• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Sparge water calculation

riisefrutti

Apprentice
Joined
Jul 25, 2016
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Location
Sarpsborg - Norway
I have an electric brew kettle and having a hard time getting the equipment profile right. Yesterday I the kettle had a flowover during sparging. And when measuring what was left in the mashtun(insert) I had a excess of 2,5-3liters. After playing around with BS a LONG while I still cant get it right. So I`hoping there is someone here who could help me in the right direction.

Thank you!

Sparging:
I had a mashing volume of 24 liters. And BS calculated a fly sparge with 15.04 ltr.
This gave me a preboil volume of 34 + 2.55 ltr from mash tun(insert) + some flowover and boil over(approx 0.5 ltr)

The kettle:
https://www.brouwland.com/en/our-products/brewing/brewing-equipment/electric-brew-kettles/d/brewferm-beer-brew-25-2#product-alternatives

Profile:
Equipment Profile: BB30
Batch Size: 23.00 l

Mash Tun Volume: 34.00 l (When filled to the rim - 33.5 under rim)
Mash Tun Weight: 1.30 kg
Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.12
Lauter Tun Deadspace: 0.00 l

Boil Size: 33.33 l
Boil Time: 90 min
Evaporation Rate: 10.5 % (3.33-3.5ltr/hr)
Calculate Boil Size: TRUE
Kettle Top Up Water: 0.00 l
Hop Utilization Adjustment: 100.00 %

Trub/Chiller Loss: 4.00 l (The kettle has 3.5-3.7 ltr under the valve and a loss of aprox 0.5 ltr in the 24 plate chiller)
Cooling Loss: 4.00
Top Up Water into Fermenter: 0.00 l

Disaster recipe:
Type: All Grain Date: 15 Jul 2016
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00
Boil Size: 33.33 l Asst Brewer: 
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: BeerBrew30
End of Boil Volume 28.08 l Brewhouse Efficiency: 63.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 23.00 l Est Mash Efficiency 74.0 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0

Ingredients

Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.50 kg Swaen - Pilsen (3.5 EBC) Grain 1 61.4 %
1.50 kg Corn, Flaked (2.6 EBC) Grain 2 26.3 %
0.70 kg Rice, Flaked (2.0 EBC) Grain 3 12.3 %
15.00 g Perle [4.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 7.5 IBUs
30.00 g Perle [4.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 2.8 IBUs
2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 6 -


Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.048  SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.055 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.007  SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.3 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.9 %
Bitterness: 10.3 IBUs Calories: 513.8 kcal/l
Est Color: 5.9 EBC 

Mash Profile

Mash Name: GF/Bratberg/BB  Total Grain Weight: 5.70 kg
Sparge Water: 15.04  l Grain Temperature: 25.0 C
Sparge Temperature: 78.0 C Tun Temperature: 25.0 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE    Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Saccharification Add 24.00 l of water and heat to 64.0 C over 20 min 64.0 C 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 78.0 C over 4 min 78.0 C 15 min


Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 15.04 l water at 78.0 C



 
Your kettle specs say that it has a 34 liter capacity. Without resorting to foam control or other measures, you typically want a minimum of 20% headspace for the boil. This reduces your preboil volume to 27.2 liters.

If you're going to boil 90 minutes, you'll have 24.4 liters, post boil. Deducting the trub loss you have, the actual batch size for the recipe should be 20.4 liters.

That all addresses your overflow, but not your excess sparge water.

The excess water post sparge seems to indicate you have less grain absorption than is set in the Options > Advanced menu. The default is 0.96. From your description, yours seems to be 0.53.

I arrived at that number by converting both your grain bill and excess water to ounces, then dividing the grain number by the water number and deducting it from the default value. If your situation had been less preboil than expected, I would have added the product to the default.

 
Thank you brewfun.

This might be a sollution. Grain absortion is set to default in my settings. I got the same number as you did, 0.53-0.55.

Any takes on this?

 
riisefrutti said:
Any takes on this?

I think it says to just change the number in Options > Advanced.

As an aside, the number we came up with is closer to the BIAB default, which is what systems with a grain insert appear to be in my opinion.
 
Back
Top