Any tips on how to brew a higher gravity beer than your mash tun will allow?

I have a 15 gallon tri clad pot - the very common type. It has a false bottom at about the two gallon mark. It is direct fire (on a single tier stand with automation). I want to brew 11 gallons of imperial stout at an og of 1.090. I plan on an efficiency of 65% (I usually get 70 - 75 but I like to play it safe).

The recipe calls for a combined total of 41 lbs of grain. According to Bobby M's table - I max out at 37ish with a 15 gallon mash tun. I would be nervous even getting even close to that amount of grains in a 15 gallon pot.

What is the best way to deal with this? I'm hoping someone has a trick to do this without having to essentially mash twice. The only thing I have come up with is doing two separate mashes and combining the wort but I'm unsure if this will cause any flavor differences. I guess I could package the grains as two 5.5 gallon batches with the same ratios base/specialty grains in each batch and just do two separate mashes but I was hoping to shorten the brew day a bit more.

You can figure out how much malt extract would be required to get your OG where you need it after you max out your mashtun. I would think your only other option is two mashes, and then combining them.

And this isn't really a problem, as you can easily split the grains down the middle and have close enough to an even distribution to get really similar worts. It will just be a longer brewday. Personally, I would probably go the extract bump-up route. Unless you are that purist that has a moral objection to using DME in your AG brewing

I would go with using extract, too. You'll still get the flavor of having a mash, but it'll save you a lot of time.

Get this book. There is a chapter on what you are wanting. A must have for any brewer.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0937381500/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.

Yep, I'd just add DME for this. It's the easiest way to get that gravity boost for those final few points, and in a big beer like a RIS, those few pounds of DME won't change your flavor profile as it might in a beer that requires low mash temps.

I know you want an 11 gallon batch, but you could just scale back the recipe to a volume that will fit your equipment.

With your criteria you'd either have to use some DME or a magic wand...

Where can I pick up this magic wand? My LHBS has run out of them.

Partial mash or double batch.

smyrnaquince said:

I know you want an 11 gallon batch, but you could just scale back the recipe to a volume that will fit your equipment.

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I ended up brewing a big Imperial Stout and ended up doing this exactly. Since I didn't have enough room in my kettle I just ended up doing a 3 gallon batch.

bwarbiany said:

Yep, I'd just add DME for this. It's the easiest way to get that gravity boost for those final few points, and in a big beer like a RIS, those few pounds of DME won't change your flavor profile as it might in a beer that requires low mash temps.

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Exactly this, use the needed amount of DME to replace the base grain. Quality wont suffer one bit. I think a majority of the barleywine finalists in a homebrew competition used atleast some DME as they had the same problem you did.

Sippin37 said:

Exactly this, use the needed amount of DME to replace the base grain. Quality wont suffer one bit. I think a majority of the barleywine finalists in a homebrew competition used atleast some DME as they had the same problem you did.

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+1. I'd go with either a small batch (my personal preference) or DME. For a barleywine, there is so much flavor and odd stuff going on that you won't notice if it's a n extract batch in the least.


But if you want to try the magic wand, I think Morebeer has them. I was going to pick one up last year, but I went with a March Pump instead. Kind of regretting it now.

You can do I believe it is called an interative mash. I did it once and was quite pleased.

Basically you divide your grain in half and mash one half to start. Use a little less water than normal. After conversion, drain this off (no extra water), and then do a small sparge. Clean out your mash tun, add the rest of the grain, and use the wort from the first half of the grain to mash in the rest of the grain. Proceed as normal.

A nice advantage of doing this is you end up with a smaller volume to boil down to hit your target SG. Your efficiency will suffer a little, but it wasn't that much when I did it.

Scale the recipe back a couple gallons.