Mash tun

[Snuff]

Snuff, how do you do it?  I too have a small mash tun am aiming to produce approx 23L batches to fill a corny and 6-8 bottles.  I use approx 12L of water for mash (2.5L/Kg) and 2 X 10L for sparge but almost always end up with 19L at the end.  That was why I was looking at the larger mash tun.

Your setup sounds similar to mine, I get about 27l in the boiler and end up with 20 or 21 in the fermentor. Depends on how much hops soakage there is. Sounds like you losing too much during the boil if you are ending up with only 19l in the fermentor.

[ColMack]

There were 160g of dried hops in the last batch which probably accounts for a lot of soakage, but I'd ideally like to finishing with 23L.  That would need approx 30L in the boiler.

[Ciderhead]

The 36L Coleman extreme model I bought last year for 55Stg from Amazon including delivery, apart from having a purpose built drain hole allows me to;

1) Make big Beers, was tight on a Double 9.6% IPA 7.5Kgs of grain 20 litres of water
2) Make light beers in 7-9 gallon batches
3) use the headspace for my fly sparge resevoir which I keep 3-4cm above my grain bed
Allows my grains to "soak and swim"

A 25-30L Mash tun won't and are regularly up for swap/sale as peops decide to upgrade as they have bought a small cheap one with poor insulation or its not big enough for higher abv beers
I am not saying they aren't fit for purpose, just not as good.

[Rossa]

Here is a nice little calculator to tell you how big your tun needs to be depending on how much grain you have.
http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

[Ciderhead]

saw that, couldn't work it out though cos i'm fick.
beersmith also tells you capacity required, just had a quick look at my last 10 and they went from 22 to 32 litres capacity required.