Advice on equipment upgrade

[DoWBrewer]

My wife got a King Kooker Brew Stand for my birthday. I am now planning on upgrading to a kettle based mashtun. Are there any ratios for determining mash tun to kettle size. I currently have a 15.5 gallon Bayou Classic kettle. Would another 15.5 kettle be big enough to do high gravity brews or should I go for a 20-gallon kettle?

I currently use a 17.5 gallon cooler and it has been plenty big enough. Any thoughts?

 

[IvanBrew]

In many systems, the boil kettle is the largest vessel, and is roughly double your intended batch size. i.e. if you're doing 10 gallon batches, something close to 20 gal is nice for the boil kettle. 1.5x is usually adequate for HLT and MLT.

If you're sticking with the 15.5 gal boil kettle, I'd say a 10-15 gal mash tun would be perfect. Since you're used to something on the larger end of that range, I'd keep it in the ballpark of what you have now.

 

[DoWBrewer]

In many systems, the boil kettle is the largest vessel, and is roughly double your intended batch size. i.e. if you're doing 10 gallon batches, something close to 20 gal is nice for the boil kettle. 1.5x is usually adequate for HLT and MLT.

If you're sticking with the 15.5 gal boil kettle, I'd say a 10-15 gal mash tun would be perfect. Since you're used to something on the larger end of that range, I'd keep it in the ballpark of what you have now.

Maybe I should still buy the 20-gallon kettle and make that my brew kettle. I can then make my Bayou Classic my mash tun. Thanks for the advice.

 

[duboman]

It will really depend on batch size, are you brewing 5 gallon, 10 gallon? If you are doing 5 gallon batches it sounds as though your equipment is already large enough even for high gravity beer. If 10 gallon is what you want to do then IMO you need a larger mash tun and the 15 gallon kettle should be fine but you can certainly go to a 20 if you want.

 

[BrewCrewKevin]

There's a very handly little table in this forum. He analyzes what your maximum OG is brewing with each size mash tun.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/how-big-your-mash-tun-needs-123585/

 

[DoWBrewer]

I use 60L Spiedel fermenters, so my batches usually are around 12 gallons. I have filled the 15.5 gallon pot to the top on more than a few occasions.