REAL needed Mash tun sizes?

[andy6026]

I'm having a lot of trouble with these calculators and formulas for necessary mash tun sizes that I'm seeing online, partly because they're not directly answering the specific question I have, and partly because it seems that my real life experience contradicts what they are saying. Perhaps someone can help me out.

Here's my situation:

I need to figure out how big of a mash tun I need to comfortably batch sparge (doing a single sparge rather than multiple sparges) 10 gallon batches. Theoretically I'm probably going to be mashing batches that have grain bills of up to 24 lbs.

Here's the difficulties I've been having:

1) The online 'can I mash it' calculators seem to be only concerned with the size of the grain bill and the strike water. However, even if the water bill is split in half, the sparge takes up a lot more room because the grains are already saturated.

3) The claim I've read that 1 lb of saturated grain takes up 0.33 quarts of space in a mashtun doesn't seem to fit my real world experience. If it did I'd be able to sparge 20+ lbs of grain in a 48 quart cooler-style mash tun. But I can't... I end up with leftover water once the cooler is full at the sparge stage, and then have to sparge twice. I've tried cramming as much of my water bill as possible into the 'strike water stage' in order to lessen the sparge volume, but I still end up with having to sparge twice.

Does anyone have the faintest idea on how to calculate, for real, how big of a mashtun I need? I have the choice between a 70 qrt and 100 qrt cooler to build a new tun and there's a HUGE price difference. Some math widardry would really help!

 

[govner1]

I’d say at least a 15g tun. You need to account for dead space, too. Some tuns like Bayou Classic have quite a large dead space where Blichmann and others are minimal.
I do 6g batches and use a 15g tun. Of course my last brew (Imperial Stout)had almost 30 lbs of grain. I really needed the space then.
Depending on your future brewing plans you might be better off with a 20g tun.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I use a 20 gallon kettle as a mash tun and it can handle about 40 pounds at 1.25. I have 2 gallons of space below the false bottom. Cheers

 

[mongoose33]

I have a 12-gallon Igloo Cube cooler in which I do 5-gallon batches. I've used up to 8.25 gallons of water (single-infusion, no sparging) with a 14# grain bill, and I end up about maybe 2 inches from the top of the cooler. I end up with about 10 gallons of mash.

If you were doing single-infusion, then a 20-gallon mash tun would be the upper limit. Since you're sparging, and assuming splitting the water in half....if mine were split in half, I'd have a shade over 6 gallons of mash. Double that for a 10-gallon batch and you're at 12 gallons of mash.

So @govner1 has it about right, I think, if you're sparging. A 15-gallon tun should work.

 

[Staticsouls]

I use an inverted keg for a bottom drain and have comfortably mashed 30lbs in it.

 

[hottpeper13]

I use a 15 gal (60qt) Coleman Extreme cooler. It has a trough where the bazooka screen is so there is 0 dead space. Also have 15 gal boil kettle and HLT. I've never twice sparged for 11 gal (13.5 gal pre boil) batches of up to 1.060 wort. It's to big for 6 gal batches so I do BIAB for those. I have a theroy that all three vessels should be the same size,and most would say 20 gal for 10 gal batches to prevent the dreaded boil over,but using an induction burner those aren't a problem.

 

[andy6026]

hottpeper13, that's exactly the info I was looking for. Thank you very very much!

 

[seatazzz]

My tun is a re-purposed 16g blue extract barrel with a bulkhead, a bazooka, and also a false bottom. Maybe overkill but I also use a big mash bag as well. I can do 30lbs of grain in it, no problem. I also wrap it with an old windshield sunscreen (cheap anywhere) to help hold in the heat, and lose maybe 1-2 degrees in a 60 minute mash with recirculating. Easy to keep clean, not too heavy, and some fantastic beers have come out of it.