DEAD SPACE KETTLE SOFTWARE

Because the smart brewer is not stirring, tilting or otherwise screwing around in the mash, the sweet wort simply follows gravity to the outlet. When the sweet wort flows out of the grain bed, it is more dense than the water replacing it. The important thing is that the outlet (or sometimes a pickup tube) is at the bottom of the mash tun. I'd venture to guess that doing one thing consistently is more important than hitting the mash thickness according to the numbers from a book.ĬodingWithSpike nearly hit the nail on the head: there is no dilution from simply having space under the false bottom. 5gal wouldn't be much different than just using 1.5qt/lb. Since some people will use all the way up to 1.5qt/lb of strike water, I figure my 1.25qt/lb +. 5 gal would dilute the dissolved sugars, but I've yet to find any real info on if that matters all that much. So for 8 lbs of grain I would strike 3gal of water (1.25qt/lb x 8lb = 10qt, 10qt = 2.5gal, 2.5gal + 0.5gal = 3 gal). Then when I calculate my mash strike water at, say, 1.25 qt/lb, I will then add 0.5 gal to that to account for the space under the false bottom. What I do, and I'm not sure if this is 'correct' is to enter 0.1 gal of 'dead space' or 'loss' in my brew software. In my particular setup, I need 1/2 gal of water to fill the space under my false bottom (if I put 1/2 gal of water in my mash tun, then the grains would not get wet), however I also have a dip tube under the false bottom that sucks the wort off the base of the container, so the loss of wort is almost 0.

DEAD SPACE KETTLE SOFTWARE

Most brew software assumes all liquid under the false bottom is not returned to the kettle, but that isn't always true depending on your equipment. I think there is often confusion here over just what 'dead space' means. I was going to make this a comment, but it ended up pretty long and there wasn't space.

Dead space kettle