Stepping up your volumes

I've brewed 10 batches or so and most of them are all grain. My cooler, kettle, and fermentation buckets / carboys have proved to me that about 5.5 gallons is about what I can produce in a single brew day (5 or 6 hours of work).

How do you step up your volume without breaking the bank? I see others comment that they produce 10 and 12 gallons regularly. Does this require a mash tun, kettle, ferment bucket upgrade? all new equipment? or am I missing something with the technique that can save money but still produce 10 and 12 gallon volumes?

What about two turkey fryers, two mash tuns, etc... Is that how you step it up? Same work, just double the steps within the 6 hour brew day?

What equipment do you currenty have as far as a MLT and boil kettle?

I normally do 5 gallon batches, but my MLT and kettle are big enough that I can pull off a 10 gallon batch if I want to.

(edit: my MLT is a 10 gallon insulated cooler and my kettle is a 15.5 gallon converted keg.)

My MLT is an old Coleman camp cooler (square). It probably could hold 10 gallons (if poured to the very tippy top edge). I have an aluminum turkey fryer pot that can probably hold 7 gallons... any more than that and I think there would be safety issues during the boil.

spriolo said:

I've brewed 10 batches or so and most of them are all grain. My cooler, kettle, and fermentation buckets / carboys have proved to me that about 5.5 gallons is about what I can produce in a single brew day (5 or 6 hours of work).

How do you step up your volume without breaking the bank? I see others comment that they produce 10 and 12 gallons regularly. Does this require a mash tun, kettle, ferment bucket upgrade? all new equipment? or am I missing something with the technique that can save money but still produce 10 and 12 gallon volumes?

What about two turkey fryers, two mash tuns, etc... Is that how you step it up? Same work, just double the steps within the 6 hour brew day?

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Well, here is what I would caution. If you are going to step to 10 gallons, you might want to "future proof" yourself a little in case you want to do 15 gallon batches, and so on. Where will you realistically draw the line? That's probably the first question you should ask yourself. I do 10-15 gallon batches and have my equipment such that I can do high gravity 15 gallon batches. This was not by accident. Incremental costs now or full replacement costs later?

The biggest issues & costs are as follows, IMO:

- Brew Kettle (sure, you can brew in a 15.5 gal Sanke but you will top off at about a 12.5-13 gallon batch size with that.) & HLT. I have a 15 gal HLT and a 20 gal brew kettle. This is where you can't easily reuse HLT for kettle, IMO. You could capture wort in several secondary buckets/vessels and then recombine into your HLT/kettle, I suppose.
- MT - even for 15 gal batches you can use a big rectangular cooler. I have a copper manifold and sparge arm but you could certainly do something simpler.
- I use a single Turkey Fryer burner and need only 1. If I had a semi-automated system and everything was pump driven (a goal of mine at some point), then I would probably need 2 burners, but for now it's not needed.


Biggest cost CAN be the fermentation vessels. You can piece things together here and there for the other stuff, but really, with the sanitary requirements of the ferm vessel, this is where some people go crazy. I have a 14.5 gal conical, a whole gaggle of carboys/kegs. I think the sanke keg as a ferm vessel is about as easy as it gets and can be done relatively cheaply with a craigslist score and tri-clover style mod kit.

Temp control is important for all size batches, but obviously as you do larger batches, you need larger "temp controlled spaces"...



Yes, it is a rat hole of expenses and projects and DIY, but for many of us that go down the path, that's 90% of the fun!

I see your point. I guess it starts out with "I wish I could boil 10 gallons"...

+1 Randar, I need to evaluate my goals before I go down the rabbit hole.

Walker, why do you stop at 5 Gal when you can go more (maybe I can look at the inverse while I contemplate the how deep the hole goes)?

I stepped up from 5 to 10 , after thinking that I would never brew more than 5 gallons. Basically wasted a lot of money on the 5 gallon set-up. However now that I do 10-11 gallon batches I wish I had stuck with 5 gallon as I like the diversity of brewing different beers more frequently. My set-up works best with 10 gallons so going through all the extra clean up effort for doing 5 gallons in my set up is a pain.

Eventually I will sell off my stand & equipment and go back to smaller batches.

I once did the jump from 5 to a 12-13.5 gallon system. The biggest issue is that if something goes wrong you have 10 gallons of bad beer instead of 5. While a rarity its much easier to take a bad 5 gal batch over a 10. Additionally there is extra work. Double the amount of starter volume. Double weight in grain and water.

I was considering bumping up, but I think I am going to stick with 5 gallon batches and brew more frequently if needed.

m.

spriolo said:

Walker, why do you stop at 5 Gal when you can go more (maybe I can look at the inverse while I contemplate the how deep the hole goes)?

