Too much grain!

[jerrylotto]

I have a stout recipe that I want to brew but the grain bill is more than 23# for 7.5 gal preboil volume. My 10 gal mash and boil would flow over if I tried to mash this all at once. I also have a 10 gal passive mash tun that could work but again, very little overhead space for sparging. I'm thinking about mixing the grains well when dry and then dividing them in half - basically mashing twice at half volume and combining the results. I'm fine with the volume once I get to the boil stage. Any other ideas or opinions of the best way to handle this?

 

[dwhite60]

Sounds like you have a plan. Go for it.

 

[CJ-3]

Agreed. You have the plan, it will work

 

[sibelman]

Jerry,

Sorry to be obvious, but you could mash once (as much as works in your rig) and add extract to the boil to make up the difference.

Cheers.

 

[bracconiere]

i mash 23#'s in my 10 gallon cooler for a pre-boil of 14 gallons? you're not going to get as good effec with a bill like that for a 5 gallon batch no matter how you sparge. unless you want to double the boil down, before adding hops?

 

[RePete]

You could substitute a couple lbs of DME for some of the grain?

I did a RIS in my 35L Robobrew, and it was kinda nerve racking. I hit numbers, but am not sure I would do it again. It was close to that much grain, in a 9 gallon unit. Next time I will just add some DME.

 

[ejf063]

If you're worried about efficiency, after you pull the wort from the first mash, you can mash the second round with that first round's wort. That'll up your efficiency and give you a gigantic stout.

 

[Klinzai]

You can do an "iterative mash". Mash half the grain then pull the sent grain from the wort and mash again with the second half of the grain bill. Many folks ,mash low the first half for fermentabilty then high the second half for body depending on style.

 

[jerrylotto]

Thanks for the advice. I've brewed this recipe before at 50% capacity and got 87% brewhouse efficiency, hitting my target OG (1,129) exactly so I don't see the need to do an iterative mash and since I have two mash tuns anyway, I can do them in parallel in the same amount of time. I am curious how you calculate strike volumes for the second or future steps in an iterative mash though. I'm guessing that you would mash and sparge the first half of the grain normally at 50% of the water you would have used for the whole thing, then measure a strike volume of the resulting wort to mash stage 2, sparging with one additional sparge volume of water. Ultimately, you would use about 30% less water that way.