Someone asked about the 4th keggle in my build. The stand was built to brew 2 13 gallon batches on the same day.
So the hot liquor is the top, then a mash tun/kettle, lauter tun and then one more mash tun/kettle.
I can mash 2 batches staggered about 45 minutes apart. Then transfer the 1st mash into the LT and run back to the mash/kettle combo. Once that brew is done running off the 2nd mash is transfered to the LT and run back to the other kettle.
The 2 brews cool back to back.
That is 22 gallons in 4 carboys in about 6 hours!!
I'm not sure I completely followed. It sounds like you're doing the following.
- Mash in #2 and #4 (staggered)
- Dump the mash from #2 into #3
- Sparge from #3 back to #2 to boil
- Dump the spent grains out of #3
- Dump the mash from #4 into #3
- Sparge from #3 back to #4 to boil
- Dump the spent grains out of #3
If that's the case, I think setting two vessels up as mash/later tuns (instead of a single lauter tun) could save you some work (two mash transfers specifically).
You could have: HLT, MLT/BK, MLT, BK
- Mash in MLT (#2) and MLT (#3)
- Sparge from MLT (#2) to BK (#4) to boil
- Dump and clean out MLT (#2). Not it becomes your target BK
- Sparge from MLT (#3) to MLT/BK (#2) to boil
Make sense?
I've done a few back-to-back pipelined brews, too. Here's
one thread detailing my process. The 4th vessel might have cut off ~ 30 mins, but I think only if I had someone there helping me manage things. I was pretty busy as it was, and I finished in 5 hrs, 20 mins.