Recipes, ferment sizes and losses.

[planohog]

Trying to account for or calculate mash/wash size to get a 8-8.5 gallon charge.
right now i have calculated a 9 gallon or 34 liters mash for HBB recipe.
my ferment bucket is 14G .

Ferment on grain:
I know im going to have to squeeze the grain, ( mop bucket on the way ) .
there will be loss there in grain.
I nearly always have a gallon of trub that is loss.

Ferment off the grain:
Ferment after grain is squeezed and sparged a little.
I can short the boil water , say 1 gallon and spend that on sparge.
so there is loss here with grain.
then there will be trub later , that normally is about 1 gallon for my setup.
For a typical 5-gallon batch with around 10–12 pounds of
Right now I am at the following for HBB
Total water 9
Corn meal 7.56 ( going 8 )
HoneyMalt 1.503
WhiteWheatMalt 1.503
RedWheatMalt 1.503
PaleMalt 1.503


in my mind, seems the size of ferment is most important,
smaller size, higher SG. Add water trying to minimize losses but takes SG down as well.
your thoughts on
fermenting on/off the grain ?
Recipes, ferment sizes and losses. ?

MOD EDIT REMOVE CHAT GP
Please don't use it here again.

[NZChris]

BTW, you are breaking a new forum rule. viewtopic.php?t=94047

Personally, I use a large fermenter and do multiple strips so that I'm not limited by its size and don't have to worry about these details and the possibility of overflows etc.

[planohog]

ohhh dang sorry let me fix that. Thank you for fixing that for me.

[Homebrewer11777]

My fermentation vessel is a 32 gallon brute trash can
I leave it about 3 gallons head space so I guess my mash is 29 gallons
I use 40 pounds of corn well crushed and 20 pounds malt so 60 pounds of grain.
I start with 24 gallons of water, then add some more at the end to rinse out my mash pot, hydrate yeast etc

I squeeze it with a mop bucket and yield about 23 gallons distillers beer, and lose about 2 gallons of that as custard
I run that as 2 strips along with a bit of beer I collect off my custard settling carboy. Say 2x11 gallons.

So roughly, with your equipment I'd do about 23 total pounds of grain and target a total mash volume of about 11 gallons. I'd start the process with 9 gallons of water and then expect to top up just a bit at the end.

And yes I do and do recommend fermenting corn-based mash on the grains. It is hard enough to strain after the sticky sugars have been converted to alcohol.

[planohog]

copy : recommend fermenting corn-based mash on the grains. --thank you

[planohog]

few months down the road and a few spread sheets ,

Total Volume [ how much in your ferment container ] = total lbs of grain X 0.125 + water
so if you had a five gallon bucket. TV=5
so if you were using 2 lbs per gallon of grain as rule of thumb.

5 = 8 X 0.125 + water or 5 = 1 gallons + water
5 - 1 = 4 gallons of water.

so you would need 7 lbs or cracked corn and 1 lb of malted barley.
and 4 gallons of boiling water. DANGER that bucket is going to overfill.

[Corn Cracker]

The way that was suggested to me was to figure roughly 2 pounds of grain to a gallon of water. You know your not getting all the water back that you put in without solids in it so, add an extra gallon for a 5 gallon mash. I get the big buckets from a local pool cleaning company, they hold 10 gallons with about 3 gallons of head space left.
As far as all the math goes..........it's not that much alcohol that your leaving in the slurry

[subbrew]

I have been doing 2.25 lb of grain per gallon of water. Gives about a 8% distillers beer. I use 90# grain and 40 gallons of water, ferment on the grain. Mop bucket squeeze will give 35 gallons in the carboys. I lose about 2 more gallons to yogurt that falls out over a week. In the end I get 3 stripping runs of 11 gallons each. So my lose from start to still is 7/40 or 17.5%.

Depending on cuts I end up with 2.25 to 2.5 gal of just under 70% whiskey. Depending on if I age it at 62, 60 or 55% I can get up to 3 gallons of aging stock. These numbers have been pretty consistent over the last 10 or so batches once I got a consistent method down.

[Homebrewer11777]

I have been doing 2.25 lb of grain per gallon of water. Gives about a 8% distillers beer. I use 90# grain and 40 gallons of water, ferment on the grain.

Saw your note on thread I started today about whether you actually measure water.
Do you know your mash volume with 90# grain and 40 gallons water? What are you fermenting in? 55 gallon drum?

[subbrew]

Saw your note on thread I started today about whether you actually measure water.
Do you know your mash volume with 90# grain and 40 gallons water? What are you fermenting in? 55 gallon drum?

I do not know the total volume. Yes I am fermenting in a 55 gallon barrel, food grade, previously held pickles. But no marking, so I just know the inputs.

[8Ball]

I have been doing 2.25 lb of grain per gallon of water.

+1

I’ve dialed my process in @ 2.4 lb of grain per total volume in gallons. I top off a 10 G water cooler @ the 9G mark. Works great for my 5G pot.