Brewing 40l Batches

[Paul H]

Guys,
I am looking at upscaling my output to 40L out of the 50L single tier batch sparging system. Any tips & tricks? Do others dilute higher gravity beers toward the end of the boil or add water to the fermenter?

Cheers

Paul

 

[cdbrown]

I add 10L following the boil in order to end up with 45L in the keggle as I'm not able to do a full boil in a 50L pot. This is taking into account 2-3L for break, 42L wort into fermenter, 3L trub for 39L into kegs. The pre-boil vol is calculated as 41.5L for a 60min boil which provides enough room for a reasonable rolling boil. Trying to push this volume up a little without having to worry about boil over.

For high gravity beers I've had to scale the final volume back to ensure I get a good thin mash. Next batch is 35L final volume so no need to do any topping up.

 

[brettprevans]

get a bigger kettle. dont mean to sounds trite but thats the easiest way. ive got 50L HLT, 50L MT, 90L kettle. works brilliantly.

now if you dead keen on staying with a 50L kettle then as cdbriown says or shoot for higher gravity then water down. your hop utilisation suffers a little and probably so will your efficiency, but not a heap if your careful.

 

[argon]

I used to run a 50L keggle double batch system, with a pre boil of about 43L (as close to full as comfortable) and knockout of 37L. I've done it a number of ways. As below in order of preferrence;

1 - 37L post boil with 8L top up in kettle into 2 x 20L cubes (3L kettle loss)
The top up water when added to the kettle at flameout helps to rinse the trub of sugaz... at least that's my theory anyway. I thought i read something about it around here, but buggered if i could find it.

2 - 37L post boil into 2 x 17L ex fresh wort kit cubes with 8L top up into fermentor (3L kettle loss)
Most commonly did this as I just had the 17L cubes at hand. It was also convenient to add boiling water to fermentor as a sanatising step, let cool then pour in cubes.

3 - 37L post boil into 2 x 17L ex fresh wort kit cubes. (3L kettle loss) Fermented at gravity with 8L top up into kegs
Did this a few times... didn't like the results. Beer has finished fermenting at 1010-1012 or whatever and i come along and dilute it down some more, thereby taking a point or to off FG. Came out a bit watery.

No reason any of the above methods wouldn't work if chilling i guess.

Now have an 80L kettle and it's set and forget with a very comfortable pre-boil of 51L for 43L knockout and 38L into kegs.