Not sure if this should be posted to either the all grain sub or general brewing questions, but I'm at the final stages of having my electric brewery operational and I have a bit of a dilemma. Apologies if this is too long, but a bit of background is in order.
A few years ago I was sourcing parts for an electric brewery that I was planning, which included finding a boil kettle, MLT and HLT. I found used Blichmann G1 kettles for all components, 20 gal for both the boil and the HLT but the mash tun is a 30 gal. Now that I'm thinking back I'm not sure why I picked up the 30 gal mash tun except that it was at a decent price and I happened to be driving through Asheville at the time it was listed. Now that I'm actually ready to start brewing with the system I've been thinking about its size and wondering if it's going to be too large a MLT for the system. I am planning to brew 12 gal batches on a system that is built following Kal's instructions/recommendation over at the Electric Brewery.
My final task before I can start brewing is to cut a recirculation port in the MLT and install a valve and hose. Also I order a few Blichmann valve rebuild kits as, while I was waiting on parts, I disassembled the valves on my three kettles and found them to be rather dirty. Anyway, I was scoping out a few recipes over at Kal's site, thinking it would be easy enough to get a few brews under my belt by following his recipes instead of creating my own; I don't have a profile for the brew system yet in my beersmith and have no idea what losses will exist or boil off rate would be. I keep coming back to the thought that a 30 gal MLT is going to be way too big for these brews.
My question, would anyone just bite the bullet and order a 20 gal MLT right away and replace this 30 gal? I could sell the 30 gal and probably recoup most of the cost, or I could keep it for the occasional barleywine or high gravity brew that I might be inclined to try.
Thoughts? Am I off base here? Thanks in advance for any recommendations.
A few years ago I was sourcing parts for an electric brewery that I was planning, which included finding a boil kettle, MLT and HLT. I found used Blichmann G1 kettles for all components, 20 gal for both the boil and the HLT but the mash tun is a 30 gal. Now that I'm thinking back I'm not sure why I picked up the 30 gal mash tun except that it was at a decent price and I happened to be driving through Asheville at the time it was listed. Now that I'm actually ready to start brewing with the system I've been thinking about its size and wondering if it's going to be too large a MLT for the system. I am planning to brew 12 gal batches on a system that is built following Kal's instructions/recommendation over at the Electric Brewery.
My final task before I can start brewing is to cut a recirculation port in the MLT and install a valve and hose. Also I order a few Blichmann valve rebuild kits as, while I was waiting on parts, I disassembled the valves on my three kettles and found them to be rather dirty. Anyway, I was scoping out a few recipes over at Kal's site, thinking it would be easy enough to get a few brews under my belt by following his recipes instead of creating my own; I don't have a profile for the brew system yet in my beersmith and have no idea what losses will exist or boil off rate would be. I keep coming back to the thought that a 30 gal MLT is going to be way too big for these brews.
My question, would anyone just bite the bullet and order a 20 gal MLT right away and replace this 30 gal? I could sell the 30 gal and probably recoup most of the cost, or I could keep it for the occasional barleywine or high gravity brew that I might be inclined to try.
Thoughts? Am I off base here? Thanks in advance for any recommendations.