What size mash tun?

[Rogermort]

Complete newbie. Im building a HLT and a boiler from euro kegs which are 50L. I'm considering buying a thermopot for use as the mash tun. Is there any benefit to be gained by buying an 80l pot rather than a 50 or 60?

[Pinto]

Flexibility - if you're a fan of imperial stouts, barley wines or big Belgian ales then more grain space is always welcome.

[Grumpydev]

Bigger is better - gives you more scope to do larger length or bigger brews later, but be aware that headspace is a real killer when it comes to maintaining temperature, so you might want to make yourself an insert or something to reduce it when doing smaller brews.

[fisherman]

I use a 45 litre mash tun and use between 9 & 10 kg of grain with 23 to 25 litres of mash liquor for my 46 litre brew . No problems on size loads of room .For 10 gallon brews I think 50 litres is ideal as you don't want headspace. But you must be sure of the volume of beer you want brew ..I am happy with 10 gallon brews. I have a 60 litre H.LT. 45 litre mash tun and a 60 litre boiler.

[Rick_UK]

I would go for the 50l. You can always mash thicker and sparge for longer if you do a really big brew. If your boiler is 50l you wont need an MT bigger than this, I have a 50l boiler and 35l MT and regularly mash 10kg grain for 45l of wort.

[Rogermort]

Thanks all. One less thing to be confused about.

[Fil]

hope the doner kegs are legit, kegwatch sniff around the forums and having the kettle n hlt taken off you after posting a proud pic would be a total bummer..

With a 50l kettle a 50l tun will be more than sufficient to brew any beer you want..
and i dont think the extra capacity of an 80l tun would be usefull at all unless you had a 100l+ kettle,

[Rogermort]

Thanks for the warning but they were donated legit.