Lessons learned moving from 5 to 10 gallon batches

1. You need a bigger boat. 2. You also need to engineer ways to move liquid either by gravity or pumps. There's a huge difference in weight (five gallons vs 10). All in all, my experience thus far has been very much like starting as a novice brewer. I liked the idea of doubling my output during a brew session, but I'm here to tell you, it ain't all that easy. A mistake (bad batch) costs 2x. There's also a point where you come to realize that a 10-gallon mash tun can't handle 25+ pounds of grist. I've added a conical fermenter and chill plate, but I just need more practice. Moral of the story ... don't give away the five gallon equipment.

Good advice.  I, too am in the same boat.  The only time I do 10 gallons is for fests, contests.  5 gallons is just so much easier, takes less time to sparge, etc. 

Mark

The biggest challenge I had, in addition to those above, is chilling 11 gallons is much different than chilling 5.5. 

Great thread idea.  I am one of those guys who made sure to buy a large enough cooler I could mash 10 gallons when I made the jump.  I haven't yet, always stuck with 5, but would hate to make that jump and find a bunch of hidden gotchas.  There are lots of guides for new beginners, a guide for the 5 to 10 transition would be awesome.

Just a thought.

ole happy here. I started off with 10 gallon batches and havent thought about droppin to 5. now i have been trying 15 -20 gallons heyhey. it is a lot more work but it comes with bigger returns. Happy Brewin

Did a 10-gallon IPA today without incident. Putting the hop additions inside a muslin bag made a huge difference in allowing the boil to easily move through the chill plate. It didn't get clogged with hops or trub. The biggest downside to a stainless steel conical fermenter is that you can't see the beginnings of fermentation. I added a blowoff tube into a bucket of sanitizer and hope to hear the wonderful sound of a fermentation "puke" going on when I get up in the morning.

my only problem is don't get to brew as often

That's actually another reason to move from 5-gallon to 10-gallon batches. Although there's additional equipment involved, the amount of time it takes to brew a bigger batch is only slightly longer than a 5-gallon batch.

I love the 10 gallon batch,I keg 5 and bottle 5.I use a sanke keg as a cheap 15 gallon fermentor.if you have a pump its pretty much just as easy to brew 10 as 5. plus my friends drink to much of my beer so I cant go back now. The only time I brew 5 is I am doing something experimental.

I'm beginning to understand my 10-gallon system a lot better and have concluded that I will brew 5-gallon "experimental" batches ... then double up any 5-gallon recipe that seems to be a hit. The biggest hang-up in moving to the larger batch size is figuring out how it should be engineered. You can't just go to Home Depot and ask. I'm thinking about producing something on Youtube to illustrate what I've come up with.

Just started doing 10 gallon batches.  With 4 of age sons, 5 gallons just does not go very far.  At least my LHBS gave me good council when I first got into it and most of our Blichmann system will do 10 gallon batches.  The big beers we need to get a bigger Tun and I'll need to make a bigger cooler.  I have some ideas of cooling with some medium other than water and will report back on how well those work.  Only question I have for the pros are, do you lengthen your sparge time much?  We fly sparge and it usually takes an hour or so to hit the numbers and do it right for a 5 gallon batch.

There's a great video on YouTube on how to convert a Coleman cooler into a mash tun so you can handle 20+ pounds of grist. The copper manifold was easy to make and it works like a champ. As for cooling, you say you use Blichman equipment. Have you tried the Therminator? I can cool 10 gallons in less than 10 minutes.

I can already see how much equipment I would need to upgrade before I could do ten gallons.  A LOT.  I'm good with five or so for now.  8)

MikeinRH said:

There's a great video on YouTube on how to convert a Coleman cooler into a mash tun so you can handle 20+ pounds of grist. The copper manifold was easy to make and it works like a champ. As for cooling, you say you use Blichman equipment. Have you tried the Therminator? I can cool 10 gallons in less than 10 minutes.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion - I have not tried the Therminator, it is on my list.  But, then you have to get a pump & filter the wort real well and I am concerned about the extra work involved in cleaning the pump and cooler.  I like the gravity system of the Top Tier.  I split the 11 gallons into two 6.5 gallon carboys to make them manageable to carry.

