New to full mash brewing and confused

[Trevor]

I've just gone from kit to full mash brewing. Have purchased a 25 litre bruheat boiler for the first time, and I am feeling very confused about it all.
I got all the ingredients to make the B&T Shefford Old Strong 23 litre recipe from the first edition of "Brew your own British Real ale". Having got the amount of ingredients I need to make up to 23 litre, it appeared that this much grain was more than my boiler is able to take. So I halved the grain and made it up to just 12 litres.
The trouble is I can't really get my head round how much grain I can have for the mashing stage. I really want to get a feel for what ale recipes are compatable with my bruheat boiler, and the amount of grain my boiler will take for the mashing stage, and ideally how much liqour I need for the mash. Does my 25 litre boiler allow me to make 25 litres of beer?

Also, are there any books/recipes that are specifically designed to cater for brewing with a 25 litre boiler.


Thanks

[Parva]

You'll probably get a better response if you post this in the Grain Brewing Questions and Answers section, unless a mod would kindly move it for you.

[BigEd]

Does my 25 litre boiler allow me to make 25 litres of beer? Thanks

No it doesn't. All grain brewing requires you to boil an amount that is greater than the actual final batch size. Extra water is used in the process to dissove and rinse the sugars from the mashed grains. This excess water is boiled away in the kettle leaving the original batch quantity. A 25 litre kettle is fine for an extract batch in the 20 litre area but you will need a kettle in the range of 40 liters to confortably brew a 25 litre AG batch. Most homebrewing books settle on a de facto batch size of 19 litres/ 5 US gallons. If you want to use any recipes written for that size you can easily scale them to your batch size. Welcome to AG brewing. Cheers!

[Scooby]

I brewed for many years with a Bruheat mashing 4-5kg, sparging in a bag to collect 20l, boiling and then topping up with
cold water to 25l and made very acceptable beer. Collecting more wort and gradually adding is something I learnt much latter

Don't think that because many on the forum have large stainless all singing all dancing setups that you can't make good beer with a couple
of plastic vessels and a jug, you can and imo the Bruheat is a good piece of kit

[Trevor]

Cheers folks.

[Chiltern Brewer]

My Electrim served me well for many years and if anything it was less the 25L capacity.

Since you have the GW book, have you considered making the "Home-made insulated mash tun" rather than using a grain bag? In my experience you should be able to squeeze 6Kg of malt (plus ~12L of water) into a 25L sized one, 4-5Kg is more manageable amount.

Oh and welcome to the dark side!