Liquor
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Paddy
Liquor
Folks, I'm just about to attempt my first ever AG. I have the ingredients on order from Brewzer. I have everything I need hardware wise. I have a Timothy Taylor Landlord clone recipe to follow, but something I have noticed about most of the Recipes I have found is that they never tell you how much Liquor I should be using...I think I have missed something really basic...can anyone help
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Kev888
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Re: Liquor
Hi,
it changes depending on the particular setup so its difficult to specify in recipies. In particular, dead space and losses to evaporation are fairly unknown quantities to the recipe writer - and probably even the brewer until you have done a brew or two with new equipment.
Theres a useful calculator here (or click the 'calculators' button in the top right banner) which Aleman has updated to include total liquor volumes; its for batch sparging but if you're fly sparging the quantities are the same - just add the top up for batch 1 to the volume for batch 2 to get the total fly sparge volume.
Essentially the total liquor needed is the quantity of wort that you want (the brew length), plus what will be lost in deadspace (i.e. can't be drained from the bottom of boiler and MT), plus what will be retained by the grain, plus what will be retained by the hops, plus what will be lost as steam. And also it will shrink by up to 4% when it cools so that can be an extra factor.
Cheers
Kev
it changes depending on the particular setup so its difficult to specify in recipies. In particular, dead space and losses to evaporation are fairly unknown quantities to the recipe writer - and probably even the brewer until you have done a brew or two with new equipment.
Theres a useful calculator here (or click the 'calculators' button in the top right banner) which Aleman has updated to include total liquor volumes; its for batch sparging but if you're fly sparging the quantities are the same - just add the top up for batch 1 to the volume for batch 2 to get the total fly sparge volume.
Essentially the total liquor needed is the quantity of wort that you want (the brew length), plus what will be lost in deadspace (i.e. can't be drained from the bottom of boiler and MT), plus what will be retained by the grain, plus what will be retained by the hops, plus what will be lost as steam. And also it will shrink by up to 4% when it cools so that can be an extra factor.
Cheers
Kev
Kev
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Paddy
Re: Liquor
Thanks Kev,that calculator looks handy..so if I understand correctly my first brew is about finding out the variables that will be used for completing the calculator in the future..i.e. I will only know what I've lost to evap and trub once I've used the kit at least once?
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kane
Re: Liquor
Thats correct paddy,
After two brews so far my boil loss came out at 17% and loss to hops about 1.5L, so the defaults in the batch sparge calculator are a pretty good starting point.
After two brews so far my boil loss came out at 17% and loss to hops about 1.5L, so the defaults in the batch sparge calculator are a pretty good starting point.
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Kev888
- So far gone I'm on the way back again!
- Posts: 7701
- Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:22 pm
- Location: Derbyshire, UK
Re: Liquor
Yes, you can measure dead space with jugs of water which will help give a good estimate, but at least when I do it there always seem to be other small losses in practice (in pipes and so on) that you don't get a true picture of until you go through the whole process. Similarly, you could get an idea of evaporation losses by boiling a batch of water, but I find the sugary wort with a foamy head is a bit different so probably just as easy to use the calculator's suggestions for the first brew and measure it with a calibrated stick or something in preparation for the next.
Its a little off topic but in the first brews its also worth trying to tie down the temperatures of liquor needed as well as the volume - Mash tuns all seem to work slightly differently so you'll probably have to adjust the strike temperature with boiling or cold water for the first run or two (worth having some on hand) until you tie it down. For instance I moved to a metal MT recently, which as it warmed through cooled the liquor even more than I'd aniticipated so I had to re-heat it some more to get the right strike temperature, before adding the grain. But now I've got the hang of it I know what temperature to use so that after warming the MT through (for say 15mins or more) it automatically settles at 'about' at the right strike temperature.
Cheers
Kev
Its a little off topic but in the first brews its also worth trying to tie down the temperatures of liquor needed as well as the volume - Mash tuns all seem to work slightly differently so you'll probably have to adjust the strike temperature with boiling or cold water for the first run or two (worth having some on hand) until you tie it down. For instance I moved to a metal MT recently, which as it warmed through cooled the liquor even more than I'd aniticipated so I had to re-heat it some more to get the right strike temperature, before adding the grain. But now I've got the hang of it I know what temperature to use so that after warming the MT through (for say 15mins or more) it automatically settles at 'about' at the right strike temperature.
Cheers
Kev
Kev