Liquor to grist ratio

I'm mashing in a converted 5 gallon cooler and a couple of my next brews require around 14 lbs of grain. I've only mashed 10-11.5 lbs so far with a 1.3 qt/lb ratio. To fit 14lbs of grain I'm going to need to lower my ratio to about 1.1 qt/lb and I'm wondering how this might affect my mash and my wort. The only thing I've found while reading up on this is that I might end up with a more fermentable wort. How much more fermentable might it be and is there anything else I should take into consideration?

You will have a thick mash giving the enzymes easier access to the grains. Your gonna need a bigger sparge and i would sparge in smaller batches as Bobby_M does to help your efficiency... Look about half way down the page and he talks about multiple smaller sparges.
All Grain

I go anywhere from 1:1 - 1:1.25 on mine. It's just a matter of adjusting your temps and giving it a longer sparge.

Forgot to mention.. I'm a batch sparger and I already do 2 equal sparges. Does my sparge volume just need to be larger to make up for the lesser amount of water in my mash?

keep sparging until your gravity drops below 1.010. You might need more than 2 times

When your mashtun is really full it helps a lot to do a decoction mashout. This is just removing part of the liquid from the mash and heating to a boil and slowly mixing it back into the mash until you reach 168F to 170F. Beersmith will do this calculation for you if you choose to perform a decoction mashout. After you have the temperature at 170F you continue with draining and 2 equal sparges until you have collected the required preboil volume. Don't forget to recirculate between sparges.

A thicker mash gives a more dextrinous (less fermentable) wort. I mash at 1 qt / lb grain, but I don't think I could fit 14 lbs grain into my 5g cooler, I have a false bottom which takes up some space.

-a.

i have done 14# with 1qt/# and it can be done. i use a braid system though. completely full. did 2 batch sparges and added water to get to my 6 3/4 gal boil point.

Someone else posted this: Green Bay Rackers--Mash Calculators

It says you can do 1:1 in 4.62 gallons, so even with your false bottom you would probably be ok. You may have to do a triple sparge.

You will probably need to do more than two sparges. Not being able to stir much could cost you some efficiency.

I just checked my records. The maximum I ever got in the 5g cooler was 13.5 lbs. I fly sparged, and there wasn't enough space in the cooler for the mash out water. There's no way I could have batch sparged with that sort of volume. I would have to do somewhere about 10 batches, and got lousy efficiency, because each sparge would have been so thick, I couldn't have stirred effectively. As it was, I got 79% efficiency on that brew.
Yes, I'm sure that I could theoretically have mashed more than 14 lbs grain, but mashing is only half the problem. Unless you have a separate lauter tun, you need extra capacity for sparging.

-a.

i have done 14# with 1qt/# and it can be done. i use a braid system though. completely full. did 2 batch sparges and added water to get to my 6 3/4 gal boil point

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I use a SS braid as well so I was hoping I'd be able to fit 14#.

You will probably need to do more than two sparges. Not being able to stir much could cost you some efficiency.

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I think I'll shoot for 3 sparges. However, with the chance of loosing efficiency, would I be better off decreasing the grain bill by a pound or 2 and making up for it with some DME?

i do remember thinking why i didn't pick up a couple #'s of DME when i was mashing without the lid on the cooler.....