[Megary]

I shoot for 1.5 quarts/lb of grain and it seems my mash efficiency is better.  Years ago when I started making my ESB, Ray Daniel's book said to do a thick mash in the neighborhood of 1 qt/lb, for an ESB.  I did that for a while but found that my efficiency went way down.  So I now use 1.5 qts/lb for that beer.

That's pretty interesting (and confusing).  I wonder what his reasoning is for that??

In those days it was thought that a thicker Mash didn't convert as much and therefore left more body to the beer

Thanks for the explanation.
If I understand, you're saying it was thought that a thicker mash produced a "noticeably less fermentable" wort.  (Paraphrase is all mine). 

[redrocker652002]

In doing some looking around, some recipe's call for the full amount of water to go in to the kettle, then add the grans.  Assuming the full amount for a 5 gallon batch is 6.5 gallons, then add say 12lbs of grain, that would probably overflow my kettle, right?  I am thinking of moving to the 10 gallon kettle.  I like the idea of the false bottom and the filter on the end of the ball valve to strain any hop matter before it goes into the fermenter, but wondering if that is really needed.  Shoot, and here I thought I had a pretty cool gift.  LOL.

[BrewBama]

You do have a pretty cool gift. There are various ways to work around full volume. A few mentioned by others above.

Don’t read a recipe and think you have to mimic the author’s every process and ingredient. Recipes should contain SG, FG, bittering reference, grain percents, hops: AA and their schedule, yeast used, mineral concentrations post boil, etc. You’ll have to make adjustments based on your system’s performance and ingredients available such as increase/reduce grain, adjust hop qty based on higher/lower AA, increase/reduce starting water volume, etc. How you get there on your system will have to be adjusted to get the results the author used to get there on their system.

One word of caution: that screen can get clogged with trüb so take steps to avoid getting stuck. That false bottom will help as will a hop spider or bags and even post boil whirlpool.

BTW, to end up with 5 gal in a keg you’re going to need to account for all losses to get starting volume. I believe 6.5 gal won’t be enough after accounting for fermenter loss, boil off, grain absorption, vessel dead space, etc. I start with 9 gal for my avg batch in a three vessel system with pump and hose loss. You’ll learn your system over time. I use even more starting volume for batches with more grain.


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[redrocker652002]

I'm starting to think more about this and thinking if I can use the kettle I have, mash maybe 4 gallons and then sparge for the rest up to the amount needed, would that work?  So, assuming I am talking BIAB style, for example, and this is only hypothetical for numbers, if I mashed with say 5 gallons at say 150 for about 60 minutes with a final liquid amount of say 4.5 gallons, took the grains and rinsed with another 2 gallons and added that to the kettle for a total of 6.5 gallons.  I could now use my kettle for the boil and might be ok.  Just thinking out loud here, so humor me as a newbie.  RR

[tommymorris]

I'm starting to think more about this and thinking if I can use the kettle I have, mash maybe 4 gallons and then sparge for the rest up to the amount needed, would that work?  So, assuming I am talking BIAB style, for example, and this is only hypothetical for numbers, if I mashed with say 5 gallons at say 150 for about 60 minutes with a final liquid amount of say 4.5 gallons, took the grains and rinsed with another 2 gallons and added that to the kettle for a total of 6.5 gallons.  I could now use my kettle for the boil and might be ok.  Just thinking out loud here, so humor me as a newbie.  RR

That is in the right ballpark.

[tommymorris]

I'm starting to think more about this and thinking if I can use the kettle I have, mash maybe 4 gallons and then sparge for the rest up to the amount needed, would that work?  So, assuming I am talking BIAB style, for example, and this is only hypothetical for numbers, if I mashed with say 5 gallons at say 150 for about 60 minutes with a final liquid amount of say 4.5 gallons, took the grains and rinsed with another 2 gallons and added that to the kettle for a total of 6.5 gallons.  I could now use my kettle for the boil and might be ok.  Just thinking out loud here, so humor me as a newbie.  RR

That is in the right ballpark.

PS. To BrewBama’s comment about how much preboil volume you need, if you have to little the first time or two you use a new system you can always add water to the fermenter to get to your planned volume. After a few brews you’ll figure out what adjustments to make.

[denny]

I shoot for 1.5 quarts/lb of grain and it seems my mash efficiency is better.  Years ago when I started making my ESB, Ray Daniel's book said to do a thick mash in the neighborhood of 1 qt/lb, for an ESB.  I did that for a while but found that my efficiency went way down.  So I now use 1.5 qts/lb for that beer.

That's pretty interesting (and confusing).  I wonder what his reasoning is for that??

In those days it was thought that a thicker Mash didn't convert as much and therefore left more body to the beer

Thanks for the explanation.
If I understand, you're saying it was thought that a thicker mash produced a "noticeably less fermentable" wort.  (Paraphrase is all mine).

Yes, as I recall that was the theory.

[redrocker652002]

Well, after all the discussion it seems the kettle will not fit on my stove, so I need to get something else.  I am going to move up to the 10 gallon kettle and use it.  Here is something else I thought of.  I have an old 9 gallon Igloo cooler in my attic.  Would that be a good thing to clean up really well, change out the spigot and use it as my mash tun, then drain the liquid into my new 10 gallon kettle for the boil?  I am just thinking out loud and the cooler hasn't been used in years.  Thoughts? 

[denny]

Well, after all the discussion it seems the kettle will not fit on my stove, so I need to get something else.  I am going to move up to the 10 gallon kettle and use it.  Here is something else I thought of.  I have an old 9 gallon Igloo cooler in my attic.  Would that be a good thing to clean up really well, change out the spigot and use it as my mash tun, then drain the liquid into my new 10 gallon kettle for the boil?  I am just thinking out loud and the cooler hasn't been used in years.  Thoughts?

It's certainly an option.  Pretty much depends on how you want to brew.

[BrewBama]

I think your idea will work well. I heat all my brewhaus liquor at once in my BK and drain my strike liquor into a 5 gal cooler as a HLT. I then use the remainder as my strike liquor pumping it from the BK to the MLT. When I am ready to sparge I use my reserved brewhaus liquor in the HLT.

[redrocker652002]

I think your idea will work well. I heat all my brewhaus liquor at once in my BK and drain my strike liquor into a 5 gal cooler as a HLT. I then use the remainder as my strike liquor pumping it from the BK to the MLT. When I am ready to sparge I use my reserved brewhaus liquor in the HLT.

Awesome, that is exactly what I was thinking of doing.  I was going to buy a Home Depot 10 gallon water cooler and use that as my MLT, and then either get a 10 gallon stock pot or, a local beer distributor will give me a couple of beer kegs for nothing, I was going to grind a hole in the top and use that as my boil kettle.  Drill in a valve in it so I can move the wort into my fermenter when it is ready.  I was thinking of heating up the sparge water in my old 5 gallon pot and just pouring it over the mash as it drained into the boil kettle.  I am trying right now to save some cash and see if this is something I can do before dropping more money into a better setup.  Am I on the right path?