Making a big beer in a five gallon mash?

[Hopperman75]

I want to hit a 1.080 OG out of five gallon mash tun. Recipe is calling for 15lbs of grain. Can this be done with a small mash tun? Has anyone brewed a big beer with small mash tun? Thanks

 

[HomeBrewMasterRace]

I'd use extract to bring up the gravity. If your mash tun is only 5 gallons, you may have a difficult time. I use a 10 gallon cooler and 12lbs of grain with water fill it 3/4 of the way to the top

What type of beer are you making?

 

[Hopperman75]

I'd use extract to bring up the gravity. If your mash tun is only 5 gallons, you may have a difficult time. I use a 10 gallon cooler and 12lbs of grain with water fill it 3/4 of the way to the top

What type of beer are you making?

Imperial IPA. I built the recipe to hit 1.081 with an ABV of 8.1% and 81 ibu’s

 

[divrack]

I want to hit a 1.080 OG out of five gallon mash tun. Recipe is calling for 15lbs of grain. Can this be done with a small mash tun? Has anyone brewed a big beer with small mash tun? Thanks

Are you asking if you can fit 15lbs into a 5g space plus water to mash then the answer is yes but with difficulty. I can get about 12kg in 30ltr so I think that's about the same thing. Key is to put the water in first, about half full, I find 82c water poured into a cold cooler will mix up into something close to medium body mash temp. Usually a bit high but can be cooled down.
Mix most of the the grain in stir and add water as needed and grain again, sir and check temp. You have little room for error so accurate strike water temp is key.
Take first runnings and then hopefully you get your volume before the gravity goes too low. If it does you can always boil longer or add sugar. Both options will change the brew. Otherwise just stop sparge earlier and go with a smaller volume

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

https://www.brewhardware.com/category_s/1919.htm

This link is very useful although the graphic chart isnt showing up for me...

 

[archthered]

I haven't tried your particular set up but I think it should work and ApolloSimicoe's link suggests it should as well. I made a Russian Imperial Stout with an ABV of 14% in a 10 gal cooler and based on my experience with that you should be able to get yours to work but keep in mind it may be a bit tricky compared to other batches.

You will probably have a pretty thick mash, and pray you don't get a stuck sparge. I reccomend being flexible about the recipe. For example if the amount of water you planned to add doesn't seem like it will fit don't add it, just sparge with a bit more, also in my case I held back some of the base malt (two row in my case) to see if it would all fit, if it doesn't you can add sugar to the boil to get your OG. Keep that trick in mind even if it does fit because you can use that if your numbers are off at the end of the mash. In my experience you can often add sugar to a big beer without severly impacting flavor. I would just make sure you take good notes so if you make on the fly modifications like I'm suggesting you know for next time just how much grain and water will actually fit.

 

[Hopperman75]

I haven't tried your particular set up but I think it should work and ApolloSimicoe's link suggests it should as well. I made a Russian Imperial Stout with an ABV of 14% in a 10 gal cooler and based on my experience with that you should be able to get yours to work but keep in mind it may be a bit tricky compared to other batches.

You will probably have a pretty thick mash, and pray you don't get a stuck sparge. I reccomend being flexible about the recipe. For example if the amount of water you planned to add doesn't seem like it will fit don't add it, just sparge with a bit more, also in my case I held back some of the base malt (two row in my case) to see if it would all fit, if it doesn't you can add sugar to the boil to get your OG. Keep that trick in mind even if it does fit because you can use that if your numbers are off at the end of the mash. In my experience you can often add sugar to a big beer without severly impacting flavor. I would just make sure you take good notes so if you make on the fly modifications like I'm suggesting you know for next time just how much grain and water will actually fit.

Will do. Thanks for the suggestion

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

I've done 15 pounds of grain in my 5 gallon cooler using 1 qt/pound. It's hard to get the desired efficiency. From my experience you'll never get to 1.081. You are going to need to add some amount of DME to reach that goal. I added 2 pounds of corn sugar and I only made it to 1.072.

The recipe is up on my website: https://brewingaroundtherealm.com/d...h-citra-simcoe-ekuanot-centennial-and-wlp095/

The entire brew day video is here: If you would like to see what happens when you add that much grain to a 5 gallon cooler.

 

[tennesseean_87]

I used to mash in a 6 gallon bucket and made big beers. Getting good efficiency helps (less grain to hit your gravity), and in your case maybe using some sugar to keep the beer dry (IPAs are supposed to be dry, right?) will help. If not, use DME.

When things got really full, I'd do a partial decoction to hit my mash-out temps. I'd pull some of the mash and add it to boiling water that wasn't enough for an infusion step, then return to a boil and add back to the MT to hit 170.

I've found this useful for seeing if it will fit and for strike temps: https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

[JimRausch]

I agree with most of the previous posts. I have a 5G denny-style cooler as my main mashtun. More than 13 lbs, the mash gets real thick and efficiency drops down to 55-60%. Which is why I got a 10G cooler and set it up as my 'large grain bill' mashtun. Another thing I've done, which you might consider is split the grain bill in two. Mash each separately and combine. Or, use the 1st runnings of the 1st mash as your strike liquor for the 2nd mash. Did that once on a high gravity barley wine. It did work, but doubles your mash time. It has some german name which I forget. I thought I made it up.......

 

[davidabcd]

Imperial IPA. I built the recipe to hit 1.081 with an ABV of 8.1% and 81 ibu’s

I like it: 81. Adds mystique and artistry to your brew at the same time. Layers upon layers. I'd guess you'll probably be able to taste the attention to detail. Standing O. Sorry I don't have advice for your all grain.
Godspeed.

 

[RM-MN]

A recipe is a record of what someone else did. Their mash efficiency might not have been the same as yours so you might need more or less grain to get the same OG. I'd try hard to get better efficiency so I could use less grain and then it would fit the cooler better. The main factor in mash efficiency it the crush of the grain with finer crushes giving higher efficiency but the limit on that is the stuck mash or sparge. Adding rice hulls to the mash can help and won't take up much space but if you line the cooler with a fine mesh cloth you can crush even finer without worrying about the stuck mash as if it won't drain you can lift up on the bag to expose more filter area.

 

[Sadu]

I was listening to Jamil Zainasheff's podcast the other day and he was talking about poly-gyle brewing. Mash some grains, and get a normal gravity wort, then add that wort to fresh grains and mash again to get a double-gravity wort. Apparently they weren't getting any efficiency issues with this. I haven't tried it but sounded like a good way to brew big beers in a small mash tun, which is exactly what you are asking.

 

[Hopperman75]

So here’s the follow up from the brew day. I missed the 1.081 that I was shooting for. I thought I could hit 1.081 if I boiled longer. So sense I had 81 as my theme style beer I went ahead and mashed for 81 minutes and boiled for 81 minutes. I hit 1.092!!! My boil was pretty aggressive and finished with approximately 4.5gals. Next time I’m going to use a softer boil. Going to be interesting.