Cider Beer/Beer Cider

Since I'm away at school I've had to resort to small batches of highly experimental brews, since quality control in a dumpy apartment is a pipe dream. Came up with this recipe the other day and definitely going to brew it up this weekend. I've never tried to mash without my all grain set up at home, so things could get messy.

Let me know what you think of the recipe, I tried to find something similar on here but so far no luck.

3 lbs American 2-row
.5 lbs each of:

Flaked oats
Crystal 80
Biscuit
Molasses

Making 1.5 gallons of wort, add 1 ounce Styrian Bobek (3.9%a) @ 20 minutes, .5 ounces bitter orange peel @ 10 minutes.

Add to fermenter with 1 gallon of cider for a 2.5 gallon batch.

I'm estimating the best efficiency I'll see is 70%, so the 1.5 gallons will have a gravity around 1.085, the cider 1.050, so net OG should be ~1.071

Ferment in a 5 gal bucket with Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale, rack to 3 gal glass carboy for secondary.

Debating using my 3 gal better bottle for primary, but I'm worried about having too much blowoff. Any reason not to use a fermentation vessel that leaves ample space?

A beer/cider mix is called a Graff.

Anyways, what kind of pot are you mashing in? I have a 4 gallon one that I can mash up to 8 lbs of grains in with no issue. With yours (4.5 lbs) you should be able to mash no problem in a 3 gallon pot.

In a primary, head space is not an issue since CO2 pushes out any Oxygen. If you plan on secondarying this graff for a long time, you's want as little head space as possible.

Ahha a graff... i suspected that but was too lazy to look it up at the time, thanks.

It's not the size of the pot that I'm concerned with it's the sparging. Hopefully I'll have someone there to give me a hand, but if not I'll settle for 65% efficiency over burn wounds.

Thanks for the tips on the headspace, I wasn't sure if there would be excessive ester production akin to open fermentation. I'm not worried about secondary, it's only purpose will be for clarification.

I am doing one soon with about 3.5 lbs light lme, about 2 lbs light dme, 1 lb Cara 20, 1/2 lb each wheat and 60L, 1 lb Panela. a gallon cider.

belgian yeast and sazz hops.

We'll see