beginner homebrew question

You could run a test on your burner to see what you can reasonable expect to boil off during the hour? From there you can back into your strike and sparge numbers

 

You may also just be surprised at how much water is absorbed by the grain and boiled off. How large are the measurements?

 

Good point , I BIAB but I use a factor of .09 gallons per pound. I think it is generally accepted as slightly higher for a mash tun setup. (no squeezing the bag, etc)

 

I would really invest the time and READ How to Brew very thoroughly. I read it twice before I even attempted my first brew, and had to refer to it a few times in the process. There are so many things that you can mess up, it is just best to do it right. I wouldn't worry about the calculations for your first beer, just go for making a good one, then you can hopefully figure out where you can improve the second one.

 

What exactly did they tell you?

I usually mash with 1.5qts/lb => 11# *1.5qts = 16.5qts or a little more than 4 gallons
To calculate your sparge water, you need to account for the amount of mash water that is absorbed by the grain. Some where around .12gal/lb is reasonable => 11# * .12 = 1.32 gallons will be absorbed.

I usually aim to have about 1.5 gallons (boil off depends on your system) more in the pot than will end up in the fermenter so I would aim for about 7 gallons at the start of the boil to end with 5.5 into the bucket.

First runnings: 4 gallons - 1.32 gallons = 2.7 gallons
so you need 7.0 - 2.7 = 5.3 gallons to sparge.


I did this off the top of my head, so don't take it as gospel.

hope this helps