3 Tier All Grain Setup: Size Considerations

Hey everyone,

I'm putting together a standard beverage cooler w/ ball valve gravity fed all grain system. I already have a 10 gal kettle and was planning on buying a 10 gal false bottom beverage cooler style mash tun. My question is this: Could I use a 5 gal HLT (also picnic beverage cooler style) just to store sparge water until I need it, or should I get an equally sized 10 gal HLT for my sparge water?

I would be heating up strike water (keep in mind I only have one burner and one kettle), dumping it into the mash tun, doughing in and mashing, and in the mean time I would heat up my sparge water, once it is at the right temp, dump that into the HLT, and then go ahead with a fly sparge when ready.

If I'm really only doing 5-6 gal batches at the moment, would I need more capacity in my HLT for this? My understanding is that roughly half of one's pre boil wort is from the initial mash and the other half is from sparging, is that somewhat correct?

If I upgraded my kettle someday to 15 gal and did 10 gallon batches, would a 10 gal mash tun and 5 gal HLT still be big enough? Am I way off in my above described methods? Keep in mind I always have an able brewing assistant and our backs are still in top shape.

Thanks !

 

How different is that story? If I had two ten gallon rubbermades and a fifteen gallon kettle , am I in the ballpark for ten gallon batches? I will be using a vorlauf pitcher / dumping method for filling both MT and HLT. regardless, I just have one burner and was thinking plastic for HLT.

So with a single tier system, I can only batch sparge correct?- is the difference in efficiency / time commitment to either method that different?