Reiterated
An alternative approach to reach a high gravity wort.
My Spike Solo 15 gallon brewery has a bunch of dead space. I want to brew a big doppelbock with around 1.090 original gravity. I've had a lot of trouble trying to hit high gravities with this thing. But this is a beer I want to lager for almost four months, so I really want it to not be a "session" doppelbock or something like 6% ABV. So what are my options? With 22 lbs of grain, I'd need 27.5 quarts in the basket to have a 1.25 qt/lb grist ratio that is a recommended mash thickness. This would entail 12.6 gallon of water total. I'd need acid to bring down the pH of all that water to a good mash pH. Then when all that is done, I'd need to boil for like 4 hours to get the batch volume to 5.5 gallons.
Or, alternatively, I could do a "reiterated" mash, where I design my mash such that I add enough water for half the grain bill plus water to account for the absorption of by the other half of the grain bill.
I like the reiterated mash approach better, but I don't think I'll be able to step my mash temperatures easily, and the mash pH is something I'll need to keep an eye on.
We'll see.
