Advice for FBS mash thickness

[pabloj13]

I am brewing a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone as follows:

13.5# 2 row
1# Chocolate
12oz Roasted barley
9oz Black patent
7oz Crytal 105

Mash 155 for 1 hour.

I normally use 1.25qts/lb for mash thickness, but if I do that I'm only going to be able to batch sparge with ~3 gallons in my 10 gallon igloo. Is that likely to hurt my efficiency or would I be better off doing a slightly thicker mash and sparging with a larger volume?

Thanks.

 

[ajf]

You should be able to use well over 3 gallons of sparge water with 16.25 # grain in a 10g cooler, but you will need to drain your first runnings before adding the sparge water.
Also, if you drain your first runnings before adding the sparge water, the mash thickness won't affect how much sparge water you can add.

-a.

 

[pabloj13]

You should be able to use well over 3 gallons of sparge water with 16.25 # grain in a 10g cooler, but you will need to drain your first runnings before adding the sparge water.
Also, if you drain your first runnings before adding the sparge water, the mash thickness won't affect how much sparge water you can add.

-a.

It's not about how much the tun can hold, it's about hitting my preboil volume. I lose a gallon during a 1 hour boil so I normally start around 6.3 for preboil. If I mash at 1.25 and account for grain absorption, I only get about 3 for the sparge.

 

[ajf]

Sorry, I misunderstood your original post.
You may get a very small increase in efficiency by mashing thicker, and sparging with more water. Although using a thick mash would allow you to use more sparge water, there would be more sugars to be extracted after the first runnings, and this would largely negate the benefits of the extra sparge water.
You could use more sparge water, collect more wort, and boil for longer. This would increase your efficiency as a percentage, but the cost of boiling off the extra water could reduce your efficiency in terms of $ per gravity points.
You could try a party gyle brew. I've never done this so I'm not going to comment on the advantages and disadvantages.
What I would do is to reduce the grain bill to something that can be processed effectively, and then to use some extract to achieve the required OG.

-a.

 

[pabloj13]

Sorry, I misunderstood your original post.
You may get a very small increase in efficiency by mashing thicker, and sparging with more water. Although using a thick mash would allow you to use more sparge water, there would be more sugars to be extracted after the first runnings, and this would largely negate the benefits of the extra sparge water.
You could use more sparge water, collect more wort, and boil for longer. This would increase your efficiency as a percentage, but the cost of boiling off the extra water could reduce your efficiency in terms of $ per gravity points.
You could try a party gyle brew. I've never done this so I'm not going to comment on the advantages and disadvantages.
What I would do is to reduce the grain bill to something that can be processed effectively, and then to use some extract to achieve the required OG.

-a.

Well certainly people process grain bills even larger than this without having to take those steps. I guess I am just wondering whether it is better to do a thicker mash and sparge with more, or stick with the 1.25qts/lb that I have been using and sparge with the volume I need to get my preboil volume.