Stove-top brewing

[MFW]

Evening all. Just done a Ghost Ship clone tonight, but as I'm a stove-top brewer I can only do 11 or 12 litres at a time.

I use a coolbox as a mashtun, then boil up in a 15 litre pan on the stove.

I was wondering, if I was to do a 11 litre boil, but with double the hops, and then do another mash and bring the second batch of wort to the boil (without adding hops) and then combine the two batches to make up 22 litres - would this work ok? Or does the wort need to boil for an hour or two?

11 litres doesn't last long enough!

 

[Drunkula]

I've recently done some 23 litre brews with a 14 litre pot and topped it up and the end and the efficiency really didn't take that much of a battering. I'm going to be doing Ghostship, too, as I randomly bought some cararye.

I sparged out extra and kept topping up the pot. On another day I just throught duhhh and just boiled the other pot at the same time.

 

[Mavroz]

Not sure if we are talking the same thing here but i stove top mash all the time, although it is extract brewing only.

10 litre boil for all mashes, strain into fv, then top up with water to 20 / 23 litres.

I put the full pot in the sink to chill / cool as explained in another thread.

Have been getting really good results this way.

Not sure it will, but hope this helps.

 

[MFW]

@Drunkula - yeah, I keep meaning to order another big pan so I can get 2 boiling at the same time

@Mavroz - I'm brewing from grain rather than extract, so I'm wondering if I double up the amount of grain I add into the mashtun but still use the same amount of water, would I end up with a double-concentrated batch of wort (which I could then top up with cold water to 23 litres). Sounds like Drunkula has tried this and it worked ok, so I'll give it a try and see what happens

 

[Sandimas]

I stove-top brew in a 15L pan and a 12L plan for the BIAB mash, and can brew up to 20L. I do a reduced-volume boil and my recipes contain 1kg DME so I used less grain. I always size for a full 1kg pack of DME as it's horrible stuff to store part-used.

Like you I found 10/11L brews a little too small. Most my brews are 15-17L which I find a good size (don't like too much of the same beer). OK it's a bit more expensive than full AG but if you look out for offers at the various onlone brew shops you can often get 1kg DME for under a fiver a bag so I buy in bulk - just bought 10 from HBC. The mash is typically 1.5kg of grain.

 

[MFW]

I've got a couple of 3 litre tubs of Suma LME in the shed, so could always chuck some of that in to boost the OG if it's a bit low after I've topped up with water.

That works out at £13 delivered, for 3.18 litres, which is similar value to the 1kg bags of DME for a fiver.

 

[Slid]

I stove-top brew in a 15L pan and a 12L plan for the BIAB mash, and can brew up to 20L. I do a reduced-volume boil and my recipes contain 1kg DME so I used less grain. I always size for a full 1kg pack of DME as it's horrible stuff to store part-used.

Like you I found 10/11L brews a little too small. Most my brews are 15-17L which I find a good size (don't like too much of the same beer). OK it's a bit more expensive than full AG but if you look out for offers at the various onlone brew shops you can often get 1kg DME for under a fiver a bag so I buy in bulk - just bought 10 from HBC. The mash is typically 1.5kg of grain.

It is fairly easy to mash up to 2.75kg of grain in a 15L pot, but it does involve using a BIAB bag and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing for a sparge. That could push your volume out towards 20L, if you add a few more hops to the boil in the large pot. If you have a large enough oven for a 15L pot, it makes the mash phase a doddle, on the lowest 50C setting.

 

[matt76]

I'm a stove topper too;

I mash in my brew kettle in the oven then do the boil on the hob.

It had occurred to me I could do a stronger mash and boil and then liquor back in the FV. But I'm not sure how this affects the IBU's - if you're only liquoring back say 5-10% I'm sure it's not a big deal but how about if you're almost doubling your volume.

Anyone know?

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Really stupid and i'm guessing an easy question to answer here but when you liquor back in the FV you are adding cooled previously boiled water? Then do you take the OG from the FV and if you've fallen short and want to add Malt extract can you add it to the FV direct? Recently I fell short on an Oatmeal Stout so I added some diluted brown sugar to the FV once cooled, same principle? A bit like @darrellm I find 10/11 litre batches a little small but 17 just about right.

