What Size System To Build?

[schooey]

Is there a calculation that can be done to workout the average final volume from initial volume of the mash tun!

There is a whole chapter on brewery design in Kunze, but unless you want to fork out $400 for a copy....

Like people have said, work out what size batch you want to make. Most people brew in batches of 20 Litres. I tend to agree with Ben's comment above; drinking 60L of the same beer at a time can get a little boring when there are so many bers out there to try. Although, that may not be what you're after, you may just want to brew the same beer in big batches; these are things to consider.

So once you've worked that out, work backwards. Say you want to do 46 L batches* which will give you two kegs and some spares for bottles or starters or whatever takes your fancy. So for a 5% beer, your going to need around 11kg of grain in your tun and if you mash in at 3.5:1, you'll want 36 odd litres of water too, which means you'll probably just squeeze it into a 50L Tun. On top of that 36L of Strike water, you'll need close to another 40 L of sparge water so you're going to need about a 80L HLT, if you want to be able to heat your strike and sparge water all in the one hit and not have to wait for water to re-heat mid brew.

After your sparging, you'll end up with your 46L of knockout, 2 litress of kettle loss, 8 litres of evaporation and litre or so of thermal loss... so somewhere around 60L. Which means you'd be looking good in a 71L kettle.

Now of course these are all nutted out with the vernier eyeball and you'll be able to squeeze things here and there and get a bit more or a bit a bit less yatter yatter. You can dough in thicker, do a higher gravity wort and all those sort of things, so this is very rule of thumb.

Hope this helps,

cheers,

schooey


* 46L batches of the most common beers with a gravity between 3 - 7%, If you want to go bigger you'll need to do single batches or juggle with your mash tun.

 

[stux]

Yep, the 60L mark on mine is about 5 inch's from the top, might need a blow off tube for some yeasts (3068), but I don't doubt it can be done. Not sure I'd like to move the thing around though, hard enough with 44 litres in the bloody thing, so heavy I've only used it a few times, just to catch up

Yes, I use about 58L for a triple keg batch, that'd normally be a lager, because of the long tie up on the fermenter fridge, its worthwhile doing doubles/triples. Since its a lager it doesn't krausen as high

I use a removalists trolley to move the damn thing around... hoiking it onto the re-inforced fridge shelf is the real problem... has to be above keg height

good time to invite a mate around for a few brews

 

[Cocko]

How much do you drink?

How often do you wanna brew?

How many different varieties do you want to have at once?


I use to brew single batches, then the SWMBO fell in love with my beer and the Dad in law so ended up brewing atleast every weekend... I love brewing but it got a little annoying. I went to a 100L tun and 120L pot and now pull out 4 kegs from one brew day...

Just think about how much beer you will need/want and how many different styles at once and then go one batch size bigger - because once you start drinking AG regularly you will drink more....

 

[sav]

This is what I have 80lt kettle,50lt hlt,50lt mt. I can do 60lt volume at 1050og no worries 42lts at 1050og is my normal brews easy but I would love a little more room in my tun for bigger beers because my normal batches are 42lts.

I would strongly recommend 42lt batches its the same amount of time and it keeps the piece with the wife because I don't brew as often.So my choice would be 71lts all the way but a 98lt kettle sounds tempting 71hlt 71Mt 98lt kettle get some big beers there my friend.

sav