Batch versus Boil size

[PaulCa]

So I am not going fully AG cause I can currently only boil 10 litres. So I use partial mash with 1/3 AG, 2/3 Extract.

The reason I thought I can't go all grain is because I can't boil the whole 20 litre batch. But... Correct me if I'm wrong here, but to mash for 20 litres I need about 3-4Kg of grain and therefore about 2.5*grain weight of mash water, ie. 6-10 litres of mash water.

So why can't I mash 10 litres of water, then boil that water with the hops for 90 minutes, topping up with boiling water when required and then finally top it all up to 20 litres once I'm done.

I realise I will need to modify my hop bill due to under utilisation but I'm already doing that. I also realise that what I'm boiling with have a very high gravity of somewhere like 1080 - 1100.

Are there any other reasons I'm not considering?

 

[pittsy]

To get around 1045 you'll need approx 4 to 4.5 kg of grain . Grain will absorb around 1 litre per 1 kg . You'll want around 2.5 litres per kg of grain (minimum 2 litres but will be a bit thick ) so for 4 kg you need 10 litres and will only get 6 litres back . But unless you want poor efficiency you'll need to batch or fly sparge , batch would be better for this . So you want another 6 litres at least ( i would aim for around 12 plus litres if a 10 l pot and add when you can while boiling ) . I would add 3 litres to the mash and drain after 10 mins then add the other 3 litres and drain again after 10 mins hopefully getting as much of the sugars as possible .
You may need to add some dme to the fv afterwards because it would be difficult to estimate your efficiency the first time round and would most likely be low ish .
This can be done . :thumb:

 

[PaulCa]

Hmm. It's doable but I gather my margins with a 12 litre pot will be narrow.

Sparging is a bug bear for me at the moment anyway. The next largest pots I have are like 4-5litre and my colander is plastic, so my present process is to let the grain drain in the colander, which barely holds the 2Kg of wet grain, then put it into a 4 litre pot and pour as much water over it as I can, leave it for a few minutes and drain that into the kettle and repeat until the wort starts to boil. It's hard lifting and pouring the pan even when it's only got 2kg of grain in it (my partial mash recipe is 2Kg grains, 2Kg DME).

So, if I was to upgrade the pot my next limiting factor becomes the cooker ring power, but I could maybe manage a 16 litre pot and that would leave the 12 litre as a much better sparging pan.

It gives me food for thought anyway.

 

[tommidolcetto]

I use the maxi BIAB method with a 19l pot, means you do a mash with 3l water per kg, I have done 5.5 kg of grain, a batch/dunk sparge or two and then boil as much as you can get in the pot, topping up as you go with the sparge wort and then add water into fv. It's a bit hit and miss re OG and volumes but it makes beer!

A 10l pot would be a real struggle.

 

[PaulCa]

I could just take the plunge and buy one of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cygnet-MFCT1030 ... 680&sr=8-1

 

[pittsy]

Not big enough for a full brew , if doing normal and def not enough if doing biab and also seems expensive . I have a 33l pot for boiling and 40 litre would be better as i boil around 32 litres .
You could go gas for around £28 for a burner plus gas and get a 50 litre pot for around £65 http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... t&catId=16
There is no need to upgrade after this unless you want mega brews , should last a life time (ish)

 

[PaulCa]

This happens everytime I try and take a step towards AG.

I figure I can do it on a £100 budget, but then people start saying "A 30 litre boiler isn't enough", or, "You'll need to go to gas", "You don't want to do BIAB, so you'll need a tun and a sparge arm".....

So £100 quickly starts to spiral up and out of control and I lose interest.

I can't really do gas at the moment as I live in a rented appartment and the only non-carpeted floor is laminated wood flooring, so to use a gas burner I would need to get a heat proof plate for the floor. Not to mention the building has a managed fire alarm system, so if I screw up and set the smoke alarm off, the whole building is got out of bed/off the sofa. (The kitchen has a heat sensor that probably will get set off by a large gas burner).

I'm still unsure as to why a 30 litre boiler isn't enough to boil a 20 litre batch. Okay, so boil off could be as much as 25%, but I'm happy enough with hop utilisation to just top it up from time to time during the boil.

 

[PaulCa]

I did figure out a way to batch sparge with my current set up, simply use a spare 25 litre bucket. Dump the bag in to it and repeated add a kettle of water at 72*C let it stand for 5 minutes and pour back into the boiling pan while it's coming towards the boil. I can repeat this about 4 times and still get colour from the grains, before the wort boils or the boil pan fills. The last few I just let the grain drain by clipping it to the side of the FV out of the runnings.

 

[LeithR]

Hi there PaulCa,
Brewing on a budget is certainly doable but you have to be a bit cunning and inventive. Have you checked out your local Freecycle or Freegle sites. I have now managed to get 2 boilers from this source, the second one 36L which is just about good enough for a 23L brew when accounting for boil off, grain absorption, hop absorption and dead space - the first on was 32L and fine for 19L batches. I also have a smaller 8L boiler which is very useful for sparging and liquoring back.

But, for comfortable and less problematic brewing I know I really need a 40L boiler (I'm always on the look out so it might happen) to give me the head space to account for my various losses and still have 23L of wart left in the boiler at the end of the process. I'm not about to spend £100 on getting one so I've got to employ the strategies available to me.

Another useful source of "Stuff" is the local council recycling centre, befriend the supervisor, I can almost guarantee he will enjoy a pint of beer and on receipt of a nice 6 pack will be sure to turn his back while you have a rummage, if he's like my local supervisor he might even give you a hand.

