I am going to move to 10g batches and was hoping to learn from others who have done so already. I will have to drill the pot I bought off Amazon (60 qt stainless) and then fix some sort of pick up tube. But other than that I just don’t know if there is big alterations to recipes, cooling, etc.
So what are your experiences in moving to 10g? What part of the process seemed more of a pain? What would you do different?
I hope you have a stand of some sort. I didn’t when I first moved up and had to pick up a lot more weight. Cooling will take longer as will bring water and wort to temp.
When I stepped up to 10 gallon batches I bought a bigger IC with a recirculation arm. I use my old IC as a pre chiller. It works pretty well. Just remember you might also want/need a bigger burner.
10 gram batches?! Wow, that really is microbrewing!
I mainly do 5 gallons but the last two batches I have done were 10 gallons. I dont have a stand and I can confirm that it is heavy. My back was sore after the last one.
For cooling I lift the entire pot and set it in a big tub of water. With using an immersion chiller this reduces my cooling time by about half.
Keep in mind mash tun capacity. I use a 10 gallon round cooler and doing any beer over 1.060 gets to be pretty tight.
Make sure you rig up some type of ball valve, not just a pick up tube. Maybe that is what you meant. Your chilling times will be different but a 25 ft piece of copper IC will work for a 10 gallon batch.
The only real downside of having ten gallon batches is having to carry two full fermenters around instead of one.
My experiences:
As was stated, 10g is heavy so try to have a solution. I put my pot on a utility cart to lauter and then roll it to my burner. 13-14G+ is heavy!
You need to collect about 13-14G to boil down to 10.5-11G. In a 60Q pot, slight boil-overs are almost a given. Be prepared…
High gravity beers can get messy so stick below 1.060ish as stated if using a 10G cooler.
My 1/2" x 50’ IC does well to chill to ale temps but I have to put the kettle in my chest freezer to get down to lagering temps. Very heavy to pick up over the wall! I plan to experiment with frozen and sanitized soda bottles per Euge in the near future.
Transfer to 2 x 5G containers is tricky. I use a sanitized pitcher and paint strainers.
I LOVE to experiment with 2 different yeasts. It always amazes me how different the beers turn out.
That’s all I can think of now.
Dave
EDIT: Just thought of 2 more. I’ve been making a lot of lagers so doing 90 minute boils. You can collect less for a 60 minute boil and avoid boil-overs. You can also collect less and add some water during transfer to primary. Just double check the adjustment in your brewing software.
Heating and cooling take longer, but are part of the process.
I would not be doing 10 gallons without a pump - no heavy lifting with a pump.
When I moved to 10 gallon batches I had a buddy in my brew club who welds build me a stand that I could attach my burner to. The burner sits off the ground 35"… No lifting at all required…
All of the above. And if you are using the same boil kettle, your boil-off will be about the same volume, or half the percentage.
+1 on both of these. You need to incorporate a valve on the kettle and the mash tun for a pump.
Adding a recirc for hot wort and an ice water loop was the only way I can cool 10 gal below 70F.
Pumps and valves are fine but I made do for years by transferring chilled wort with a pitcher to the fermenters until the kettle was light enough to lift easily. In an ideal situation a three-tier gravity system is what I’d shoot for and skip pumps entirely.
If you are going to drill the kettle I cannot recommend a Blichmann Brewmometer more highly!
Going to 10 gallon batches (or more) is gonna change a lot of things for ya 
Everybody else covered the mechanics so here’s my take. Make a starter 5-7 days ahead of time and plan on stepping it up twice. You’re gonna need a lot more yeast but you can still get by with one vial or smack pack if you do it right.
I pretty much just doubled my ingredients when I went to 10 gallon batches years ago, but after a few batches you’ll be able to tweak that to compensate for your system. I know that a 10 gallon batch of Imperial stout with 45 pounds of malt is much less efficient than a 5 gallon batch that may only require 18 pounds of malt.
There are advantages to larger bath brewing if you do it right and have the right equipment. It takes me 2 hours less to brew 10 gallons with my 3 tiered system than it did to brew 5 gallons with my single turkey fryer setup. I have twice as much beer, and as stated before I can make 2 different beers from one brewing session. The disadvantage is that I have twice as much beer to drink. ;D
Re: Starter. I just went with two flasks and two stir plates and just ordered two vials.
That’s what I would do if I brewed a 10g batch. I already have the flasks and stir plates and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ferment with two different yeasts in this situation.
Absolutely. I still do a lot of side by side batches this way. I have a “festweizen” going right now with 2 different weizen yeasts.
I wrote this really long and brilliant reply that would have revolutionized your homebrewing but apparently it didn’t get uploaded properly which is too bad cause it was really brilliant.
Since I’m lazy, I’ll skip all the gems of wisdom and just say: Regarding starters - do a 5 gal batch first and then use the yeast for 10 gal batches.
split batches are great for understanding yeast in a brew. Also can lend itself to dry hopping or fruiting or something like that.
I made the jump to 10 gallons about 18 months ago. I made the jump back to 5 gallons about 6 months ago. Even with split batches or partigyles, I just wasn’t that thrilled to have that much beer on hand all at once.