Equipment dilemma

[arborman]

I bought the Blichman top tier system about 6 months ago. My current set up is this:

15 gallon boil kettle
10 gallon HLT
10 gallon igloo MLT
one pump to send water to HLT, and to whirlpool

I really cannot do 10 gallon batches with this set up. I made the very stupid mistake of buying a 15 gallon kettle when I should have gotten the 20 gallon.

I want to move up to 10 gallon batches, but the set up I am using will not allow for that. So, I was thinking I would order a new cooler mash tun, a square 60 quart cooler (15 gallon). But, my kettle is still going to be pretty small for most 10 gallon batches. I have an recipe entered in beer smith and it shows I will have a pre boil volume of 14.2 gallons. Seems a bit high!

Not sure where I should be going with this.... My thoughts are:

Use my 15 gallon kettle as my mash tun, but will now need to get another burner for the mash... Then, buy a new 20 gallon pot. Or, stick with the 15 gallon kettle and the new 15 gallon cooler as my mash tun and deal with super full boils.

I wanted to throw my money into a new conical, but now wondering if I need to sort out this issue first. What do you all think?

 

[bja]

I did 10 gal batches in a 15 gal pot for a couple years before buying a 20 gal. Yeah, it's full, but if you use the foam control drops it eliminates boil overs.

 

[grathan]

I would just buy a cooler. 14.2 pre-boil does seem high. Must be trub loss or big boil off? If it's boil off you could lower that setting and always add a gallon at chill time top off.