 

[Sandimas]

It is fairly easy to mash up to 2.75kg of grain in a 15L pot, but it does involve using a BIAB bag and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing for a sparge. That could push your volume out towards 20L, if you add a few more hops to the boil in the large pot. If you have a large enough oven for a 15L pot, it makes the mash phase a doddle, on the lowest 50C setting.

My 15L won't quite fit in the oven but the 12L one will, hence that's what I do - oven on minimum, then turned off and the pot goes in there for the mash. Might lose a degree or two in an hour mash, but I take it out mid-point and stir, and add a bit more boiled water if it's dropped in temp.

...and yes you can add malt extract straight into the FV and stir it in. I usually add it to the boil, it doens't need boiling but I found it easier than trying to fight clumping DME in a load of steam. Plus I've tried to add it towards the end of the boil but it can drop the temp too much and stop the boil. I know my method is probably flawed but it works for me and produces great beer.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

 

[Drunkula]

when you liquor back in the FV you are adding cooled previously boiled water?

I just use cold water that I've campdened, and I've used bottles of frozen campdened water than I cut open and put in the bucket and pour the boiling wort on to cool it down fast. I cut the 2 litre pop bottles open and if my hands weren't sanitised enough the initial hit of boiling wort will sort out anything on the surface. And the ice really bangs and explodes which is way cool.

I'm not sure how this affects the IBU's

The concentration does hinder the bitterness but there are calculators out there and adding extra bittering hops is cheap.

 

[matt76]

The concentration does hinder the bitterness but there are calculators out there and adding extra bittering hops is cheap.

I use Brewers Friend as standard, but I'm not sure it accounts for how liquoring back affects IBUs???

But after a quick bit of googling it seems like (for example) if you brew 20L with the intention of adding 10L in the FV then you'd need to hit 90IBUs in the boil to end up with 60IBUs after you liquor back.

Oh, and when i have liquored back in the past i just used fresh bottles of Tesco Ashbeck, which i assumed were sanitised enough and never had a problem.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

I use Brewers Friend as standard, but I'm not sure it accounts for how liquoring back affects IBUs???

But after a quick bit of googling it seems like (for example) if you brew 20L with the intention of adding 10L in the FV then you'd need to hit 90IBUs in the boil to end up with 60IBUs after you liquor back.

Oh, and when i have liquored back in the past i just used fresh bottles of Tesco Ashbeck, which i assumed were sanitised enough and never had a problem.

Ahh yes bottled water thats an idea.

So would you not, say if I wanted to brew 20l by mashing with 10l and liquoring back with 10l accounting for boil off and uptake in the grain take a Greg Hughes recipe of 23l and adjust my amounts of grain/hops etc accordingly (87%) or is that too simple? Sorry if thats not clear...

 

[matt76]

Ahh yes bottled water thats an idea.

So would you not, say if I wanted to brew 20l by mashing with 10l and liquoring back with 10l accounting for boil off and uptake in the grain take a Greg Hughes recipe of 23l and adjust my amounts of grain/hops etc accordingly (87%) or is that too simple? Sorry if thats not clear...

Well, bare in mind I only started brewing last September so like you (I think?) I'm relatively new to this and it's not like I know what I'm talking about! But.....

From what I've read I think you shouldn't liquor back more than 50%.....

Apparently your efficiency will take a battering.....

And because the wort gravity is much higher the hops won't isomerise so well so you need to add more hops to get the right number of IBU's at the end.....

The latter is why I stopped liquoring back - I wanted to be clear on my own mind about how much bitterness I was ending up with once all is said and done.....

Having said all that, it could be an easy way to scale up production without needing to completely overhaul my brew gear and process.....

Currently I end up with about 11L in the FV, yielding about 20 pints - I reckon I might be able to get this closer to 20L.....

Apart from needing to do some extra calculations, main problem I can see is handling all the extra grain in my grain bag, and whether I can still achieve a vaguely sensible grain to water ratio in the mash and sparge.....

Hmm..... tempted to give it a go at some point and see how it turns out.....

