Mash tun volume limits

[therealrendo]

Just windering if anyone has pushed thier mashtun to its limits.

i was preparing to make a strong ipa last weekend. About a 7-8% brew , 23l volume. Primarily to use up the last of a bag of grain. It was only after weighing out the grain that i realised how much volume it took. Using 2.5l of water per kg that would have been 20litres but my mash tun is 24litre coolbox.

Would it have made it or would it have overflowed , in the end i halved the quantities and made a smaller batch

[oakwell]

I think you made the right decision, it could have been messy otherwise

[robbarwell]

I brew 80litres of 4-5% abv stuff using a 50litre mashtun...its a tight squeeze but works ok for me...16kg of malt in there

[jaroporter]

yeah you'd have struggled without reducing the ratio closer to 2L/kg. there's a useful calculator here http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
might be worth checking the practical maximum volume of the coolbox also, as i think sometimes they include the lidspace in the advertised volume?