Good luck with your commando style brewing, keep at it :thumb: :thumb:

 

[PaulCa]

Thanks. I suppose it's like any hobby, certainly a lot of the ones I have got into. There are people trying to get started on a budget and incrementally and there are old hands who tell you that you ABSOLUTELY need this or that. But, you struggle through, sometimes you buy cheap stuff that you use one or twice determine it's not fit for purpose and you really should have spent the money on a good one like everyone said. Fast forwards some years and you have become one of the old hands trying to tell the new comers not to waste their money on cheap half-steps.

Anyway, back to the original point and that is, my boil-ability is my main stumbling block for brew flexibility at the moment.

I "can" mash grain in a saucepan or boiler, I "can" small boil hops and just up the measurements by 25%, but I can't boil the runnings of 4-5kg of grain, period, therefore I can't do a normal AG batch.

So boiler is no. 1 next step.

I was thinking along the lines that boiling in a 30 litre boiler is a lot better than trying to do it in a 12 litre pan on the cooker ring and would be the absolute minimum to do an AG brew.

However, as it turns out a 40 litre boiler is still only £10 dearer than the 30 litre one. On Ebay anyway. I can hunt to see if I can get that price down. They are 3KW elements in most, which is probably about twice my cooker ring, and I'm willing to be patient.

Once the boiler is out of the way I can consider a mash tun next.

 

[PaulCa]

So just to recomfirm if my plans are sane...

If I get the 40 litre boiler I should be able to mash 4-5Kg of grain in the boiler in a bag. Remove the bag and sparge in a spare FV with a kettle and using the sparge runnings to get up to the 26 or so litres (I can calculate it later) for the boil.

Without a wort chiller I may be a bit screwed, but can it be done without it? I won't be able to put the boiler in a sink of cold water like I do now obviously. I'd guess it might take 2-3 hours to get down to 30*C and I can chill it in the FV in the bath filled with cold water to pitching temp. It rules out weekday evening brews, but I can live with that.

Step 2 is probably buy a wort chiller.

Step 3 Then mash tun (modded cooler box with sparge arm)

Apart from sundries that should be my AG setup. Anything I've missed?

 

[pittsy]

At least 2 good thermometers are needed for watching the mash etc . Watch out for cheap (£5 ish ) digital ones as they often are out by a few degrees .

 

[PaulCa]

At least 2 good thermometers are needed for watching the mash etc . Watch out for cheap (£5 ish ) digital ones as they often are out by a few degrees .

Or not at all. Been there. Binned it. Got a nice one for £17 which sticks to the side of the fridge via a magnet, it has an off button even though it will run for 5 years on a duracell :)

Yes, I found my first outing with a proper thermometer and a BIAB was odd. I got my water to 72*C, stuck the bag in and expected to see the temp at the core of the grain pile rise, but it only did so very slowly. I prodded and stirred and waited and it stopped at like 60*C, so I put the ring on low for a minute (Im not meant to do that sure Im not), but anyway when it got to about 62* it took off up to 83*C, a quick stir and it fell to 59*C and ensued 10 minutes of chasing the temp only to give up and assume it was okay, took one reading off the side in the wort and it was 55C, took another reading and it was 73C. Is this why strike temp and water volume is so important, so you can work out what temp to start with so that by the time the grain soaks in it there will be enough heat to stabilise at 62-65*? Ie, get the strike water right, pour in the grain, stir and leave alone?

EDIT: Answering my own question here. I realised for some reason I had started tieing the bag up at the start, this means I can't stir the actual grain, just move the bag of it around. No idea why I started do this, but it should allow me to stir it to an even temp easier.

 

[PaulCa]

40 litre boiler ordered.
Wort chiller ordered.

I have ingredients for a partial mash so (delivery being prompt) I shall be able to do a full boil partial mash to test things out this weekend, before moving to all grain BIAB.

Thanks for the help. I'll read up on full mashing etc. before I come crawling for help, but I'm sure I'll be back :)

 

[nobyipa]

40 litre boiler ordered.
Wort chiller ordered.

I have ingredients for a partial mash so (delivery being prompt) I shall be able to do a full boil partial mash to test things out this weekend, before moving to all grain BIAB.

Thanks for the help. I'll read up on full mashing etc. before I come crawling for help, but I'm sure I'll be back :)

no turning back now good luck with your brew new boiler and chiller
:thumb: :drink:

 

[PaulCa]

The boiler arrived. Of course the wort chiller hasn't. If it's not here tomorrow I'll go for a no chill brew.

The boiler looks grand, most importantly it has a 110*C setting for rolling boil and states in the instructions to wait till the water boils and then turn it down to save power, so should keep a nice roiling boil.

It odd how these things are never the shape you think they'll be or how big you'll think it will be. I was expecting to put it on the floor and I still may have to, but it sits on the hob under the extractor hood nicely. Shame I can't really reach to stir or pour stuff in there.

 

[PaulCa]

Grrr. Not in fact a 40L boiler. It's 30 at best. Calibrated and labeled the sight glass using a 5L demijohn and then drained it into a youngs fermenter and it agreed to enough accuracy. Still it will do for 20L brews.

It was also a good plan to dry run it with water as I have no hose that will fit over the tap, so to get it into the fermenter I will have to transfer it using a demijohn as there is not enough clearance to drop to the FV opening and I tried holding the bucket under the tap and that got old fast. I spilt a lot working this out, lucky it was water and not sticky wort!