Mash/Lauter Tun Volumes

[Wallachia]

Hey all,

I'm planning a brew for this weekend, and I'm running up against a problem with calculations, trying to iron it out so I dont have any surprises come this weekend.

At the moment, my equipment mostly consists of two 10 gallon Bayou Classic kettles. These kettles have a valve at the bottom, but the liquid space under these valves is about 1 full gallon (!) of dead space

This is a big beer using about 19 lb of grain for a 5.5g brew. According to the calculations I did using Beersmith 2, I'm going to need a 10.54 gallon volume (6.78 gallons at 166F, 2.31 gal at 207F for mash out, sparge with 0.64 gallons of water), which is well over the capacity of my kettles.

None of this quite seems right, can anyone provide any guidance? I'm willing to buy equipment if I need to, but the numbers don't seem quite right here. I've done a few all-grain brews, but nothing that stretched my equipment volumes out in any way.

 

[beermanpete]

You could skip the mash-out, or add what will fit and then begin sparging. Also, consider using a bit less water for the mash. 6.78 gals in 19 lbs is 1.4 qts per pound. Depending on style and efficiency goals you can mash down to about 1.25 qts/lbs which would be 5.9 gals for 19 lbs. Another option is to use less grain and add some malt extract to the boil to make up the difference.

 

[kevin58]

What mash method are you using? If you are batch sparging... or even fly sparging... you are not going to have all of that volume in the mash tun at the same time.

 

[Wallachia]

What mash method are you using? If you are batch sparging... or even fly sparging... you are not going to have all of that volume in the mash tun at the same time.

That's a fine question, and I'm pretty flexible on that -- Up until this point, I was honestly just doing No Sparge brewing, and increasing my grain bill a little to compensate for the terrible efficiency.

That's not gonna do it here just due to the volumes involved.

So for a 1.25 quarts per pound, I'll end up with about 5.79 gallons of strike water
Should I skip the mash out and just do the rest entirely as sparge water?
I do not have a sparge arm or a system to make that work, gravity or otherwise, but I can do a "colander sparge" with a pitcher if necessary.

 

[beermanpete]

At this point a review of your recipe and target gravity is in order. 19 pounds of grain will yield a very big beer if the efficiency is decent and the batch volume is 5 gallons. Please provide the recipe details so we can help you sort this out.

 

[eric19312]

Read up on batch sparging.

Also I’m worried about your valve description. Do you have a false bottom on your mash kettle? Or are you just draining out the side? BIAB?

If no false bottom in the mash kettle and you can get a bag I’d do BIAB in kettle 1 at about 1.25 qt/pound then do a dunk starve in kettle 2 with rest of the water and come MBA be the kettles for the boil.

If you have a false bottom get a dip tube so you are not leaving 1 gallon in kettle below the valve and do a batch sparge.

 

[Wallachia]

Read up on batch sparging.

Also I’m worried about your valve description. Do you have a false bottom on your mash kettle? Or are you just draining out the side? BIAB?

Just draining out the side -- using a bazooka tube that screws into it to keep out grainbed and sediment

 

[beermanpete]

Perhaps these will help:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=123585

https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml