1/2BBL size issue

[BucksBrewer]

I have a 30Gal Spike System and 1/2 SS Brewtech Unitank. I want to brew a BIG winter warmer; somewhere in the 11-13% range. But from all my calculations, in order to get an ABV that high, I'd have to use somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+ lbs of grains. From what I'm seeing, either I won't have enough mash and sparge water to handle it, or if I do I'll be yielding almost 30 gallons into my boil kettle, which means I'll be wasting half of it when it goes in the 15gal fermenter. Is that right, or am I missing something?

 

[eric19312]

I have a 30Gal Spike System and 1/2 SS Brewtech Unitank. I want to brew a BIG winter warmer; somewhere in the 11-13% range. But from all my calculations, in order to get an ABV that high, I'd have to use somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+ lbs of grains. From what I'm seeing, either I won't have enough mash and sparge water to handle it, or if I do I'll be yielding almost 30 gallons into my boil kettle, which means I'll be wasting half of it when it goes in the 15gal fermenter. Is that right, or am I missing something?

Can't be right. I brew batches with 30-35 pounds of grain in my 15 gallon mash tun all the time. Just figure out capacity of your mash tun, then start out at 1.5 qt/lb water to grain ratio, and reduce it a bit at a time until the mash volume calculation fits your system. The amount of sparge water you use will depend on your expected boil volume. The first runnings will give you a fixed amount of wort and the sparge volume will be the difference between expected first runnings and planned boil volume. Say 20 gallons for boil volume is a nice place to be for putting about 16 gallons into your fermentor with a 1 hour boil and leaving a good couple gallons hops and trub in the kettle.

 

[Dgallo]

I have a 30Gal Spike System and 1/2 SS Brewtech Unitank. I want to brew a BIG winter warmer; somewhere in the 11-13% range. But from all my calculations, in order to get an ABV that high, I'd have to use somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+ lbs of grains. From what I'm seeing, either I won't have enough mash and sparge water to handle it, or if I do I'll be yielding almost 30 gallons into my boil kettle, which means I'll be wasting half of it when it goes in the 15gal fermenter. Is that right, or am I missing something?

Doesn’t sound right to me since you shouldn’t yield more than 18-20 gallons from your mash and sparge. Have you boiled in the kettle yet? How much boil off loss are you getting?

 

[Bobby_M]

You'll have to explain more about your brewing process for any of this to make sense. Single vessel BIAB? Mash tun? If so, size?

 

[Nagorg]

It sounds like you want to brew a ~15G batch of ~11-13%ABV beer. A 30G kettle should be more that adequate for this size batch regardless of final gravity, even at the intended OG.
Your mash tun size is the biggest concern here for the wort original gravity and batch size you are targeting.

I use a 120Qt cooler for beers in this range and I'd need about ~70# of malt and would need to sparge twice (batch sparge) for this target beer. I might even need to add some DME during the boil depending on how efficient my mash was.

Even with this, my 30G kettle would have no problem with the estimated 20G starting boil volume given a 60 minute boil.

So, this would be closer to what you should expect for that batch size and gravity but you really need to understand YOUR equipment since YMMV...

 

[BucksBrewer]

Here's my process:
30Gallon Spike HERMS System (30 gallon HLT, MT and BK)
1/2BBL SS Brewtech Unitank

If I want to brew a big winter beer in the 11-13% range, let's say I'll need around 40lbs of grain, for the sake of argument. If I go with a 1.5:1 grain to water mash ratio, I'll need roughly 16 gallons in mash water, and then another 22 1/2 gallons in sparge water, as I fly sparge. Does that sound right? If so am I stuck boiling 30 gallons of wort and tossing half, as my Unitank only holds 15 gallons? Or do I just sparge until I reach my desired boil volume?

