How big is your mash tun ?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

brewman !

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
2,131
Reaction score
236
How big is your mash tun volume, how big is your primary fermentor and what beers are you brewing ? How much water are you putting in your mash ? How deep is your grain bed ?

I brew 6.5 gallon (primary fermentor volume) batches. I'm using a small rectangular cooler and its too small. How big should my mash tun be, volume wise ?

Thanks.
 
I brew 5 1/2 to 5 gallon batches. I use a 10 gallon Rubbermaid round mash/Lauter tun. It has more than enough volume for the type of brewing I do. I did a batch yesterday that contained 12 pounds of grain and it was a tad over half full. I'm pretty sure I could mash over 20 pounds in it.

I ferment in 6 1/2 gallon carboys with a blow off tube for primary.
 
I recently built a new one when I found I maxed it out at 35lbs of grain.

I do 10 gallon batches and like really big beers sometimes.

I now use a 70 quart and I estimate it will hold a full 50 pound grain bill.

Cheers,

knewshound
 
What kind of beer needed 12 pounds of grains ? How much water did you add to the 12 pounds of grain ?

Is that the fullest you've ever gotten your Gott ? I've always had the feeling a 10 gallons mash vessel is overkill for a 6 gallon primary. Am I right ?

Thanks.
 
Nah, not at all. I have a 9 gallon Coleman Xtreme, probably two-thirds full on my last mash (about fourteen pounds of grain). I could see myself making something even bigger, so a little extra room was good.
 
brewman ! said:
What kind of beer needed 12 pounds of grains ? How much water did you add to the 12 pounds of grain ?

Is that the fullest you've ever gotten your Gott ? I've always had the feeling a 10 gallons mash vessel is overkill for a 6 gallon primary. Am I right ?

Thanks.
I brewed a Robust Porter and I actually got about 6 1/4 gallons into the fermenter with an OG of 1.055. The most grain I've ever mashed in mine is about 13 1/2 pounds.
You are correct that the 10 gallon cooler is big for most 5 or 6 gallon batches but a 5 gallon cooler wouldn't be big enough for big brews.
 
My mash tun is a 5 gallon round rubbermaid cooler
https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=143&c=1&userid=1766

I've mashed a total of 14 lbs in it.

I usually do 5.5 gallon brews but have done 3 to 6 gallons before (3 gallons for very strong brews where I'll still mash 12+ lbs for 3 gallons)

The highest OG I've achieved with the mash tun at a 5.5 gallon brew is 1.073 (14 lbs of grain)

I usually collect between 7 and 9 gallons of wort (The 9 again on the 14 lbs)

-edit-

I'm making my barleywine for this year in a couple days and it's going to use 13.5 lbs for 3 gallons (OG ~1.12)
 
I also have 5 g rubbermaid cooler and use it for 5-5.5 g brews. I ususlay try to collect 6-7g of word and boil it down to requied volume. My total water usage is about 9g for this kind of mash. Max I mashed in this cooler was 12 lbs of grain. Grain bed with 10 lbs mash is about 20 santimeters deep. I noticed great improvement for runnings clarity comare to PM with ~5 pounds of grain I had been doing before all grain.
 
I have a 48 quart Igloo Cube and most of my batches are in the 10-13 pounds range. I could probably go up to 35 pounds without a problem. Grain bed depth isn't a consideration, because I batch sparge.

My fermenters are all 7 gallon buckets.
 
I have a 10 gallon igloo round cooler, and use it to make 10 gallon batches. I maxed it out the other day and used about 28 lbs of grain. That is enough to make a fairly big 10 gallon beer.
 
Hermish said:
I have a 10 gallon igloo round cooler, and use it to make 10 gallon batches. I maxed it out the other day and used about 28 lbs of grain. That is enough to make a fairly big 10 gallon beer.

It sounds to me like a 10 gallon mash vessel will make enough wort for 12 gallons of a lighter beer, 10 gallons of a regular/heavier beer and 6 gallons of a really heavy beer. Is that about right ?

28 pounds of grain for a double batch would be 14 pounds per 6 gallons. With a capture of 30 points per pound (optimistic ?), that would give 14 x 30/ 6 = 1.070 Is my math right ?

I think I'm going to use a 10 gallon Gott for my mash tun. My boiling kettle and hot water kettle are both Sanke kegs.

At first I wasn't worried about doing double batches (2 x 6 gallon into the primary) but then I told my buddy what I was up to and he wants to brew with me. It would be nice if we could each get a 6 gallon carboy full of wort.

And then there are brews that I will probably have to do double batches of. Seems the word has gotten out that I might be brewing again and the requests are starting to pile up. I don't even have my brew rig running yet !
 
52 qt MT, using about 22lbs of grain with a depth of about 10 inches. (coleman xtreme - sweet)
My HLT is a 36 qt cooler and my brew kettle is a sabco keggle (15.5 G).
I wanted to make 10-12 G (20-22 lbs of grain) in a 36qt MT..but it was too small - so am using that cooler as a HLT.
I make about 11-12 G for bottling. My main fermentor is a homemade pastic rectangular bucket -about 14 G..and I have several 5 and 6.5 g glass carboys.

Cheers.
 
60 qt Ice Cube cooler mash tun - capable of 40+ lbs of grain
21 gallon fermenter
15 gallon batches

Use roughly 10-12 gallons in the mash. Brew ales, mostly mild and on the darker side. Getting into some other styles like Belgian White.
 
Back
Top