Water volume mash & sparge question

[chezhed]

Going to try to move up to a 10 gal batch from my normal 6 since I got a new 15 gal brew pot. But my HLT has a capacity restraint and it's only 9 gal. One of my recipes is calling for 8 gal mash and 10 gal sparge. My mash tun is big enough however.
So what happens if I go with a thinner mash with increased water and a lesser sparge volume? What might I expect from doing this? I've never varied this much from Beersmith plan.

 

[Yooper]

What's your grainbill, and your boil volume? I start with a 12 gallon boil size, for a 10 gallon batch. That means I use 15-16 gallons of water, max, for a 10 gallon batch.

 

[whis121surfing]

Why not add water to your HLT once the lautering process has begun? Heat water on your stove check temp and add to HLT mid process.

 

[chezhed]

grain bill is 26.5 lbs. I usually boil off 2+ gal in 90 minutes on a 6 gal batch.
I'm not worried about the volume in total, just wondering if there is an effect of a thin mash vs a thick mash, ie, drier, sweeter, etc.

Heating water on the stove is not an option. My setup is three tiered outdoor with 2 burners...one for HLT and one for boil.

 

[Yooper]

Why not add water to your HLT once the lautering process has begun? Heat water on your stove check temp and add to HLT mid process.

Actually, you can refill your HLT as you mash in. Then you have 9 gallons to sparge with. I actually can't imagine needed more than about 6 gallons for sparging, no matter what, if your boil volume is 12ish gallons.

 

[chezhed]

Actually, you can refill your HLT as you mash in. Then you have 9 gallons to sparge with. I actually can't imagine needed more than about 6 gallons for sparging, no matter what, if your boil volume is 12ish gallons.

I'm not following you..but I just noticed an error in my recipe...I only need 8+ gal for mash and sparge to get 13+ gal boil volume. My mash tun has a fairly large dead space loss below the drain of .5+ gal so 16 gal of water is what gets calculated for requirements.

But, my question is still....does altering mash thickness affect taste? Guess I should have just asked that, eh?

 

[hafmpty]

To answer your question of whether a thinner/thicker mash will do anything to your beer...the short answer is no...not really. The BIAB guys go upwards of 4qts of water per pound of grain. Some traditional all grain brewers go really thick down to 1qts per pound of grain and then add water over the course of their mash to step mash up to different rest temperatures. It's not really going to affect your beer. Temperature more than anything will do that, and even that's not a huge deal as long as you're in the 148-158 range. The only reason I know this is from the Brew Strong episodes that I've been listening to.

 

[ajf]

Why not add water to your HLT once the lautering process has begun? Heat water on your stove check temp and add to HLT mid process.

I have the same problem as the OP, and this is exactly what I do. It works fine.

-a.