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Two reasons... I like variety and I enjoy the process of brewing. Making 5 gallon batches gives me more of both of those things.

I've got a 20 gal. aluminum pot for my HLT, a 60 qt cooler with copper manifold for mash and lauter tun and a 15.5 gal keggle. I went with this setup for the same purpose as you. I probably do half and half 5 and 10 gallon batches. 5 gallons when I'm experimenting or doing high gravity beers and 10 when I'm brewing a tried and true favorite that I know will go fast.
I've considered getting another cooler (I already have another keggle) so I can have a 15 to 20 gallon brew day doing two different recipes.

Haha, I'd love to be able to contradict Walker and say "20 gallon batches?!?" but I seem to remember standing in Morebeer's store in Concord, looking at a 15 gallon kettle on sale, and thinking "There's no way I'll be doing 10 gallon batches."

One question I think it's worth asking yourself is what you brew for. Do you enjoy the brew day process, or are you seeing it as a means to an end in order to just get your beer? If you enjoy the process, as I do, I REALLY can't think going higher than 10 gallon batches. It's plenty for me, even at the rate I drink (fat Irish git). That's over 100 beers, and by the time the second keg's kicked, I'm usually ready for something different. (Plus, a lot of beers like IPAs, I find tend to get a bit stale if they're sitting around for too long.)

ubermick said:

Haha, I'd love to be able to contradict Walker and say "20 gallon batches?!?" but I seem to remember standing in Morebeer's store in Concord, looking at a 15 gallon kettle on sale, and thinking "There's no way I'll be doing 10 gallon batches."

One question I think it's worth asking yourself is what you brew for. Do you enjoy the brew day process, or are you seeing it as a means to an end in order to just get your beer? If you enjoy the process, as I do, I REALLY can't think going higher than 10 gallon batches. It's plenty for me, even at the rate I drink (fat Irish git). That's over 100 beers, and by the time the second keg's kicked, I'm usually ready for something different. (Plus, a lot of beers like IPAs, I find tend to get a bit stale if they're sitting around for too long.)

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I can brew as often as I have time for with these larger batches and still not have any problem unloading my beers. I have plenty of friends that are way too eager to help take bottles or kegs off my hands. As of right now I give a keg to a buddy about every other batch and have a couple more guys willing to take them if and when I have extra. For me, I can brew a 12-15 gallon batch, keep a 5 gal keg, and unload the rest to cover the cost of ingredients. best of both worlds. I get to brew a lot of different styles, get to drink a lot of beer, and do it for no cost of materials. LOL!

OK, now I have to go hide from the ATF. :cross:

I too enjoy the process but moved to mainly 10g batches due to time/family/work limits. I still do some 5g batches to try new beers but my favorites are in the 10g variety. I have also taken to doubling up on my brew day so I normally brew 2 10g batches when I brew. A single batch takes most of the day anyway so I just add a few hours on

Walker said:

Two reasons... I like variety and I enjoy the process of brewing. Making 5 gallon batches gives me more of both of those things.

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My philosophy also.

GT

BillyBeer said:

I too enjoy the process but moved to mainly 10g batches due to time/family/work limits. I still do some 5g batches to try new beers but my favorites are in the 10g variety. I have also taken to doubling up on my brew day so I normally brew 2 10g batches when I brew. A single batch takes most of the day anyway so I just add a few hours on

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Never thought of that... it'd take some organizing, but getting another mash going as soon as you start the boil of your first batch. Hmm, worth thinking about, there!

I find the most restricting part of 10g batches for me is fermentations. My HLT, MLT, and kettle are all 15.5 bayou classic pots. Boiling 12g requires a close eye for boil overs, but works fine.

I only have one 10g fermenting "bucket", and two temp controlled freezers. So, I usually keep the ten gallon fermenter full, and go through 5g batches in the other freezer. I like a lot of variety, and I like the brewing process. Since I don't have a lot of friends that are into craft beer, it's up to me and a couple co-workers to drink my beer. If I did all ten gallon batches, I'd need a lot more storage space since I just couldn't physically drink that much!

EDIT: Although, somehow I got "behind" this summer. I'm down to only one tap going. But I have 25g fermenting to catch up..

I think I'll wait to step up my volumes. This has been a healthy exercise of self evaluation and discovery of what I want out of all this delicious beer!

In the end, I think the cost to increase volume is too exponential and secondly I haven't found a group of recipe's that I'd like to have 10 to 12 gallons of at a time. I'm starting to circle back around to a Blonde Ale, but I wouldn't go for mass volumes until I'm really sure she's ready for all friends and family.

Thanks guys! It's Friday and my bottle conditioned Bitter is now ready to chill and drink.