Kettle size for 10 gallons

[NicoleBrewer]

I currently do 5 gallon batches with an 8 gallon stainless steel mash tun and a 15 gallon stainless steel boil kettle. I also have a third 8 gallon stainless steel pot to collect the runnings. To do 10 gallon batches how big of a boil kettle would I need or could I somehow work with what I have to finagle it?


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[rekoob]

Your 15 gal kettle will do it but I don't think your MT will be large enough if your planning on doing AG.
I suppose you could BIAG or move stuff around in your set up and make things work.

 

[NicoleBrewer]

Well I do all grain and I batch sparge. I was thinking of using the 15 gallon as a mash tun, collect the runnings in smaller pots then cleaning the MT out and using it to boil as well. Just seems like a huge pain in the ass. Plus I'd have to keep filling a small pot for strike water. Plus I'm not all that strong so cleaning out a hot mash tun would not be easy for me! I'm also worried about boiling over on just a 15 gallon. So would it be best to invest in a 20 or 25 gallon pot and use the 15 gallon as my mash tun? Or am I making it way more complicated than it has to be?


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[charliehorse]

It sounds like you're over complicating things.An 8 gallon pot should be (may be) fine for strike water and as a mash tun, as long as you're not doing anything too big. When you want to start doing the bigger beers, you're going to need some bigger equipment (at least for your mash tun). For instance, my recipe for Kolsch is a fairly small beer and it takes 8.25 lb of Pilsner and half a pound of Vienna for a 5 gallon batch. So for a 10 gallon batch, you're using 17.5 lbs of grain. Your mash would have 26 quarts (4.2 gallons) of water. This means your mash tun would be pretty full. And this is only a 5% beer!

 

[b-boy]

I've been doing 10 gallon batches lately. I tried doing the pot-switching thing, and it is a pain in the butt.

I've settled on a 15 gallon pot with a 10-gallon pot for my strike water.