would this work?

[Aemon]

Hey,

Really wanna try some AG brewing, and was thinking of a way to do it with my limited equipment. I only have a 13 liter pot, a stove wich only can boil 6 liter with a good roll and a mesh bag.

So was thinking of making a 9,5 liter batch as follows:

2kg. Pale malt
150g. Caramalt 10L
20g Willamette 5,5% 60 min.
1/2 a pkg. of Nottingham dry yeast (rehydrated)

Mash the grains in the mesh bag (BIAB style) at 69c for 60min. in 7,40 liter water, heat up to 75c over 7 min.. Remove grains and start boil. Then after boil and wort chilled, top up fermenter with 5,5 liter water (like i do when i make my extract batches).

Its that last part that concerns me, making a strong wort with AG and diluting it.

Cheers - Ray

 

[calumscott]

Your theory is perfectly good. Liquoring-back as it's known is a perfectly fine thing to do.

I say go for it, your recipe seems to give a nicely balanced pale ale. I like a bit of "up front" hop so maybe consider a few more hops towards the end, maybe another 10g at 10 mins. Won't add much to the bitterness but will give some good flavour and aroma. I understand that Willamette is not to distantly related to either EKG or Fuggle (I can't remember which) and they make nice late additions. :thumb:

 

[Aemon]

Your theory is perfectly good. Liquoring-back as it's known is a perfectly fine thing to do.

I say go for it, your recipe seems to give a nicely balanced pale ale. I like a bit of "up front" hop so maybe consider a few more hops towards the end, maybe another 10g at 10 mins. Won't add much to the bitterness but will give some good flavour and aroma. I understand that Willamette is not to distantly related to either EKG or Fuggle (I can't remember which) and they make nice late additions. :thumb:

Thx for reply, will definitely try this then :)

I didn't add late hop additions because i want my dad to like this one. He is not that used too homebrew and "hoppy" beer, mostly drinks store-bought pilsners/lagers. But now that you mentioned it, i really wanna try with some late hops, so ill probably brew two similar batches, with and without late additions.

:

 

[Stihler]

What you suggest should work fine.

One thing to keep in mind is that the hop extraction efficiency is lower for concentrated wort boils.

Most recipe calculators account for this so it is not really a problem unless you are doing the computations by hand.

I was playing around with BeerTools (http://www.beertools.com) and added your recipe just to see how it turned out.

Assuming you are brewing an English Pale Ale this is what I got:

Category English Pale Ale
Subcategory Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
Recipe Type All Grain
Batch Size 9.46 L
Volume Boiled 7.38 L
Mash Efficiency 72 %
Total Grain/Extract 2.15 kg
Total Hops 20.0 g
Calories (12 fl. oz.) 160.7
Cost to Brew $16.28 (USD)
Cost per Bottle (12 fl. oz.) $0.61 (USD)

2.0 kg English 2-row Pale info
.15 kg Caramel Malt 10L; Briess info
20 g Willamette (Whole, 5.5 %AA) boiled 60 min. info
Yeast : Danstar Nottingham info

Predicted English Pale Ale Compliance
Original Gravity 1.049 1.048 - 1.060 100 %
Terminal Gravity 1.011 1.010 - 1.016 100 %
Color 5.73 °SRM 6.00 - 18.00 °SRM 98 %
Bitterness 32.1 IBU 30.00 - 50.00 IBU 100 %
Alcohol (%volume) 4.9 % 4.60 - 6.20 % 100 %
100 % overall

Apparent Real
Original Extract 12.02 °Plato 12.02 °Plato

Attenuation 75.9 % 61.6 %

Extract 2.89 °Plato 4.61 °Plato

% Weight % Volume
Alcohol 3.8 % 4.9 %

==========

It looks like your recipe is pretty good in terms of matching the style. Not that it really matters but....

By the way, Willamette hops were derived from Fuggle hops so both can be used more or less interchangeably.

Good luck with your brewing!

- Scott

 

[Aemon]

I was playing around with BeerTools (http://www.beertools.com) and added your recipe just to see how it turned out.

Hey, thx for reply, and for bothering doing that. I have run it trough beersmith myself, and I've adjusted the hops and gravity there. It is actually a take on the blonde ale recipe from "brewing classic styles". I get the following:

OG 1.051
FG 1.015
IBU: 22.3
Color:10.7 EBC
ABV: 4.8%

I think the difference is because of boil volume. I will probably end up with around 6 liter for boil, cause of grain absorption.
Its a bit off the blonde ale style, but not by much, so think it will be fairly drinkable :)

My worry was about topping off with water, but since that seems too be ok, ill give it a go.

Thx again :

 

[alawlor66430]

Sorry for hijacking this thread but, does this method eliminate the need to sparge? I want to start AG but the only thing holding me back is all the equipment, but the method described here sounds very do-able for me, I have 2 19ltr pots to use, so if I get my sack of 2 row and some specialty grains and hops can I just batter on with learning AG through this method ?

 

[Stihler]

I think the difference is because of boil volume. I will probably end up with around 6 liter for boil, cause of grain absorption.

I wondered about that but I ignored it since I did not have a good absorption value at the tip of my fingers.

Looking online I find that a common value of used is 0.12 U.S. gallons per pound or 0.99 liters per kilogram (Promash uses this value). I've also come across a value of 0.20 U.S. gallons per pound or 1.67 liters per kilogram (Ray Daniels uses this value in Designing Great Beers).

[25 February 2013: Note the I corrected the metric absorption values since the original posting. Aemon's next post made me realize I was in error. Sorry about that.]

I found the above and am posting it just as a matter of reference of myself. I hate not being able to quickly find this sort of thing.

...does this method eliminate the need to sparge?

Sparging is not absolutely necessary. One does this simply to extract as much of the converted sugars as possible. It is a matter of efficiencies. However, if one were to place the relatively small amount of grain in a kettle with a lot of hot water (at the appropriate mash temperature) then most of the sugars may be naturally rinsed off simply by dunking the bag of grain a few times like a large tea bag following the mash. I need to think more about this but I believe you may be right about this. This would certainly be a good step towards a larger scale all grain system once you've gotten the hang of things.

- Scott

 

[Aemon]

Looking online I find that a common value of used is 0.12 U.S. gallons per pound or 0.20 liters per kilogram

Hey,

0.12 U.S. gallons is 0.454 liters, and 1 pound is 0.454 kg.. So roughly, a kilo of grain would absorb 1 liter, using those values.

Beersmith works with these values: (Using the grain bill above, and BIAB mash method) 1.31 liter absorption on 2.15 kg. of grain.

Will try and brew this next weekend, and will take notes on volumes used, and get a better idea of how much it will absorb :)

Edit: And if the absorption is more then what beersmith says, ill just put the mesh bag in a colander, and do a sparge, so ill end up with around 6 liters.

Thx again :thumb: