Mash Tun Size for 25# grain bill

I have a 48Q cooler mash tun. Do you think I can fit a 25 pound grain bill and all of the associated water in this size of a cooler? I am sure hoping so!

It's gonna be close....

Can I mash it?

Check out the calculator at the bottom of the page.

looks like at 1.25 QT/LB the mash will take up 9.81 gallons of my 12 gallon cooler. Wow, that will be close.

I would mash a bit thicker unless of course you are fly sparging. say 1.0

no fly sparging here, I will be double batch sparging.

Bump it down to 1.15 qt/lb and you'll be fine

wilserbrewer said:

I would mash a bit thicker unless of course you are fly sparging. say 1.0

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I fly sparge and use 1 qt / lb for most of my brews. Never gives me a problem.
In response to the OP, there's plenty of room for the mash, but I don't know if you have sufficient capacity remaining for a double batch sparge.

-a.

ajf said:

I fly sparge and use 1 qt / lb for most of my brews. Never gives me a problem.
In response to the OP, there's plenty of room for the mash, but I don't know if you have sufficient capacity remaining for a double batch sparge.

-a.

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Of course there will be room for the double batch sparge. I simply take the amount of water that would be used for a single batch sparge, and divide it up into two smaller sparges each done seperatley. So if there is room for the mash, I am good to go on the double batch sparge.

I found fuggles for about $10 a pound from www.hopsdirect.com. I am thinking I might order some other hops from these guys too.

I think for this beer I am going to have to brew a smaller pale ale first, and then pitch the big barley wine onto the cake. I am still conflicted on the yeast....suddendly I am feeling like US-05 would be a good choice.

I can get 25# in a 40 quart cooler at 1.25 quarts per pound of grain, you will be fine with your 48 quart cooler and double batch sparge, good luck.

wilserbrewer said:

I would mash a bit thicker unless of course you are fly sparging. say 1.0

Click to expand...

Why?


The thinner you mash, the less rounds of sparging you do. The less sparging you do, the less chance of stripping the buffering capacity of the grain. The less you strip the buffering capacity of the grain, the less chance of tannins.

I usually like to stick with 1.5 quarts per pound for the mash, and use just a little more water than that maybe 2qts a pound for the sparge. It seems to work fairly well for me.

I did a 23lb grain bill in a 10 gallon mash tun (orange round home depot kind) last weekend. I had 7.75 gallons of water ... it didn't quite fit I lost about 1/2lb grain and some water and had to shove the cover on. It'll still make good beer though.

Something I'll try differently next time:

Don't add all the strike water to the mash tun right away if you're near capacity. I pre-heat the mash tun, dump it, add the strike water and then stir in the grain. The problem with being at capacity is the grain displaces water until it absorbs it. Next time I'll hold back some water and add it after the grain is mixed well.

....or just don't go as thin

ok, this is sort of off topic, but when you guys are mashing/sparging how do you figure your sparge volumes? I've only done one AG batch so far, so still figuring out the mash science. I did 1.25 qt/lb in the mash, and i think 2 qt/lb sparge.... but i ended up with like 2 gallons over my desired boil size and had to boil down for a couple hours. with those volumes if i had a 15 lb grain bill, i'd endup with a volume of like 12 gallons if i used the full 1.25 and 2 qt/lb ratios.

Can i just sparge the quantity to get the desired volume? This would prevent having to boil off, but would lower my efficiency, right?

BA_from_GA said:

ok, this is sort of off topic, but when you guys are mashing/sparging how do you figure your sparge volumes? I've only done one AG batch so far, so still figuring out the mash science. I did 1.25 qt/lb in the mash, and i think 2 qt/lb sparge.... but i ended up with like 2 gallons over my desired boil size and had to boil down for a couple hours. with those volumes if i had a 15 lb grain bill, i'd endup with a volume of like 12 gallons if i used the full 1.25 and 2 qt/lb ratios.

Can i just sparge the quantity to get the desired volume? This would prevent having to boil off, but would lower my efficiency, right?

Click to expand...

A great rule of thumb is to use 1.5 quarts a pound for the mast and two quarts a pound for the sparge. I split my sparge up evenly into two rounds. Then I boil to get down to the proper volume, bigger beers means more wort collected and longer boils to get down to proper volume and up to proper OG.

Hope this helps.

For a 25 pound grain bill I would mash in with rougly 8-9 gallons of water and sparge with two 5 gallon batch sparges. I bet I would collect close to 9 gallons of wort and have to boil for 120 or more minutes to get down to my 6 gallon batch.

permo said:

A great rule of thumb is to use 1.5 quarts a pound for the mast and two quarts a pound for the sparge. I split my sparge up evenly into two rounds. Then I boil to get down to the proper volume, bigger beers means more wort collected and longer boils to get down to proper volume and up to proper OG.

Hope this helps.

For a 25 pound grain bill I would mash in with rougly 8-9 gallons of water and sparge with two 5 gallon batch sparges. I bet I would collect close to 9 gallons of wort and have to boil for 120 or more minutes to get down to my 6 gallon batch.

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Sounds overly complicated to me .............

I mash in with 1.25 -1.5 gallons. Run that off when the mash is done. Lets say I get 2 gallons from those first runnings.

I know what my boil volume needs to be for a 60 minute boil to end up at 5.5 gallons. For me, that is 8.25 gallons.

So ........... what I do is take my needed pre-boil volume of 8.25 gallons minus first runnings collected (2 gallons for example) = 6.25 gallons.

I divide that in half and do two equal batch sparge rounds to get to my desired volume.

Is this correct? I don't know lol but I am not boiling for 120 minutes. I get 75%-77% consistently.

or use a mash calculator like this so you don't really have to think at all: http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

If you expect to continue to get good efficiency you have to use the appropriate volume of water. If you start to cut back on water, your numbers will fall. For bigger beers you may have to boil longer...it's kind of the way it goes.

permo said:

Of course there will be room for the double batch sparge

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With all due respect, that depends on your mash thickness, pre-boil volume, and dead space in the MLT.
If you were to do a 15g batch requiring a 17g pre-boil volume with a mash thickness of 1 qt / lb, and with 1/2 g dead space, then after draining your first runnings you would collect about 3.125 g wort. That would leave you with a shortage of 13.872 g, or approximately 7g per batch.
As 1 lb wet grain occupies 0.82 qt, 25 lbs would take up 5.125 g. Add your 0.5g dead space, and 7g sparge water, and you have a big mess on the floor.

-a.