Final Volumes

[jakecpunut]

I'm a bit confused after seeing some post on other forums about scaling recipes up from test batch sizes to larger sizes. In my case I'm going from a 1/2 barrel system to a 10bbl system. I realize the specific capacities come into play but my question is this...

Say for a 10bbl system, when formulating my recipes, should my process be "ending up with 10bll" when all is said and done, or "starting with 10bbl" or whatever capacity I can handle in my BK and then expect to get whatever I get as a final number?

When I used beersmith to formulate the recipe.. In the equipment profile I entered numbers so that after boil off, cooling, trub, line loss, FV loss to guestemate ending up with a kegging volume of 10bbl and plan on adjusting that as I go as I get real numbers.

Input or thoughts please?

Thanks!

[kugeman]

Ideally, for a 10 bbl system, you'd be yielding 10 bbls of finished beer. But it doesn't always work out that way, usually one part of your process is limited in size. For instance maybe you have a very large kettle for a 10 bbl system, but your mash tun isn't all that big so you can't brew 10 bbl batches of anything above 14 plato. Or maybe your fermenters are overflowing at exactly 10 bbl, so you can only yield 9.3 bbls finished beer no matter what.

In my case I have a 7 bbl PUB system. The mash tun will hold 560 lbs of grain, which means for a full batch of beer 16.5-17 plato is my max. My kettle is huge however and will hold almost 12 bbls of water. My normal boil start volume is 9.5 bbl, with a boil end volume of 9.0. If I have above 9.3 bbl boil end volume I will overflow the 7 bbl fermenters during knockout. My usual yield of finished beer out of the fermenter (if the brew goes well and I hit my boil stop gravity with maximum boil stop volume) is 7.2 for an unfiltered beer, 6.6-7.0 for a filtered but not dry hopped beer or 6.2-6.6 for a dry hopped beer. I do have one 7 bbl fermenter that's a different manufacturer and it seems to hold an extra .2-.3 bbls so my yield is always a bit better out of that tank.

I hope that helps.

[jakecpunut]

Thanks for the input and that makes sense.. I know I have access to the capacities of the system that's on its way so I guess I just need to crunch some numbers again and figure out what my limits will be..

This is an entire new ball game for me when it comes to bigger batches.. I'm so use to knowing exactly what volumes I will be getting on the pilot system..

One thing you touched on that also brings a question to my mind.. when you say this

"if the brew goes well and I hit my boil stop gravity with maximum boil stop volume"

do you find that those numbers vary alot? Once again in my experience, from my software calculations I know what efficiency I should be getting for a particular recipe. I also use a particular quarts per pound ratio to get my strike water volumes, usually 1.3 to 1.5 quarts per pound. After I configure my grain absorption I know how much sparge water I will need to get my final boil volume and 95% of the time I hit my gravity numbers.. Again this is on a pilot system 1/2 bbl.

Will this process carry over to the 10 bbl recipes?

[jakecpunut]

anyone willing to chime in on the last questions?

Thanks!

[Matt Dog]

Absolutely. With any size system if you are consistent across the board you should get very consistent and repeatable results.