Adjusting all-grain recipe for Fuller's ESB

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scarysnare

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I want to do a Fuller's ESB clone and the recipe I found is as follows:

11 lbs. 3 oz. (5.1 kg) Muntons pale ale malt
1 lb. 2 oz. (0.51 kg) crystal malt (75 °L)
5.25 AAU Target hops (60 min)
(0.53 oz./15 g of 10% alpha acids)
2.6 AAU Challenger hops (60 min)
(0.34 oz./10 g of 7.5% alpha acids)
0.83 AAU Northdown hops (15 min)
(0.1 oz./2.7 g of 8.5% alpha acids)
1.66 AAU Goldings hops (15 min)
(0.33 oz./9.4 g of 5% alpha acids)
0.33 oz. (9.4 g) Goldings hops
(dry hop)
Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) or White Labs WLP002 (English Ale) yeast

My problem is that my mash tun wont fit anything over 12lbs of grains and 15 quarts of strike water.

My questions is, if I adjust the grain-bill a little to give myself some room, will I have to adjust the amount in each hop addition also?

If so can someone help me do that. (11 lbs and 13.75 quarts of strike water are ideal)
 
Get a little jug of Northern Brewer's Maris otter syrup and sub out a little grain. I use a small mash run too and I've done this in the past with great success.

Oh, and I've made that same ESB recipe. Its awesome.
 
Can you not use a slightly thicker mash - the grain bill isn't much above 12lb (5 oz only) - and sparge a little more water to get the correct preboil gravity and volume? Maybe add 13 quarts of strike water, stir in the grains then add a quart at a time to bring it up to the max your mash tun will take?

My last beer was an 5 gallon batch of an ESB targeting the same ABV as Fuller's ESB - I calculated a 12lb grain bill (10lb UK 2-row and 2 lb Crystal 40) for 14 quarts of strike water, and hit 1058 OG, which should be pretty much spot on. This fit my 5 gallon rubbermaid cooler mash tun perfectly (2" of head room), even after adding a little more water to bring the mash temperature down.
 
I agree with the post above. I would recommend making the mash thicker and sparging more. If I'm not mistaken (someone please correct me if it's not the case), I think I remember reading that English brews typically favor thicker mashes for some reason.
 
I quickly ran this recipe through BeerSmith for my Rubbermaid cooler equipment (5.2-5.3 gallon batch to give about 4.9 gal in the bottles/keg). It calculates the mash volume at 1.25 qt/lb as 4.8 gal (15.4 qts strike water), with 4.66 gal sparge water. At 1.1 qt/lb, the mash volume will be 4.3 gal (13.6 qts strike water) with 5.13 gal sparge water. Somewhere between those two should be OK.
 
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