i have access to the greatest equipment ever...a few questions inside

i'm home from school and have been working crazy hours at the catering/pizza business i worked at in highschool. my boss has 2 sub zero walk in freezers and 4 GIANT walk in coolers (~40 degrees).

he also has vent hoods and giant giant giant stock pot burners and stock pots to boil 40+ gallons of au ju for beef on a saturday rush.

among being able to use this equipment, he's an avid wine maker in his basement. seriously insane with the stuff adn since i've been home, he wants to brew beer with me. i'm a partial mash guy myself because i haven't had the money or space to do all grain.

so now my boss wants to do a 20-30 gallon batch in his 55 gallon fermenter. i told you he was insane. he wants a cherry wheat (is obsessed with the sam adams crap) and i don't know what to tell him. i have no sparge tin, but we can make one with two buckets i'm sure. i don't even know what and how much material to use in a batch that big. do i need more yeast as well? does anyone have a recipe that would work? i've tried searching online and in my books for big batch suggestions, but EVERYTHING is for 5 gallons it seems.

i know it's a little crazy for a first time all grainer to be messing with a batch that sized, but like i said, my boss is gung ho and is ready to rock. i'm also not paying for a dime of the stuff.

any suggestions and recomendations would be amazing. i've done about 10 partial mashes on my own now...so i'm still in the learning stages.

thanks,
tom

How does he intend to serve it?

Bottling that much is insane.
Even kegging... at some point it will have to be kegged in 15g (or more likely) 5g kegs.

Seems easier to get your process down and then scale up.

olllllo said:

How does he intend to serve it?

Bottling that much is insane.
Even kegging... at some point it will have to be kegged in 15g (or more likely) 5g kegs.

Seems easier to get your process down and then scale up.

Click to expand...

bottling. he's going to front the money for bottles, and he has employees he can use as minions to fill and cap and whatnot. 400 bottles shouldn't be anything to sweat over with this guy.

400 bottles... WOW!!!
I didn't want to bottle 55 or so!!! So, I kegged!!! I couldn't imaging doing 400, and I've NEVER even bottled!
Good luck bro, and keep us posted how it goes!!!

I doubt that you will be able to fit all your malt in a bucket mash tun. I wish I had some better advise. There are a few people on this board who have experience with that kind of batch size.

Good luck!

- magno

you can scale up a 5 gallon recipe, for 20 gallons just multiply the 5gal recipe x4