Need some advice on scaling recipe up to 15 gall

The trouble with home brew is that you can’t make enough of it.

I can brew up enough for 10 gall on the kitchen stove (in two 4 gall pots). I’ve actually brewed enough for 15 gall by adding two more pots on the stove but they were precariously balanced.

OK, so my buddy and I converted a 15.5 Bud keg to a keggle, obtained a beast of an outdoor burner and made a badass 50’ immersion chiller. I’m thinking of making enough beer in this for 15 gall, otherwise there is no advantage to this over brewing it on the stove in my nice air-conditioned kitchen. Obviously, after boiling, the finished wort will be topped up with water. How best to add this top up water? Any advice?
1. Adding boiling water to the keggle.
2. Adding cold water to the keggle (will help in cooling the wort).
3. Adding cold water to each fermentor.

After that, we come to the next issue. My mash tun only holds 13 lb of grain. Normally this is 12 lb Pale Malt and 1 lb Crystal Malt. The liquor is then split into two five gall batches. Don’t laugh – this is my session Bitter beer and I can get up in the morning fresh as a daisy.

I’ve tried malt extract brewing but can’t get away from a cidery tang. (using LME from two different suppliers and using no sugar). OK, so I need a recipe using 13 lb grain enough for 15 gall.

The best I can figure out is (to keep the same ABV of 3.6 to 3.7%), using the handy tastybrew.com calculator:

13 lb Pale Malt
2 lb Crystal Malt 40
2 lb Dry Wheat Malt
2 lb Corn Sugar

Normally I would not use sugar but I need to bring up the alcohol level. The Crystal and Wheat could be steeped and would add color/flavor and head retention, respectively.

This wouldn’t win any prizes but is there anything seriously wrong with the recipe? I’m open to any and all suggestions before we get busy.

Cheers!

My MLT holds about 22 lbs of grain (its a 1/4 keg) and I have a tough time making 12 gallon batches.

Perhaps a bigger mash tun to match the bigger kettle?

I use a 15.5 keggle. All I could boil is 14.5 gallons. Consider loss in the fermenter and you can have 2 nice 5 gallon batches.

David

If your purpose of the sugar was only for upping the ABV and not for any flavor reason I would personally replace some or all of the 2lbs sugar with more malt extract. With that much sugar in a lower gravity beer I'm afraid it would dry the beer out too much and maybe contribute to a similar 'cidery' flavor you complained about earlier. Sugar does have its place in brewing but I would use it in a beer with a bit more malt backbone or bigger beer that can sustain the dryness and flavor that the sugar gives to a beer.

Corn sugar should take up only about 5% of your recipe.

My suggestion would be to get a new mash tun. Unless you like brewing 15 gallons of the same beer over and over.

Hmm, OK then.

Thanks for the advice.

I'd better forget about the sugar. I'll revisit the LME route or be content with two AG 5 gallons.

Cheers!