How do i improve my system?

[bracconiere]

Kay thnks.. Do you do 10 gallon batches with a 10 gallon cooler ? Or is a bigger cooler required for 10 gal batches?

Well I was wondering that if I ever upgrade my bk to 15 gallons if I would be capable to do 10 gallon batches with 10 gal Mash tun..
But @csantoni kind of answered my question when saying that a 5 gal Mash tun is good for 5 gallon batches.. That is with beers under 1060..

i brew 10 gallon batches, 15 gallon pot, and 10 gallon cooler....i can actually get OG of ~1.070 with the cooler. 20 to 23lbs of malt.

 

[csantoni]

i brew 10 gallon batches, 15 gallon pot, and 10 gallon cooler....i can actually get OG of ~1.070 with the cooler. 20 to 23lbs of malt.

So this is, IMO, the one area where chasing higher efficiency matters. You basically have two choices: 1. Oversize your MLT (10g for 5g batch, 15g for 10g, ...) and don't worry about your efficiency because you can always buy more grain. or 2. Understand you are size constrained and make sure your process is as efficient as possible.

I know @bracconiere goes for as high efficiency as possible so he can get a higher max OG from his system. I'm not quite there yet, but I'll be doing sort of the same thing. Since I don't brew much of anything above 1.055 it's not a big deal for me. What's more important than any of this though is having a repeatable process. If your efficiency is different for every batch then it's going to be hard to know exactly how much grain you need to hit your targets. High efficiency is a good thing, but repeatable, consistent process is better.

 

[bracconiere]

i would point out, that's with store bought malt. with my homemalt i usually get ~1.057 or so with 20lbs...for the record.....80% still isn't bad....but it's not 90!