Mash Tun Size for High OG Brewing

[talllogic]

I would like to make the jump to full grain brewing and I’m unsure what size vessel I will need for my mash tun. Given:
I’m reasonably certain I will only ever brew 5 gallon batches.
I have a penchant for high ABV beers, though I brew everything.

Most of what I’ve read leads me to believe a 10 gallon mash tun is adequate. Bobby’s mash tun / OG chart mentions the limits of a 5 gallon batch in a 15 gallon mash tun.

My two questions are:
Are worts with OGs nearing 1.200 something that one can possibly turn into a good beer? Something where the grain bill would benefit from a 15 gallon mash tun. If so, I’d love to try it.
And
Is there any disadvantage to brewing normal and light OG worts in a comparably oversized mash tun?

“Everything below 10% abv is a session beer.” - Someone Else

 

[madscientist451]

Bigger isn't always better. A 15 gal vessel will take up more room to store, will be little harder to clean and be more expensive.
But......if you're thinking you'll be brewing a bunch of barleywines and similar brews, then maybe a larger mash tun would be best.
Use the calculator "can I mash it?" to determine how much tun space you'll need:

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

 

[brownni5]

1.200 OG??? Let's assume that's a typo.

One thing to remember with all grain mashing - the higher the target OG, the lower the efficiency, the more grain necessary, the larger mash vessel necessary. A 48 qt cooler mash tun should fit all "reasonable" needs for a 5 gallon batch. Too big though and you're risking greater inefficiency - too much headspace, inefficient lautering, etc.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

On OG of 1.100 will get you a beer in the 9%. Beers above 15% are quite a challenge...both to ferment and to make taste good.

I found that with my 6.5 gal lauter tun I could pull off a beer with around 15 lbs of grain, and around 1.070 OG (in the 7.5% ABV). I have to think that a 10 gal mash/lauter tun could support a very big beer.

 

[Vale71]

Are worts with OGs nearing 1.200 something that one can possibly turn into a good beer?

If you can find a yeast that will fully ferment it then yes, it will be turned to beer (if a such a beer is any good is subjective, I for one wouldn't drink it).
The bad news is that it will be really hard to succesfully ferment it, even more so at the homebrewer level.
The good news is that to have any chance of success you'll be adding a lot of refined sugars so the grist at mash time will not be so heavy as one would think based on the OG.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

On OG of 1.100 will get you a beer in the 9%. Beers above 15% are quite a challenge...both to ferment and to make taste good.

I found that with my 6.5 gal lauter tun I could pull off a beer with around 15 lbs of grain, and around 1.070 OG (in the 7.5% ABV). I have to think that a 10 gal mash/lauter tun could support a very big beer.

I found myself with biab that a 15 gallon pot for a 10 gallon batch of 5'6% beer is my limit.

 

[ba-brewer]

I would like to make the jump to full grain brewing and I’m unsure what size vessel I will need for my mash tun. Given:
I’m reasonably certain I will only ever brew 5 gallon batches.
I have a penchant for high ABV beers, though I brew everything.

Most of what I’ve read leads me to believe a 10 gallon mash tun is adequate. Bobby’s mash tun / OG chart mentions the limits of a 5 gallon batch in a 15 gallon mash tun.

My two questions are:
Are worts with OGs nearing 1.200 something that one can possibly turn into a good beer? Something where the grain bill would benefit from a 15 gallon mash tun. If so, I’d love to try it.
And
Is there any disadvantage to brewing normal and light OG worts in a comparably oversized mash tun?

“Everything below 10% abv is a session beer.” - Someone Else

Get a copy of beersmith in the mash tab it tells you the volume needed, play around with some beers you might want to brew and see what it gives you.

I don't know the specifics but if you try to mash too little grain for your mash tun you can end up with not enough grain to create a good filter and could end up with channeling and bad extraction.

On one of the brew strong shows john blichman did something they call a poly-gyle with their kettle rims. The did a mash then removed the spent grain and added more grain to get a higher gravity wort. There was not a big hit in efficiency just time.

 

[talllogic]

1.200 OG??? Let's assume that's a typo.

One thing to remember with all grain mashing - the higher the target OG, the lower the efficiency, the more grain necessary, the larger mash vessel necessary. A 48 qt cooler mash tun should fit all "reasonable" needs for a 5 gallon batch. Too big though and you're risking greater inefficiency - too much headspace, inefficient lautering, etc.

Not a typo.

On OG of 1.100 will get you a beer in the 9%. Beers above 15% are quite a challenge...both to ferment and to make taste good.

I found that with my 6.5 gal lauter tun I could pull off a beer with around 15 lbs of grain, and around 1.070 OG (in the 7.5% ABV). I have to think that a 10 gal mash/lauter tun could support a very big beer.

I am definitely interested in the challenge of brewing 15% and greater beer.

 

[brownni5]

Ok, so you want to make a ridiculous beer for some reason. There are theoretical and practical ways to get there, but I don't think a mash tun is going to be your limiting factor. Most likely, you'd be using a ton of sugar to get there, otherwise you'd end with a syrupy beer that few would enjoy. I'm picturing drinking a pint of Jagermeister. All that is if you could get the yeast to not totally crap out in an alcohol rich environment. I've heard that even WLP 099 needs a little tlc to approach it's 25% ABV ceiling.

 

[jrgtr42]

I have a 48-quart cooler converted into a mash tun. The biggest beer I've done was with 20lbs of grain, with about 25 qts strike water. I still had plenty of room for more if I wanted to - probably another 5 lbs grain with another gallon 1/2 of water.
this got me an OG after boil around 1.110, IIRC - I don't have my notes handy
Drinkability is all in the eye of the beholder, so take that how you will.
You could get to 1.200 if you really wanted to, by double mashing, and a very long boil - 3+ hours or more, to concentrate the wort as much as possible. Obviously you'd need either a bigger kettle, or multiple boils. I don't know offhand what yeast would take it that far, but maybe start with a regular yeast, then pitch a distillers yeast or something that works super high to take it down the rest of the way. Of course you probably don't want a 1.010 FG on something like this...

 

[Kickass]

Making a wag off some efficiency assumptions, you'd probably need 40-45 lbs, maybe even more, of grain to reach 1.200 og. According Green Bay Rackers, Can I Mash it Calculator, using a mash thickness of 1.25 qt to lb ratio, here are a few figures that might get you in the ballpark of a 1.200 og:

40lbs of grain requires 15.7 gal capacity
45lbs = 17.7gal
50lbs = 19.6gal

Again these are just assumptions.

Now the bigger point of caution in regards to "Are worts with OGs nearing 1.200 something that one can possibly turn into a good beer?"

In my opinion, no.

Can you ferment a source/sources of sugar with beer yeast to get alcohol that started at 1.200og?

Yes. however, I'd be surprised if it resembled beer in the traditional sense that most people think of. That being said, try it. You might discover something you enjoy, which is all that matters. I certainly wouldn't build my system around the idea of regularly cranking out 1.200og beers though.

 

[bobeer]

I got a 5.5 gallon cooler on sale for around $26 back when I made the switch to all grain brewing. I quickly regretted my decision to save money rather than just get a 10 gallon cooler. I brewed for years on the 5.5 gallon mlt and found 12 lbs of grain was the max I could do. I couldn't even put the lid on it at 12 lbs.
I now bit the bullet and got a 10 gallon mlt and there's plenty of room for big beers. I usually keep my beer between 6-8% abv and only come just over half way filled in the mlt. I'd say my average grist bill is 14 lbs or so.