Steeping too much grain for my pot...

This is a carry over from the thread asking about water level for proper steeping and some questions / issues I had come out of my last brew day.

My boil pot is a 20qt stainless steel pot
The recipe called for 3 pounds of grain to be steeped (2# crystal, .5# carapils, and .5# 2-row)

This was the most grain i've ever had to steep and it proved troublesome-- i use 2 grain bags (muslin) and each one was about the size of a small cantaloupe (say, 6-8" diameter spheres). I've never steeped as much grain as even a single one of these bags i dont think-- they were GIANT. I can't imagine I got good utilizaiton out of them because they took up so much of the pot even with 2 gallons of water. Also, they floated. I couldn't force them to stay down.

so heres what i'm thinking, and this is what I want to get peoples opinions on:

What if, instead, I had simply doubled (or even tripled) the effort- what if i'd done each grain bag individually. Each bag gets its own full duration steep.

Obviously I could do this in two seperate pots at half the volume each at the same time and effort expenditure wouldn't be bad.
BUT
Could I instead, steep one bag, remove and drain, then steep the second bag, remove and drain, and then proceed with the brew day?

Would the second steep be just as effective as the first? Do i risk anything by holding the grain tea at temperature for double the steeping temp? (I assume not since mashing occurs at a much higher temp and duration)


Or am i making this into just too big a deal?

Sure, you can do it that way, there's no harm in holding the "tea" at steeping temperature (BTW (nitpicking here) mashing occurs at right around the same temp as steeping). The water-grain ratio for steeping is not that critical, and the grain will absorb some water. So you should add some extra water to make up for it. And the difference between doing a 2 gallon partial boil vs a 3 gallon partial boil isn't really going to affect your beer significantly.

I would suggest that rather than using the muslin "gymsock" steeping bags from the HBS, go to Lowes and get a 5 gallon paint strainer. It's reusable and will hold your grain in the pot loosely so you get better extraction. The gymsocks hold the grain very tightly, even when you're not steeping as much as you did this time.