 

[Dgallo]

Here's my process:
30Gallon Spike HERMS System (30 gallon HLT, MT and BK)
1/2BBL SS Brewtech Unitank

If I want to brew a big winter beer in the 11-13% range, let's say I'll need around 40lbs of grain, for the sake of argument. If I go with a 1.5:1 grain to water mash ratio, I'll need roughly 16 gallons in mash water, and then another 22 1/2 gallons in sparge water, as I fly sparge. Does that sound right? If so am I stuck boiling 30 gallons of wort and tossing half, as my Unitank only holds 15 gallons? Or do I just sparge until I reach my desired boil volume?

22.5 gallons sounds absurd to me personally. Grain absorption rate is roughly .1 to .125 gallons per lb of grain. For safety sake let’s use .125gal/lb for your mash. You’ll yield about 11gallons in your first runnings. So your sparge would only need to yield you roughly 10-11 gallons depending on equipment loss.

Since youre fly sparging you can just keep your refractometer handy and run the sparge slowly so you can shut it down when you are near your preboil gravity. I can’t imagine you need to boil more than 20gallons to get 16 in the FV

 

[BucksBrewer]

22.5 gallons sounds absurd to me personally. Grain absorption rate is roughly .1 to .125 gallons per lb of grain. For safety sake let’s use .125gal/lb for your mash. You’ll yield about 11gallons in your first runnings. So your sparge would only need to yield you roughly 10-11 gallons depending on equipment loss.

Since youre fly sparging you can just keep your refractometer handy and run the sparge slowly so you can shut it down when you are near your preboil gravity. I can’t imagine you need to boil more than 20gallons to get 16 in the FV

Ok, thanks. I get what you're saying and it makes sense.

Speaking of refractometers, mine for some reason has stopped working altogether. No matter what liquid I put on there, I get no reading at all. The whole thing stays white. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Dgallo]

Ok, thanks. I get what you're saying and it makes sense.

Speaking of refractometers, mine for some reason has stopped working altogether. No matter what liquid I put on there, I get no reading at all. The whole thing stays white. Any thoughts on that?

Have you tried to zero it with the nob. Should read a perfect 1.000 with water. Unless you cracked the mirror or glass it should read something

 

[kevin58]

Ok, thanks. I get what you're saying and it makes sense.

Speaking of refractometers, mine for some reason has stopped working altogether. No matter what liquid I put on there, I get no reading at all. The whole thing stays white. Any thoughts on that?

Recently mine did something similar except that the whole field in the viewfinder looked like a blue blur. I unscrewed the eyepiece and it had moisture inside so I left it apart on the counter to dry out and it works fine now.

 

[Bobby_M]

Here's my process:
30Gallon Spike HERMS System (30 gallon HLT, MT and BK)
1/2BBL SS Brewtech Unitank

If I want to brew a big winter beer in the 11-13% range, let's say I'll need around 40lbs of grain, for the sake of argument. If I go with a 1.5:1 grain to water mash ratio, I'll need roughly 16 gallons in mash water, and then another 22 1/2 gallons in sparge water, as I fly sparge. Does that sound right? If so am I stuck boiling 30 gallons of wort and tossing half, as my Unitank only holds 15 gallons? Or do I just sparge until I reach my desired boil volume?

Assuming about 3 gallons max of boiloff.

40 lbs of grain at 1.5 qts per pound is 60 quarts of water (15 gallons). Fine. Heat this water in your boil kettle to about 158F.

Absorption is about .1 gal per pound so you'll have 4 gallons tied up on the grain and 11 gallon of free wort. That means you need a MINIMUM of 7 gallons of sparge if you let the tun run bone dry. However, you'll probably have 20 gallons of water in the HLT to cover the coils anyway. Cover the coil and heat that water up to 153F or so while the strike water is heating in your boil kettle.

Bottom line, you'll just keep fly sparging until you have about 18-19 gallons preboil in the kettle. At that point you will have a lot of excess liquid in the MLT but that will just be mostly water and low gravity wort. You COULD drain this into the HLT and brew a small beer.

In other words, when you fly sparge a certain amount of water it doesn't mean you run all of that out to the boil kettle. That would be more of a batch sparge type process.