratio! I'm thinking it may be the crush - I run a Barley Crusher at what I'd say is medium speed on a hand-drill but have never adjusted the gap. Measurements show it's still at the factory setting of 0.039". Perhaps the water ratio adjustment has not had a predictable effect on my efficiency afterall - my inconsistencies seem to be in the crush, which gets worked on next...
 
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