I've been searching and haven't been able to come up with a conclusive answer. A lot of the partial mash recipes I come across with using the "partial mash tun" use only 4-6lbs of grain, since I have a 5gal igloo cooler I just picked up my question is can I mash as much grain as I can as long I don't surpass my boil kettle capacity?? I only have a 5gal kettle and am still stuck to the stove top but I can get 4gal of wort boiling fairly easy. Thanks for your time
Grain limitations with partial mash
- Thread starter BigBrew54
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Yes, you can partial mash as much grain as you can fit in the tun and collect as much runnings as possible.
Its quite possible you could work it to where you only needed a couple pounds of DME to get you to the O.G., plus a gallon of top off water to bring you to 5 gallons.
Its quite possible you could work it to where you only needed a couple pounds of DME to get you to the O.G., plus a gallon of top off water to bring you to 5 gallons.
Thanks for the help, I had checked out the mash calculator before but now have a better understanding on how to apply it to my situation. I'm slowly working my way up to all grain, saving up for a nice 10gal kettle so I can make the full move to AG. Again thanks for the replies
You're going to be limited by the amount of wort that you can boil.
With a 5g mLT and a thick mash (1 qt per lb), you should be able to mash about 15 lb grains. However, you won't be able to sparge it effectively if you are limited to collecting about 4g wort.
I would guesstimate that you could mash about 7 lb grain if you have good efficiency (> 80%) without exceeding your maximum wort capacity.
There's no point in mashing more grains if you can't extract the fermentables from those grains because of a maximum wort volume limitation.
-a.
With a 5g mLT and a thick mash (1 qt per lb), you should be able to mash about 15 lb grains. However, you won't be able to sparge it effectively if you are limited to collecting about 4g wort.
I would guesstimate that you could mash about 7 lb grain if you have good efficiency (> 80%) without exceeding your maximum wort capacity.
There's no point in mashing more grains if you can't extract the fermentables from those grains because of a maximum wort volume limitation.
-a.
Yep. You pot is the limitation here. Your just not going to be able to sparge enough in to the boil kettle.
You could say EF' it and just boil the first runnings and see how much top off water you need to add based on your pre-boil gravity...
You could say EF' it and just boil the first runnings and see how much top off water you need to add based on your pre-boil gravity...
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Its quite possible you could do some interesting partiglye brews too. lots of grain, super thick mash...
then use the second runnings for a lighter session beer (or only make a 3 gallon batch with no topoff).
There's no rule that a recipe HAS to be 5 gallons. In cold winters I'll sometimes do a 3 gallon stove top all grain batch, split between two 2 gallon stock pots, recombined to give me 3gal in primary. That way I still get a full case of beer or a solid half keg.
then use the second runnings for a lighter session beer (or only make a 3 gallon batch with no topoff).
There's no rule that a recipe HAS to be 5 gallons. In cold winters I'll sometimes do a 3 gallon stove top all grain batch, split between two 2 gallon stock pots, recombined to give me 3gal in primary. That way I still get a full case of beer or a solid half keg.
