50 Litre Mash Tun - How Much Grain?

[Steve D]

I'm retiring my aged and trusty 30something litre coolbox mash tun and finally converting the insulated 50L stainless Thermo-pot I bought about 7 years ago - Nordic Optical on eBay I think it was. It was going to be used in the brewhouse I was building at the time....in my house at the time - but that's another story. Anyway - does anybody here have that size? What I want to know is what is the practical maximum grain weight it can handle? My current one will mash 10kg in a not too stiff mash so is it a case of linear up sizing or does someone know different?

Cheers!

[Mr. Dripping]

I have a 50 litre thermopot.
My usual brewlength is 40 litres with 8.5-10kg grain.
Strike water is generally 21-25 litres.....first top up of around 13 litres for batch sparging. The top up brings the mash to an inch or two below the rim.
You could do bigger beers / longer brewlengths if you fly sparge.
I reckon you could probably mash & fly sparge around 15-16kg of grain in that tun.
ATB

[Steve D]

Thanks mate, very helpful info. I'm going to go along the lines of a Brutus 20 two-pot set up which is a bit of both fly and batch sparge. Yeah, capacity is vital with batch sparging which is what I've been doing out of choice for years and latterly out of necessity since my spinny sparger seized up and died through lack of use.. I now know I can mash up to 14kg or more of grain which is plenty more than I need for 50L At OG1050

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Check out the can I mash it calculator here.
http://kotmf.com/tools/mash.php?PHPSESS ... 39c071d252

According to this 15kg of grain and 37.5 litres of water will just about fit.

That goes along with my experience as well. I fly sparge.

[Steve D]

Cheers for the info guys. Big help