How much grain ?

I have a 5 gallon pot, and do 2.5 gal BIAB batches. I would like to do a big barleywine SMASH but am not sure how much grain I can mash. Any thoughts? Recipe recommendations also welcome.

Is there a calculator somewhere out there?

http://biabcalculator.com/
http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/

Without some more specifics I can't run it for you, but either of those should work with a little of your equipment information.

back of the envelope is that a lb of grain gives you 34 points per gallon. So the formula is lb = (gallons X points OG)/(34 x mash efficiency). So for a 1.100 OG it would be (2.5 x 100)/(34 x .72) assuming 72% mash efficiency and a 1.100 OG = 10.2 lb grain So at 1.3 qt per lb you need 13.2 qt water plus the grain room. Beersmith shows you need 4.98 gal of mash tun room on a 10.5 lb grain bill so you will be pushing it.

But don't think you are limited by your kettle for mashing. If you have a large cooler you can mash there and then dump the wort into the kettle. I did that all the time when I started doing BIAB. I liked it better than a kettle as it held the temp.

If I do 1.5qt/lb, then 10lbs of grain would only need 15qt water to mash. Can I fit 10lbs of grain and 3.5 gallons of water in a 5 gal kettle? Then I could do a sparge/rinse to get up to my 3.5-4 gallon preboil volume.

TimFarAway said:

If I do 1.5qt/lb, then 10lbs of grain would only need 15qt water to mash. Can I fit 10lbs of grain and 3.5 gallons of water in a 5 gal kettle? Then I could do a sparge/rinse to get up to my 3.5-4 gallon preboil volume.

Click to expand...

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
Use the "Can I Mash It" calculator. 10 lbs with 1.5 qt/lb will take up 4.55 gallons. So you can do it, but it will be a bit tight.