1st brew on new system was yesterday. Targeted for a 22 gal IPA of O.G. of 1.068. Swag on the amount of water for this batch as I just doubled what I used to make for an 11 gal batch in a 1/2 bbl system. Maxed out the 20 gal mash tun as I used too much water. Improvised on the fly and did a 2nd mash after draining off about 12 gal of wort and then added the additional grain and some more water from the sparge water. Ended up with about 27 gal of wort in the pot but still had more draining from the mash tun. Drained an additional 5 1/2 gal of 1.020 wort from the mash and am thinking about using that and some DME to make a 5 gal batch of another beer. Ended up with around 23 gal of an IPA at a 1.066 gravity.
Next time I'll reduce the mash water by 3 1/2 gals and the sparge by 2 gals. This should allow me to fit all 52 lbs of grain in one mash. This will make a thicker ratio of water to grain ratio then what I was used to but it'll still be 1 quart per lb of grain.
I love the new Blichmann mash screen!!! Even with all that extra water above the mashbed, it never clogged the flow. The 1st mash was very compacted from the 1st sparge but it flowed all the way till the bottom. It was tough breaking apart the grains to mix the new grain for the 2nd mash. All in all not a bad day for the 1st brew on this system. As you see in the last pics all five carboys were actively fermenting this morning only about 10 hours after pitching last night.