Hot Water Tank 2x size of Mash Tun?

[hardrain]

Doing some looking around and noticed one system for sale that has a HLT 2x bigger than the mash tun. I've seen plenty of systems that have their fermenters 2x their mash tun, but I'm unsure of what the reason is behind having your water tank 2x. Anyone?

Thanks!

 

[bja]

There's no reason not too.

 

[hardrain]

Can't argue. Although what's a scenario where you would heat more water than you could fit into your tun? The only thing I can think is if you want to boil your first mash and sparge water at the same time, but you'd have to wait a for conversion before you could drain and sparge..at which point you'd probably have to reheat whatever was sitting in the hot water tank for sparge...seems like an inefficient use of fuel.

I've not worked with professional equipment so there's very likely some processes I'm unaware of.

 

[maida7]

Are we talking big commercial brewing systems or small scale home brew systems? In home brew it's not necessary. In a commercial brewery you want lots of hot water at all times so you can keep brewing without interruption. So a really big HLT is probably helpful.

 

[maida7]

Can't argue. Although what's a scenario where you would heat more water than you could fit into your tun? The only thing I can think is if you want to boil your first mash and sparge water at the same time, but you'd have to wait a for conversion before you could drain and sparge..at which point you'd probably have to reheat whatever was sitting in the hot water tank for sparge...seems like an inefficient use of fuel.

I've not worked with professional equipment so there's very likely some processes I'm unaware of.

The tanks are insulated. Another thing pro brewerys will do is take the hot runoff from the heat exchanger (wort chiller) and send it to the HLT. This could be a lot of water.

 

[hardrain]

Are we talking big commercial brewing systems or small scale home brew systems? In home brew it's not necessary. In a commercial brewery you want lots of hot water at all times so you can keep brewing without interruption. So a really big HLT is probably helpful.

Thanks, makes sense. I'm talking about a ~5 bbl system (with a 10 bbl HLT). Like the wort chiller idea, in terms of keeping some of that water and heat.