 

[Drunkula]

I did a little test in BeerSmith, a 4.5kg base malt brew using 23 litres as the final target, one full volume, the other concentrated to 14 litres. To get the same bitterness of about 30 IBUs by using the 60 minute addition:

30 IBUs
Target 10.8%: 24g vs 30g, 11p difference
Admiral 13%: 20g vs 25g, 8p difference

40 IBUs using cascade at 5.5% for fun was
63g vs 79g which cost 67p more.

If you haven't got the right size pot it's still worth doing - you'll save a little in heating and boiling energy which might balance the extra hops, but then you might spend a little more depending on how much of an efficiency hit you take. I've done it and still end up in the 70s for efficiency and I'm all good with that.

 

[Sandimas]

But after a quick bit of googling it seems like (for example) if you brew 20L with the intention of adding 10L in the FV then you'd need to hit 90IBUs in the boil to end up with 60IBUs after you liquor back.

But you'd size your recipe for 20L, the end volume, not 10L - at least that what I do. So I've probably got double the hops in a 10L boil that I would have for a 10L brew. It would be interesting to know what the effect of doing a half-size boil has on the final beer, my beers don't seem particularly bitter so I am losing something doing it this way, just be good to know how much. I'll have to look into it.

 

[matt76]

But you'd size your recipe for 20L, the end volume, not 10L - at least that what I do. So I've probably got double the hops in a 10L boil that I would have for a 10L brew. It would be interesting to know what the effect of doing a half-size boil has on the final beer, my beers don't seem particularly bitter so I am losing something doing it this way, just be good to know how much. I'll have to look into it.

I think you could double up on grain safe enough as long as you keep the grain/water ratio sensible, and accepting that your efficiency might take a hit.....

But with the hops it's not as simple as doubling up.....

As the wort gravity increases (as it will if you're doubling up on grain) the hop utilisation drops off - effectively the water has already dissolved lots of sugars from the grain and there's not enough space left to dissolve the stuff from the hops.....

So you'd need to more than double up on hops to compensate for this reduced hop utilisation.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Well, bare in mind I only started brewing last September so like you (I think?) I'm relatively new to this and it's not like I know what I'm talking about! But.....

From what I've read I think you shouldn't liquor back more than 50%.....

Apparently your efficiency will take a battering.....

And because the wort gravity is much higher the hops won't isomerise so well so you need to add more hops to get the right number of IBU's at the end.....

The latter is why I stopped liquoring back - I wanted to be clear on my own mind about how much bitterness I was ending up with once all is said and done.....

Having said all that, it could be an easy way to scale up production without needing to completely overhaul my brew gear and process.....

Currently I end up with about 11L in the FV, yielding about 20 pints - I reckon I might be able to get this closer to 20L.....

Apart from needing to do some extra calculations, main problem I can see is handling all the extra grain in my grain bag, and whether I can still achieve a vaguely sensible grain to water ratio in the mash and sparge.....

Hmm..... tempted to give it a go at some point and see how it turns out.....

Hi Matt, thanks for getting back, you definitely make more sense of it than me! I see what you mean about the hops and IBU's etc, i'm sure James Morton has something about liquoring back, I might have to have a re read of Brew. Cheers!

 

[Slid]

Ahh yes bottled water thats an idea.

So would you not, say if I wanted to brew 20l by mashing with 10l and liquoring back with 10l accounting for boil off and uptake in the grain take a Greg Hughes recipe of 23l and adjust my amounts of grain/hops etc accordingly (87%) or is that too simple? Sorry if thats not clear...

I got into AG brewing using a Wilko 15L pot and a BIAB bag. My method was to do a 10L stove top brew and add that to a one can kit. I must have preferred this to doing half length AG brews, as my records indicate I did 3 half length 10-12L AG brews and 27 to 23L or so with the one can kit.

Outline of the methodology is here:

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/todays-one-can-partial-mash.53598/

I really would recommend this sort of approach, as it does not require a lot of space, nor a lot of money up-front, on an All-in-One system, like the Grainfather, or the Ace / Brewdog / every other letter in the alphabet / System.

It makes seriously good beer, with no twang, even using kits. A major plus is that the main bittering comes from the kit, so that simplifies and shortens a number of the stages.