Counterflow chillers are worth a look too.  Will chill to your groundwater temp as fast as you can pump or gravity feed it.  Chill your groundwater  and it gets really impressive.  And its easy & cheap to convert your immersion using the same copper. (If you do this I will give you some tips if you dont want to end up destroying your copper)  Just add garden hose and ball valves.....and a submersible pump and 4 stainless steel ball valves if you want to kill it.

gevans said:

MikeinRH said:

There's a great video on YouTube on how to convert a Coleman cooler into a mash tun so you can handle 20+ pounds of grist. The copper manifold was easy to make and it works like a champ. As for cooling, you say you use Blichman equipment. Have you tried the Therminator? I can cool 10 gallons in less than 10 minutes.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion - I have not tried the Therminator, it is on my list.  But, then you have to get a pump & filter the wort real well and I am concerned about the extra work involved in cleaning the pump and cooler.  I like the gravity system of the Top Tier.  I split the 11 gallons into two 6.5 gallon carboys to make them manageable to carry.

Click to expand...

I use neither a pump or filter with my Therminator.  All gravity to the carboy.  I whirlp[ool for a good 10 minutes to get the sediment to settle in the center of my pot.  I do use hop bags in the boil to limit the hop matter in the bottom of the kettle.  I use a big binder clip to keep them in suspension.

@KernelCrush

KernelCrush said:

Counterflow chillers are worth a look too.  Will chill to your groundwater temp as fast as you can pump or gravity feed it.  Chill your groundwater  and it gets really impressive.  And its easy & cheap to convert your immersion using the same copper. (If you do this I will give you some tips if you dont want to end up destroying your copper)  Just add garden hose and ball valves.....and a submersible pump and 4 stainless steel ball valves if you want to kill it.

Click to expand...

I got a Blichmann Therminator recently I am planning to change my cooling routines, but I am still struggling a bit with the set up. I will not use a pump, but I will gravity feed it. Could you give me some tips regarding set up, cleaning, use of material etc.?

Regards,
Slurk

Slurk,  I dont have a chill plate so I cant comment on that.  you want hi-temp silicone tubing (get the white, not the yellow) from kettle ball valve to chiller.  you can use clear tubing at the chiller exit port.  For clear tubing use beverage tubing when you can....its more flexible and doesn't have memory.  use ball valves at the wort in & out and at the cooling water in & out to control the flow of both.  The most effective valve is at cold wort out...you can slow your outflow to make the wort stay in contact with your chilling water longer.  after you run your sanitizer through for a few minutes you can shut that valve to trap your sanitizer inside the chiller till you're ready for the main event.  If your using unchilled groundwater and it gets you where you need to be then you dont need a valve at cooling in port, just let her rip. I have really warm groundwater so I fill a huge cooler with water and block ice (frozen plastic coffee containers) while sparging so its ice cold when you're ready to chill.  Drop a small submersible fountain pump in the cooler and pump the ice water thru the chiller.  My setup requires a lot of switching tubing.  Theres plenty of fancy fittings, disconnects, etc on the market.  I use hose clamps.  Just fit a lightweight lithium drill with a nut driver style tip and you dont have to deal with the slot screwdriver. I tried gravity feed but it put my mashtun 6+ feet in the air with my equipment size and I wasn't crazy about building or buying a tree.  If you stay with gravity feed, dont engineer your set up for the minimum height between transfers.  You will want as much as you can get.  If you get a March pump everything stays at eye level or below.  The first day you brew with a pump you will kick yourself in the butt for not getting it sooner.  You can use it to pump strike water to mashtun, sanitizer thru chiller, hot wort to chiller, then boiling water thru chiller for cleanup

KernelCrush,
Wow!! Thank you very much for your answer. Things to consider here

I never have thought about the fact that for gravity feeding your plate chiller you have to put your mashtun considerable higher (in your case >6 feet).

Regards,
Slurk

+1 regarding kicking yourself for not adding a March pump to your set up. The other tip is your tubing should be 1/2" ID. In fact, all your fittings should be 1/2". With SS disconnects, I can chill 10+ gallons in less than 10 minutes. I also use disconnects on the Therminator so I can connect the garden hose to "wort in" and "wort out" to flush debris from chill plate. Takes less than 5 minutes. I also drop the chill plate in the kettle when I commence heating H2O for mash during next batch... and leave it in for heating sparge water. Kills any bugs that might be lurking.