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I am working on a profile to do a 5 gal batch in a 15.5 gal keg. In step three of the equipment wizard it asks for the total volume of your mash tun do i put the full volume or do I go with a smaller number say 7 gal?
I always advocate plugging in the exact volumes of your equipment. You will find that for a 5 gallon batch you will need around 7 gallons preboil volume in the BK, depending on gravity; and to get this you will use almost 8 gallons or more of water throughout the process. My BK is s.s 15 gallons, Mashtun s.s. 10 gallons and HLT s.s. 8 gallons. I usually do 12 gallon batches which gives me 14.85 gal preboil volume ( kettle full to brim) and 18 gallons of water total, for 6.6% gravity beer.
The question is how much your mash tun and HLT can hold. I end up juggling water between the boil kettle which I use to heat strike and sparge water seperately, transferring sparge water to the HLT which mine is only 8 gallon so I often end up having to use a small 2.5 gallon pot for excess water which won't fit in the HLT. To yield 5 gallons I always suggest to make the batch size 6 gal to account for losses which should be actually measured if you can each time to dial in your profile. If you brew BIAB you will need all that volume so I would enter exact volumes.
I am working on a profile to do a 5 gal batch in a 15.5 gal keg. In step three of the equipment wizard it asks for the total volume of your mash tun do i put the full volume or do I go with a smaller number say 7 gal?
Use the full volume of the mash tun. What will need to change is the mash profile, if you batch sparge. The fill percentage would be lower, so that it'll correctly even out sparge volumes. BeerSmith will still figure strike water based on grain weight and deadspace.
The other issue will be Brewhouse Efficiency. Since Kegs often have a larger amount of wort left behind than flat bottom kettles, you'll have much lower BHE if a lot of it is left behind. This is because the volume left is constant, no matter what the batch size, so it represents a larger percentage of loss with smaller batches. An easy fix: tilt the keg to get more wort!