Extract Brewing simple questions from novice.

[aamcle]

Morning All.

I've just done my second kit this century, yep its been that long, and I'm planning to move on to AG using the BIAB method. It will be a few months before I'm ready so I took a look at the excellent 'extract how to' thread but I have a few questions.

Why do I need to boil full volume?
Could I extract the grain in a pan and add the liquid to the 'wort'?
Hops can I add them to the reduced volume boil and top it all up later?

What are the disadvantages of reduced volume? It would be a lot easier in the kitchen, the pot I'm hoping to use for BIAB is 48l too big for my stove top.

ATB. Aamcle

 

[barry44]

Hi,

i have recently started extract brewing and i boil up 6 litres of water with 1kg of DME in it for 45 minutes. After that i add the remaining 2kg of DME and boil it for the full hour.

I steep the grains in the 6 litres prior to boiling.

The hops go in as per their required times.

The wort then gets added to 8 litres of water in the fv and topped up to the required volume prior to pitching.

This is the method i learned on the brewuk site, http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/american-ipa, when i made their 'way to amarillo' extract brew and i found it to be very easy to do.

The recipe did not call for the wort to be chilled and when added to the fv and topped up, the temp range was within the pitching range.

Other recipes on their site call for additional water for the boil with less in the fv which i am going to adopt as i understand that you get more from the hops with lower gravity of the wort.

My friend adds the majority of his DME in the FV rather than boiling for any length of time.

Hope this helps.

Barry

 

[EskiBrew]

Why do I need to boil full volume?

The SG of the wort during boiling affects the utilisation of the bittering hops. If you boil a smaller volume then the SG will be different so the utilisation will be different to what you expect.

Could I extract the grain in a pan and add the liquid to the 'wort'?

Not clear what you are asking here. When you say extract the grain, do you mean mash in a pan? - and when you say add the liquid to the wort, what do you mean, which liquid to which wort?

Hops can I add them to the reduced volume boil and top it all up later?

You could but bear in mind the utilisation issue mentioned above.

What are you trying to achieve? - Are you trying to get away with a smaller kettle/copper/boiler?

True BIAB process mashes with full liquor volume and includes a "passive" sparge - there is no separate sparge step. You are then also boiling with the full volume.

 

[aamcle]

As I said it will be a while before I'm able to BIAB I've still got some kit to get together so I was hoping to do an extract brew in the mean time with the equipment I have to hand.


ATB. Aamcle