My First 10-Gallon Batch Today

I'm Psyched....
You can see the dog is equally excited.
80 degrees and sunny. SWMBO is out of town. I go the house to myself....:rockin:

piece of cake. the only downside is trying to lift your sparge water by yourself. Having someone else around is a huge plus


good luck!!

Have fun! Looks good to me!

Is that an immersion chiller I saw in the second photo, or was it a pre-chiller? If it was an immersion chiller, I would be interested to hear how it performs cooling a 10 gallon batch of wort.

Hope all goes well! Wish I were brewing today....

FlyGuy said:

Is that an immersion chiller I saw in the second photo, or was it a pre-chiller? If it was an immersion chiller, I would be interested to hear how it performs cooling a 10 gallon batch of wort.

Hope all goes well! Wish I were brewing today....

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Yeah, the immersion chiller will take a bit longer than I'd like, but still should do the trick. If not, I'll have to beef it up a bunch by doubling the length.

Chimone said:

piece of cake. the only downside is trying to lift your sparge water by yourself. Having someone else around is a huge plus


good luck!!

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I used a big sauce pot to ladle the sparge water into the MLT. Not perfect, but the three tier is going to take a lot of convincing with my SWMBO. Specially since she just let me get my chest freezer.

BierMuncher said:

I used a big sauce pot to ladle the sparge water into the MLT. Not perfect, but the three tier is going to take a lot of convincing with my SWMBO. Specially since she just let me get my chest freezer.

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well my setup is very close to yours, and they will work really rather well. But two hands are better than one in this situation.

there is a big drawback for me with 10 gallons though. If I had my way I would brew at least once a week. My 5 gallon setup allows me to do this. Now when I start busting out 10 gallon batches I get maxxed out very quickly. So there will be a month that goes by and I cant brew becasue I just dont have the room.

Its nice to be able to take your pick depending on the situation though.

How goes the process so far ?

Now we're in full boil...just waiting.

A slight boil over whilst I was tappin on the PC (HBT of course).




And finally...6 hours later...the patients are resting comfortably.

Now the clean up...

Awesome man!

So how did the immersion chiller perform? Mine is 25' of 3/8 copper and I don't think it would handle 10 gallons. How did your IC perform?

FlyGuy said:

Awesome man!

So how did the immersion chiller perform? Mine is 25' of 3/8 copper and I don't think it would handle 10 gallons. How did your IC perform?

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Actually did pretty good. Got from 197 down to 74 in about 35-40 minutes. Not a crash chill, but useable.

Plus it gave me time to go take a power nap while it chilled.....

Looks like a great day. How did the Power of the Banjo do for you?

EdWort said:

Looks like a great day. How did the Power of the Banjo do for you?

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The banjo worked great. Thanks for the lead EdWort.

That thing actually turns the bottom of the keggle red around the lower rim. I'm still burning off some of the black paint so there is still some "burny" smell but I think I scorched the last of it off during this session.

BierMuncher said:

Actually did pretty good. Got from 197 down to 74 in about 35-40 minutes. Not a crash chill, but useable.

Plus it gave me time to go take a power nap while it chilled.....

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Ok, thanks. Glad to hear it worked so well. How big is your chiller? Is it bigger than 25' of 3/8 copper?

FlyGuy said:

Ok, thanks. Glad to hear it worked so well. How big is your chiller? Is it bigger than 25' of 3/8 copper?

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Nope. That's it exactly. Got it from Lowes....

Looks great! Just something about 10 gallon batches that makes me feel powerful too!

Dude said:

Looks great! Just something about 10 gallon batches that makes me feel powerful too!

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Yep. Funny thing is, as I was looking over my equipment, it occurred to me that I could do a five gallon batch at the same time. I have the second tank, pot, burner, cooler and plenty or primary capacity. I'd have to make another manifold, cuz I just transferred my old one to the 10-gallon MT...

Now that would be a day. 10 gallons of your mainstay brew and five gallons of something new and different.

15 gallons in one brew? Yeah baby.

You know I'm thinking of going the complete opposite direction. Making 5 gal of the good tried and true recipe's and then starting to brew 2 gal batches of test recipes. I mean there is no way I could drink all that beer..although it would be nice to be able to brew for a party and have 10 gallons on hand..


Dan

how close was it doing a 10 gallon AG in a 15 gallon keggle? I want to buy a pot big enough to do 10 gal batches, but the norm seems to be collecting around 7 gallons pre-boil for 5 gallon batches. What is the preboil on a 10 gallon?

thx!

Jester369 said:

how close was it doing a 10 gallon AG in a 15 gallon keggle? I want to buy a pot big enough to do 10 gal batches, but the norm seems to be collecting around 7 gallons pre-boil for 5 gallon batches. What is the preboil on a 10 gallon?

thx!

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Wasn't a prblem at all. The Preboil volume was about 11.5-12 gallons. I had one slight boil over but that was my own stupidity of dropping in the hops and then running inside to dick around with something. Like I said, just a slight boil over and no volume lost.

I ended up with exactly 10 gallons in the pot post boil (including the strained hop goo at the bottom). I wanted a bit more, but my neighbor came over and was talking my ear off and I let it boil too long (fortunately I hadn't added my hops yet).

Your avatar looks a lot like you, man. You got any indian in you? I have some blackfoot 3 generations back.

do you siphon out of the keggle? I have been through 3 versions of home-made hopstoppers that all failed miserably and have probably spent as much building them as I would have just buying something pre-made. I've ended up siphoning every batch...PITA.