Pot Question.. make that several questions :)

First off, I'd like to thank all the posters on this website. I've not done much in terms of posting but spent a ton of time reading. I'm looking forward to starting my first batch later this week.

Do you have to use pots that are dedicated to brewing? Also, I received a 40 qt stainless pot with my brewing kit for christmas, is there any specific thing I need to do before I start using it? I dont plan on using the 40 qt pot for anything except for brewing but was planning on using a different pot to steep my grains in. The recipe suggests I steep 1 1/2 lbs of specialty grains in 2 gallons of water for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Transfer the bag to another pot containing 2 gallons of water and "rinse" but not squeeze the bag. I'm then supposed to combine the contents of the original steep pot into the larger pot. Should the larger pot already be at a boil and contain my DME and hops? Or should I combine the 2 and get it to boil before adding the dme and hops? As far as boil off is concerned, should I try to account for water lost in boil off and how do I determine this? When adding water to bring the total back to 5 gallons, how do you know where 5 gallons is on either the carboy or bucket?

I feel like i've asked a thousand questions most of which are probably stupid but nonetheless. I feel like i'm turning this into rocket science and it really doesnt have to be. I just really want a decent beer. I appreciate the help!!

rl1373 said:

Do you have to use pots that are dedicated to brewing?

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yep - I have a 60qt SS pot that I use only for brewing

rl1373 said:

Also, I received a 40 qt stainless pot with my brewing kit for christmas, is there any specific thing I need to do before I start using it?

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Nope - brew away! Well, give it a good rinse and make sure it's clean.

rl1373 said:

The recipe suggests I steep 1 1/2 lbs of specialty grains in 2 gallons of water for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Transfer the bag to another pot containing 2 gallons of water and "rinse" but not squeeze the bag. I'm then supposed to combine the contents of the original steep pot into the larger pot. Should the larger pot already be at a boil and contain my DME and hops? Or should I combine the 2 and get it to boil before adding the dme and hops?

Click to expand...

You can actually do all of this in your one pot. You can steep your specialty grains in 2 gallons of water @ 150. You can rinse if you want to, but you can accomplish pretty much the same thing by lifting the bag in and out of the water several times and then letting it drain. Then you can bring to a boil, kill the heat, add your DME and bittering hops, return to a boil and follow the recipe.

rl1373 said:

As far as boil off is concerned, should I try to account for water lost in boil off and how do I determine this? When adding water to bring the total back to 5 gallons, how do you know where 5 gallons is on either the carboy or bucket?

Click to expand...

When boiling ~2.5 gallons of water for an hour, you can count on losing at least 0.5 gallons, but it will vary depending on your burner, outside temp, etc.

You need to mark you ale pails or carboys in some fashion by measuring out the volume beforehand. Don't trust the pre-stamped pails - they are notoriously inaccurate!

Sounds like you've thought this all out and you should be good to go! Happy brewing and welcome to the site!

Welcome to HBT and the obsession. Sound like you've done plenty of research.

Try reading this, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/ it might help answer some questions. I do agree with what AZ IPA said about using only one pot though, makes things much easier for the first go. The link is for a partial mash which sounds like what you have described above.

Hope that helps.

1) Using a dedicated pot is nice. Soap residue can be pretty difficult to rinse off completely, depending on your water, so having a pot that you never put soap into may improve your beer some.

2) Never boil grains. Doing so will extract tannins from the husk, making for some bitter beer face when you drink it.

Steep at the appropriate temperatures (normally somewhere in the 150-160 range) then add your extract and bring it to a boil after the grains are removed.

3) If you're doing a partial boil, you don't need to account for boil off. Everything will be taken care of when you add your top off water at the end.

4) Before you use a fermenter, I'd recommend that you mark it with some graduations. Just take a measuring cup and add water to the container. Every time you get to a gallon added, score the plastic at that water line with a knife (be gentle all you want is a surface scratch on the outside of the plastic) and then rub a sharpie over the scratch.

If your graduations aren't exact, RDWDHB (when you have some, until then RDWDMB) Worst case scenario for volumes, you'll be drinking beer that 5.2% or 4.8% instead of 5%

** nevermind **

I've read that you need to steep small and boil big. So this being the case, can I still do it all in one pot? For example, start off with the 2 gallons of water and bring it to the recommended steeping temp. Steep for 1/2 an hour. Rinse by lifting it in and out of the wort several times and letting drain. Discard the grain bag and add another 2 gallons of water and bring it to a boil and adding my DME and hops.

One more question, I've read that adding all the DME at the beginning isnt necessary. if this is the case how much should I add and when? I've read 1/2 at the beginning and the rest at the end? Is this correct or did I read it wrong? Thanks again for all the help and quick replies!!!!

Steeping volume should be irrelevant. You need to take water volume into account when you're mashing, just because of enzyme activity, but with steeping volume shouldn't matter much at all. If anything, more volume should get you a better extraction of sugars (although I would expect this to be pretty negligible given sugar solubilities in water.)

The more sugar in your wort when you're boiling hops, the less utilization you're going to get. That said, any recipe you're following should have an expected boil volume which would take into account the hop utilization.

If you're using the hop schedule for a partial boil and do a full boil instead, you'll end up with beer with a lot more hop bitterness than expected. The same would be true if you did the boil with half of the extract when the recipe called for all of the extract to be added at the beginning.

I'd recommend following the extract and hop schedule that your recipe calls for.

thanks for the help.. I'll let you know how it goes..