Thicker Mash

[BigTerp]

Working on a Bell's Two Hearted Ale clone and with 26#'s of grain at 1.25qts/# I'm going to overflow my 10 gallon cooler mash tun. What's the lowest reasonable water/grain ratio I can safely go to in order to get all of this to fit in my tun? If I adjust my mash profile in Beersmith to 1.15qts/# it knocks my mash water needed down over a half gallon. Thinking that will be enough to keep my tun from overflowing.

And with a thicker mash, should I mash longer than the standard 60 minutes?

 

[blizz81]

And with a thicker mash, should I mash longer than the standard 60 minutes?

I would, yeah.


Could always get some of those fermentables via DME, right? If you're close to capacity.


If you find yourself right up against the lip, you can run some wort off, let the mash settle and absorb a bit, and then pour the liquid back in.

 

[pdxal]

The "Can I mash it?" tool should help you figure out how much volume your mash will take up in the future.

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

 

[RM-MN]

Got a spare pot? Do part of your mash in that. Use a higher water to grain ratio as that will convert a little faster which coupled with the less heat loss per hour from the higher amount of water should get you close to the same conversion as what you have in the cooler. Once you start draining the first runnings, add the wort and grains from the extra pot so that you can vorlauf and combine the two.

 

[hottpeper13]

Those are good ideas,I also do decoction mashes to get to mashout when the cooler is maxed out.

 

[BigTerp]

Thanks for the ideas. Some good ones for sure. I use Bobby M's "How much will my mash tun hold" thread to figure what I can do. Even knowing it wouldn't all fit, I still plan to do 10 gallons. Thinking the easiest solution is just to mash thicker. Just need to make sure doing a mash as thick as 1.10-1.15qts/# will be OK. If not, I'll resort to one of the ideas you guys posted.