How much mash can a mash tun mash? Need Help for Tomorrow's Brew!

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ryan_pants

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Ok so I'm just about to take on my first AG brew tomorrow. The yeast is percolating hapily in its starter and I'm reviewing the recipe to make sure I have everything I need to get started and now I'm nervous.

I'm doing the BYO Aventinus Weizenbock (http://byo.com/recipe/714.html) and I need to mash 13.5 pounds of grain in 4.25 gallons of water... Will this all fit in my 5 gallon (cylinder cooler) tun? I'm having a hard time getting my brain around how the volume of the grain will work with that much water... Can I mash with less water than that? Would I need to? Can I reduce the amount of grain and mash water proportionally to better fit the cooler?

I know the easy answer is get a bigger tun, and for the next batch I definitely will, but I don't have the resources for this one... Please help!
 
There's several threads on this. Looks like people do 15 lbs at 1 quart per pound in a five gallon cooler. Seems like a real squeeze though and with all that wheat, tarball time. Maybe reduce everything 20% and do a 4 gallon batch?
 
seanhagerty said:
http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Check this out, you can determine if you have enough mash tun volume

Sean

Nice link was going to bookmark it but i can't see what ratio of water to grain they are using, prob just missed it cos i had a few home brews. If anyone more sober than me spots it or knows the answer please post it. Cheers :mug: .
 
You have probably already brewed. I think you can cram your recipe into that small mashtun and if you fly sparge and stir it while sparging you can probably make it work albeit somewhat inefficiently. I went to a 15.5 gal keggle for my mashtun and never looked back. It works great for all sorts of batch sizes. I can even do close to a 15 gal batch, fly sparging and babysitting the boil that is close to the top of the keggle boil kettle.
 
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