National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => All Grain Brewing => Topic started by: AJ_Rowley on November 16, 2013, 09:56:41 PM

Title: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: AJ_Rowley on November 16, 2013, 09:56:41 PM
Hey guys.

With my first all-grain small batch fermenting away I want to start building my own recipes but the main thing I'm a bit lost on is calculating how much water I need.

For those of you who do small batches on the stove would you be able to help me. I have a 10l pot so was hoping to eventually get 5 litres in fermenter.

Would anyone here have some advice on how the calculate how much water u would need.
Title: Re: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: Ciderhead on November 16, 2013, 10:19:00 PM
AJ use beersmith, it will give your exact qtys
You can scale it to whatever vol you want
Title: Re: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: baphomite51 on November 17, 2013, 10:22:55 AM
are you doing BIAB or are u using a mashtun?
Title: Re: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: AJ_Rowley on November 17, 2013, 11:39:39 AM
Neither I'm sparging using a colander. Though I might change to biab
Title: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: pob on November 17, 2013, 12:57:02 PM
Next time you've 1/2 hour free drop up & I'll go through Beersmith & BIAB, it'll make life a lot easier.
What method are you using, I'm guessing a variation on BIAB, you mentioned a mash kit a while back.
Title: Re: Water calculations for small batch
Post by: UpsidedownA (Andrew) on November 19, 2013, 05:45:47 PM
These are my rules of thumb.
The malt soaks up one litre for every kilogramme, i.e. 12 litres of strike water to 4 kilos of grain gives you eight litres of first runnings.
Evaporation is up to 20% depending on how much you boil. 25 litres pre boil gives 20 litres post boil.
And leaf hops soak up about 1-2 litres.