Quantity for first brew

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b33risGOOD

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Hello all

Well I have been busy collectiong all the equipment needed for my first brew (hell yea!)

Today I purchased an 80quart pot for brewing, which ill heat with my propane burner outdoors.

My question is, having never brewed before, what quantity do you think I should attempt to make? Will brewing more be difficult to handle? boil overs etc? Im not overally worried as I have made wine before, but being a newbie I wanna check with you folk for some words of advice.
 
I'd start by thinking of the back end: how many bottles do you have/kegs? You'll have to do something with the beer when it's finished--go from there.
 
well i have many daimjohns, so fermenting wont be a prob, as for bottling, im just going to have to buy as many bottles as i need 1-2litre to get the job done.

Im more worriied about pulling off a good first brew.
 
Well, an 80 quart pot is pretty damn big.

What are you planning to brew for the first time? I'm assuming your doing an extract, but did you make the recipe yourself or are you buying a kit? Most kits work for 5 gallons of beer.

My initial thoughts are a regular turkey propane burner is going to struggle to get that kind of pot up to temperature to do any boiling. I had a friend brew up a batch a couple weeks ago. He did 10 gallons in a 20 gallon pot. It never really boiled. I'm not saying you won't be able to, but don't be surprised if you need a plan B.

Secondly, if you do a large batch, over 5 gallons, your store bought recipe kits will need to be altered. Mainly the hops schedule.

My advice for a first brew would be to get a kit and start with 6.5 gallons of water in your pot and do that first before going for 10 or 15 gallons.

This means you'll need around 54, 12 oz bottles.

Does that help?
 
Thanks for the quick feedback as always guys

I only bought the pot that big cuz it was a great deal and gives me potential for the future.

For my first batch, I wanted to use a kit, but as I want to brew a bit more then 5 gallons I was going to ask on here and at the store for some advice on recipe once i determine how much im gonna make.

My propane burner is rated 78,000 btu's which i was told is mroe then enough, can anyone verify this for me?

I was thinking something like 8 gallons, 4 gallon wort, other 4 gallon water
 
If you've got the pot to do all 8 gallons, do all 8 gallons in the pot. Its better to brew everything together if you can.

I think you might be making this harder than it needs to be by doing an 8 gallon batch. Just round up to 10 so you can get two 5 gallon kits. From there adjust your hops schedule accordingly.

In general, you'll want to reduce the amount of bittering hops (the first addition) by about 25% to 30%.

So let's say you are suppose to add 4 oz of bitter hops in your recipe, you would add in in 3 oz instead.

That would be your major change.

As for the amount of heat needed to boil, 78,000 BTU's is probably fine. I'm not 100%. You just mentioned a burner so I assumed it awas a little 55,0000 BTU turkey burner.
 
I think you might be making this harder than it needs to be by doing an 8 gallon batch. Just round up to 10 so you can get two 5 gallon kits. From there adjust your hops schedule accordingly.

This is exactly the advice i was looking for, bang on! thank you so much.

and ill have to cross my fingers abotu the burner, but people in the equipment section told me it will do the job easily.
 
This is exactly the advice i was looking for, bang on! thank you so much.

and ill have to cross my fingers abotu the burner, but people in the equipment section told me it will do the job easily.

You can always fill the pot up with water and see if/how long it takes to get it boiling.
 
I love it when the obvious doesnt occur to me lol I had to do that anyways to break in the pot.
 
I would stick with 5 gallon batches for now. Personally I get bored drinking 5 gallons of the same beer. Brew a bunch of 5 gallon batches and you will be happy. If you drink a LOT then you might want to bump it up. You can do it the "hard" way, or use beer software to scale up your recipes. Keep in mind that with big pots, full boils are really hard to handle. You'll probably need a siphon or an extra hand to transfer your wort out the kettle.
 
Do you have a valve in the new pot?
If not, you will have to siphon or lift and pour the contents.

How are you going to cool the wort?
Again 5 gallons can be easier to cool depending on the equipment you have.
 
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