Mash tun size v fermenter size v still size?

[TheMechwarrior]

A question to all you AG brewers out there:
(I've just about finished building my power controllers so I expect to be playing with AG soon)

Q. When brewing from grain (barley) what mash tun size do you need in order to provide for a 100L feed to the boiler?
Can someone give me a breakdown like, for example to get 100L in to the boiler that means I need to get 100L out of the fermenter, I must therefore have started with more (10%?) than that given I'll be leaving some in the fermenter to ensure no yeast is carried over to the still.
Do you ferment on the grain or do you filter the mash to the fermenter following conversion?

Cheers,

Mech.

[Brendan]

If you follow my squeezing method, I generally recover about 80% of the mash volume in fermented wash to the boiler...

I start with a 50L keg mash tun...its gets filled to 40-45L capacity, and after straining the solids out of the mash after fermentation, I end up with about 35L of wash to the boiler.

It will all come down to your ability to remove the liquid from the solids in this case. And obviously your ability to mash and get proper conversion will affect the potential of that quantity of wash.

Hope that helps :handgestures-thumbupleft:

edit: To answer your question properly, if you wanted 100L of wash, i'd say you want a minimum of 125L mash tun...

[huggy_b]

I've been doing a fair chunk or research into so take my advice based on theory and not practice!

In a 40L mash, you are likely to have around 30L of strike water and the rest will be taken up by grain. You'll lose a bit to the grain swelling and absorption so figure on 28L or so and then a little extra depending on how much you wash through it to sparge.

I'm working on 30 - 35L of wash from a 40L mash. If you are using a mash tun with a false bottom, that should filter out all the grain leaving you just a liquid wort/wash to ferment (there may be a few grains get through) - well that's how I read it anyways? So you'd probably have to do 3 x 40L batches for ~100L to feed your boiler (or one big 120L batch).

[TheMechwarrior]

Thanks guys, I still have a few weeks of old wine bottles to distil before I have time to go AG.
That will allow me more time for planning and questions ;-)

Has anyone tried buying malted barley IN Tasmania?
Otherwise I'm in Melbourne next month so I can get some in bulk from Grain and Grape.

Cheers,

Mech.

[Whiskyaugogo]

As I am too new to AG process it seems 6 row barley, flaked corn and rye soak up around 20 to 25% so the figures above are spot on. My current grains are on ferment no. 3 and the smell is incredible (even better than MacWhisky)!! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[MacStill]

For a 100L ferment/wort, I went for a 300L mash tunn :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[amaizing]

In hobart the hbs in moonah stock malted barley and will order in special gear ie malted rye things of the sort
and im pretty sure there is a shop up north that is run by the same bloke so either end of the state.

[TheMechwarrior]

What Mac said :handgestures-thumbupleft:

And yeah, Andrew is you man for North and South Tasmania.

[sp0rk]

Thanks guys, I still have a few weeks of old wine bottles to distil before I have time to go AG.
That will allow me more time for planning and questions ;-)

Has anyone tried buying malted barley IN Tasmania?
Otherwise I'm in Melbourne next month so I can get some in bulk from Grain and Grape.

Cheers,

Mech.

There's a bloke on AHB called notforhorses who's started a malting business in Tassie
His prices didn't seem too bad, pretty good for a small local operation
http://www.notforhorses.com.au/