I need some help, I just used my Mash and Boil for the first time last weekend. Using the calcs in the manual, I ended up with just over three gallons on a kit designed for 5 gallons. The grain bill was small so when I calculated the water for the mash and for the sparge, it was not even four gallons. After boil, less. Will I always end up with less than 5 gallons when I have a recipe with under 11 pounds or so of grain? Do people tweak the amounts of water when the grain amount is lower? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I don’t have the Mash and Boil. I have Grainfather.
I always use the same total amount of water for my batches regardless of the amount of grain. If you figure out how much water you need for a batch with an average amount of grain you can just use that all the time. You can either always use the same water volume for mash and sparge. In this case the mash will be thinner for small grain bills. Alternatively, you can decrease the mash water volume for small grain bills to keep a consistent water to grain ratio. In this case you will increase the sparge water volume accordingly.
TV = MV + SV
TV - total water volume
MV - mash water volume
SV - sparge water volume
Hold TV constant for all batches. Adjust MV and SV if you like.
After boil if your batch volume is too small, top up a bit. If your batch volume is too large, roll with it or decrease TV if it is happening consistently.
* Note: for extremely large batches or very large amount of hops, you may need more water. I don’t brew those.
- formerly alestateyall.