Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

OK have been mashing in t500 boiler which is fine for small batches ,but wondering about doing bigger batchs. Is there a rule of thumb for grain to liquid when calculating mash tun size for grain mashing?

I see when doing beer brews they use mash water so it works out equal to the volume they want to ferment.

So my question when doing big batchs 200 odd litres, is it OK to mash all the grain with minimum water then top up with cold water to required volume after all conversion have taken place in the fermenter?
As an example for moonshiners sweet mash it uses around 39kg of grain to do a 200l batch. Can I just do conversion in like 60l of water then top up to the right volume of water after doing the conversion?

Hope this makes sense I have been sippin some bwko :teasing-tease:

I work on 1:4 ratio grain to mash volume. So 300kg and fill to the 1,200L mark.
Then sparge until I've collected ~1,200L of wort. Good to go. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

TheMechwarrior wrote:I work on 1:4 ratio grain to mash volume. So 300kg and fill to the 1,200L mark.
Then sparge until I've collected ~1,200L of wort. Good to go. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

That's a shit ton of booze mech! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

My distillery is launching very soon :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Product launch is June.

TheMechwarrior wrote:I work on 1:4 ratio grain to mash volume. So 300kg and fill to the 1,200L mark.
Then sparge until I've collected ~1,200L of wort. Good to go. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Just to be clear do you do your conversion in 1200l or do you do your conversion in a smaller amount of water than spare with seperate water up to your required wash volume (1200 l ).

1. Start with about half the desired final volume of wort in your mash tun.
2. Add your grain while mixing.
3. Top up to your desired final volume of wort in your mash tun.
4. Drain off and sparge until you collect the desired final volume of wort (as mentioned in step 1 & 3 above).

I hope that clears it up?

TheMechwarrior wrote:My distillery is launching very soon :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Product launch is June.

What? Wait. What? Awesome :happy-partydance: go you good thing

TheMechwarrior wrote:1. Start with about half the desired final volume of wort in your mash tun.
2. Add your grain while mixing.
3. Top up to your desired final volume of wort in your mash tun.
4. Drain off and sparge until you collect the desired final volume of wort (as mentioned in step 1 & 3 above).

I hope that clears it up?

Yes thanks that's how I do it cheers :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Nice mech. is there a build thread coming up?

I'll post something very soon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Awesome look forward to it !!

Are you fly sparging mech?

Can't wait for june. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Plans just keep changing with me, for the better though 8-}

for all grain whisky can i use my 30L T500 boiler for a mash tun to fill up two 30L fermenters, still using a PID controller to hold the temp for conversion. (BIAB too)

Wondering if i can just mash and convert all the grain in say 25L of water (all the grain for the SG for both fermenters so double SG before watered down) and then half the wort into each fermenter and top up with water. will this work or would it be too much grain for a small boiler.

Not getting a keg now so if i can fill one fermenter up with the boiler doing AG great, if i can fill two up in one go even better.

Cheers
WTD

Yes I fly sparge res.

WTDist, I started with BIAB, it's bloody great.

Wtdist I think you could fit the grain for two batchs in the t500 in one go.Then split it. When I did mine I mashed in about 12l then topped it up bought it back to boil.To kill any possible bugs. I harvested some of the yeast from the trub and set it aside.then dumped the wort onto the trub in the fermenter. This kills the yeast turning it into food for the live yeast I harvested, let it cool in a sealed cobtained cube or fermenter and give it a good shake so the boiling lI quid sanitizes fermenter or cube. Just a tip, Look at setting up a pulley to remove the bag of grain after conversion is complete and make sure the bag don't touch the bottom durine the cooking process. Good luck :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Was thinking of using a water bath like a plastic drum and put 50 l keg inside full of mash in the keg and hot water in the plastic drum and by controlling the temperature of the water in the drum would keep the mash temperature constant in the keg .Could put heating element built into plastic drum or circulate through a heating element could start by filling with hot water from hot water system or some homemade solar hot water system.

If you use a RIMS tube with a Brutus 20 system you can "On-the-Fly" sparge using your hot tap water directed through the RIMS tube. 55 to 78 is pritty easy at a workable flowrate.

Ive been thinking for a while the best way to do this.. I really like the Brutus 20 system, coupled with OTF-Sparge and BIAB, I think you could get some serious efficiency!


Essentialy you flip the lids to change the setup.

This is the RIMS'd up setup im kinda talking about (-hot tapwater through rims)


After lots of deliberation, I think a dual 100lt sink would be perfect to put the rig in ;)


SO many dreams

What about using an urn and pump to pump hot water through a stainless worm in the wort container/boiler with a pid or stc temp controller controlling the water temperature in the urn? Could use a really small (read cheap) urn too. If the urn water is 65 and steady then the water in the wort container will be 65 as well. No risk of burning any grain then and only need an occasional stir to get the heat evenly distributed.
Im not an all grain expert so maybe there is already a system that Im describing. Just throwing it out there. One dirty pot and stainless worm. No need to clean the wort out of pumps and lines like in a RIMS.

warramungas wrote:What about using an urn and pump to pump hot water through a stainless worm in the wort container/boiler with a pid or stc temp controller controlling the water temperature in the urn? Could use a really small (read cheap) urn too. If the urn water is 65 and steady then the water in the wort container will be 65 as well. No risk of burning any grain then and only need an occasional stir to get the heat evenly distributed.
Im not an all grain expert so maybe there is already a system that Im describing. Just throwing it out there. One dirty pot and stainless worm. No need to clean the wort out of pumps and lines like in a RIMS.

This is like the reverse of a HERMS
wort is pumped through a copper/stainless coil that's inside of an urn/heated vessel and returns back to your mash tun

TheMechwarrior wrote:I work on 1:4 ratio grain to mash volume. So 300kg and fill to the 1,200L mark.
Then sparge until I've collected ~1,200L of wort. Good to go. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

When doing corn mashs is there any tricks to getting sparging to work? I have heard it can be problematic with the corn mash :think: