Size of grain bill limited by BK volume

[normonster]

To what extent does the volume of one's boil kettle limit the grain bill they can use?

It seems that when I take into consideration all of the wort losses in my system and my maximum boil volume that I am more limited than I thought I would have been with 15 gallon kettles.

For example,

If I start with a grain bill of 19lbs and go with 3qts/lb total combined strike and sparge water, that makes a total of 14.25 gallons through the mash less .5 gallons to pump/line loss for a preboil volume of 13.75 gallons.

That would be about the max I'd want to boil. I suppose some would be lost to grain absorption but it still seems like my BK is a limiting factor in terms of total grain bill size. If I added grain, in order to maintain efficiency, I'd need to also add water, correct?

Any input?

 

[giraffe]

But you dont have to add it all to your brew kettle at once. You can boil what you can fit in your brew kettle down for two hours, then add 2 to 3 gallons more wort, that you collect in a secondary vessel.

You can also add more grain and sparge with less water per lb, but that will hurt efficiency, but you will probably end up with more gravity in total.

 

[Yooper]

I just sparge up to my boil volume (12 gallons usually). There is a small loss of efficiency in big beers, but not all that much. There really isn't any reason to sparge to the max to maximize efficiency, because then you spend the $$$ you saved on gas to boil off all of the excess liquid.

For 10 gallon batches, I start with 12 gallons of wort unless I'm boiling for 90 minutes and then I start with 12.5. The factor that limits the amount of grain I use is the MLT, and not the boil kettle. It doesn't matter if I start with 10 pounds of grain, or with 30 pounds of grain- my starting boil volume is 12 gallons for a 10 gallon batch.