Brewing All Grain High Gravity Brews

[TheZel66]

A lot of you out there must brew high gravity beers. For 5 gallon batches, I'm talking ones that can use 15 pounds or more of grain. Doing an all grain batch, and using the values of 1.25 quarts per pound in the mash, and 2 quarts per pound for sparge, you would end up needing 18.75 + 30 quarts, which is a little over 12 gallons. Assuming you lose 2 gallon in grain absorption, you still have a pre-boil volume of 10 gallons. For my set up I lose about 10% of my wort volume per 1/2 hour. which mean i need to boil the wort for over 2 hours to to get it down to the final wort volume that I want.

Is there any issue with this long a boil? (assuming you don't add hops until the appropriate boil time, and not at boil start). How you handle even larger OG's (assuming all grain, no sugar added).

 

[LarryBrewer]

A two hour boil is long but not out of the question.

The other option would be to sparge with less water. Keep in mind to dial down your efficiency because of the extra grain absorption.

 

[JAMC]

I did a christmas beer at the end of last year which used about 17lb of grain, so it was kind of in the territory you're interested in. I didn't take into account all the extra grain absorbtion and my efficiency took a hit as a result.

If I remember right, I was up against the hard limit of what I could fit into my mash tun and brew kettle - I'm not sure there's a lot I could have done differently because of those constraints.

 

[BrewHop]

I have done a lot of big brews. I have to down my ratio of grain and strike water to about 1.1q per pound and then I usually have to sparge with less water. I just go with enough to get your normal pre-boil volume. I have had good results doing this but yes your efficiency might go down about 5 to 10%

 

[TheZel66]

so what do you think a decent sparge volume would be if I use the 1.1 qt/lb ratio as you suggest?