The interesting Thread 10 Gallon batches lead me to think of more ways to make the brewing process easier, one way is to work with thicker mash and high gravity boil. Less boil, coiling lower volumes and curry less weight. Any one experience / experiment such approach ?
Commercial breweries do it all the time. It's called high gravity brewing. I suspect on the homebrew level it would have similar negative consequences that partial boils usually have. Many people think partial boils are what give the 'homebrew twang.' The thickness of the mash can only be increased to a certain threshold like to let's say 1qt/lb and I'm not sure it would give you much less pre-boil volume when all is said and done. Actually, I do it for 5gal batches, because I don't have a big brew kettle. I use extract for about half of my fermentables so I can up the gravity without really affecting volume. It works and I make fine beer, but I think it would probably be an all around better idea to set up a brewing stand type thing to alleviate heavy lifting than to do high gravity brewing.
