High Gravity Beer and mash tun

Has anyone tried to brew a high gravity beer that requires 16 pounds of grain, and use a 5 gallon mash tun. From doing the math, it looks like the 5 gallon mash tun that I have will be too small.

I've done about 15 lbs in a 5 gallon MLT. It was a bit tight, and the mash was quite thick (<1qt/lb). You can try it, but make sure your calculations are perfect, there's nothing worse than having to clean up and over-flowed MLT.

hell my 12lb porter didn't fit in 5gallons....I ended up with only 4.5gal of wort after boiling, and that required a bit of fly sparging since I lacked the space for 5 gallons of sparge water plus the grains.

hindsight, I should've done two sparges to reach my volume...but on the bright side its a great tasting porter!

I did a 12 gallon IPA in my 5 gallon ton on Wednesday. Mashed with 4 gallons and then sparged with 3.5 gallons. After the grain absorbed about 1 gallon of water, I could fit in all my spare water. However, no worries, I just slowly added in some water as I was draining my sparge. It was kinda like a combined batch and fly sparge and it worked out perfectly. Got 6.5 gallons of wort which boiled down to 5 gallons. Hit 1.070 with my gravity and a whopping 80% efficiency.


I'm guess I could do 14 pounds. 16 would be pushing it more and more, but might be possible with similar techniques.

Consider replacing 4-5 pounds of 2-row with DME.

Thanks for the ideas.

I think I may take the easy way out, and just build a 10 gallon mash tun. That way I will be sure have enough room!

try Home Depot for the 10gal coolers. they'll be near the lumber section with other "job site" related misc. construction stuff.

I use an insulated mash-tun (30L I think) and that fitted 16lbs of grain easily for a 8.2% ale. Plenty of room for at least another 8lbs of grain.

I saw 48 qt Ice Cubes (12 gal) with a spigot at Wally world the other day for as much as the 5 gallon round cooler. I think I may get on wifey's bad side and pick one up. I could then use the 5 gal round I already have as an HLT or something, I suppose.