20 Gal Batch equipment- 30 gal?

[mdillon20]

I have 2 blichman burners and a couple converted kegs. I'm looking to go from 10gal batches to 20 gal batches. How big of a kettle do I need? How big of a cooler to I need for a mash tun? Biggest 20 gal beer would probably be 1.060, if I went bigger the batches would be smaller obviously. Was considering the NB 25 gal megapot but the more I read the more I don't think its big enough on its own. Is boiling a couple gallons in a seperate pot annoying or easy to deal with? Twice the propane is the only issue I see. Thermometer on a kettle??? I see no use in a brewmometer on a kettle, it's boiling or its not. Am I missing something here?

Any 20 gal batch brewers out there with some advice?

I read on the blichman site that the burners can boil up to 30 gals, should I just go bigger now???

Thanks.

[pfooti]

I have the blichmann boilermaker 30 gal pots, and the biggest batche I tend to make is 15-18 gallons of finished beer. Mashing for 1.060 I would be pretty sure you could target 20 gallons of finished beer, but I'd be worried about the boil phase. Between all the losses to evaporation and just plain dead space, you'd probably want about 26 or so gallons preboil, which would be pretty darn close to totally full. I'm too far from my boilers to check right now, but if I remember right, 30 gallons is pretty much entirely full- you couldn't boil that much in the boilermaker-30. Even if it all fit, you'd have to use fermcap and be really careful to avoid the boilover. At that point, I'd suggest going straight to the boilermaker-50 gal and take it from there.

[ajdelange]

It is, in general, possible to make X gallons of beer in an X gallon kettle using that magical substance water. The challenge is in managing boil over. Over the years I've learned to manage that by splitting the boil into halves filling each of 2 kettles a little over half full. Even so, I have come close to having boil overs so you really have to keep an eye on things until the protein break is over. Past that point boilover is much less likely. After the boil has settled down and evaporation has occured to the point where each of the kettles is less than half full the worts can be combined in one kettle which will be somewhat less than full. A couple of inches of freeboard should be enough but you do have to be careful when adding hops, especially pellets. At the end of the boil you will have one kettle with a few inches of freeboard. Shut off the heat and top off with water which has been boiled and you have an X gallon kettle containing X gallons of beer - at near boiling. Collect the wort and when you are finished sparge off the hops with 0.04X gallons to make up for the shrinkage of the wort as it cools. Do this a second time and you will have 1.08X less whatever stays hung up on the hops, in hoses and pumps and the wort chiller in the fermenter.

In doing this you must, of course, plan out the gravities so that the dilutions are accounted for and the gravity in the fermenter is what you want it to be.

[keelanfish]

I make 11 gallon batches in a 15 gallon pot all the time. Starting volume for a 60 minute boil for me is 13 gallons. Yes, you have to be careful and babysit the flame, but it's not that big a deal once it starts boiling. I do not use fermcap in my boils.

My brew pot is a morebeer one and I like it, but it's wider than it is tall, so I get a lot of evaporation. I have a 20 gallon boiler maker that I use for an HLT and I like its height to width ratio better as it provides less surface area relative to the volume and therefore lower evaporation rates.

The only issue I could see would be if you do a lot of long boil brewing. The evaporation for a 90 minute boil is significant.

[Cliff]

I should think that you can get away with very little head space in a pot if you use FermCap and keep your boil under close control.

That would drive me crazy though so I'd prefer a healthy level of head space in a BK of at least 4 - 6"

Two BKs? If you have two burners why not?
Yah, you don't need a thermometer on a BK. What's it going to tell you?


As far as the MT goes you need room to agitate the grains as well as have the right water to grain ratio so you might want either two coolers or a coleman 100 quart cooler ( or bigger if you can find one),