10 Gallon Batches...Advice?

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Mr. Mojo Rising

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I am planning on doing an APA extract (DME) batch this coming Sunday. I am going to do a 3.25 gallon boil, add 3 pounds of DME and my hops to the 3.25 gallons, at knock out I am going to put in the remaining 9 pounds of DME to pasturize. I have used BeerSmith to help calculate my values so I am within style guidelines. It is from here that I am looking for advice. I plan on cooling with my wort chiller, aerating by pouring back and forth between 5 gallon sanitized pails. I then will pour equal amounts into each of my carboys and fill to the 5 gallon mark. I will attempt to pour equal amounts of my yeast starter at that point also.

Has anyone done this before, any suggestions or pitfalls I should anticipate. I just think that if I am going to all the work of doing a 5 gallon batch I might as well do 10!
 
I am thinking that 12# od DME in 3.25 gallons is not going to work well, you are going to end up with syrup and your hop utilization will not be right.
 
I can always increase my boil water, I have a big enough boil pot. I know of several people who do a 5 gallon batch with only a gallon and a half of water. That ratio is not much different than the ratio of boiled wort I am thinking. I anticipate that the wort will be syrup-like, but I don't see how that will change the final product in the carboy once I top up the water. Just my thoughts. BeerSmith calculated my hop utilization so I am adjusting to get the IBU's I need, around 30.
 
How are you going to measure the wort to make sure you get exactly a gallon and a half in each carboy?
 
the higher my gravity, the bigger the boil. i usually do about 2 gallons, but use 3 or more if i'm adding more extract

one of my beers looked like oil, it was so viscous...and that was with a 3.5 gallon boil
 
I think you might have trouble hitting your IBU. A 3:1 dilution means 30 IBU max. which is the low end of the style. If you want to go a bit higher, pre-boil part of your bittering hops in the make-up water.
 
I have half gallon marks on each of my carboys, I will turn the knob on my kettle and fill'er up to the marks, then top up to 5 gallons. If I am off slightly, no biggy, just different starting gravities by a point at the most.

I like the idea of adding hops to the water pre-DME addition to extract more IBUs from the hops. Could I just reduce my starting DME to 2 pounds? I mean what difference will it make, I am just putting in my DME at knock out to pastuerize it. Really, I will be happy with around 35 IBU's. These batches will be for party and most so far don't like my really hoppy beers...damn lawnmower beers :)

I will go ahead and test this out this weekend and will post my results, including OG, recipes, and how to.
 
Intriguing idea overall. I for one would be interested to see how this turns out. I am another that only does a 1.5-2.0 or so gallon boil. and then add cooled, refrigerated spring or drinking water to fill up to 5 gallons.

I have also started reducing the boil time overall. Bittering hops boil time 45-60 minutes, adding the DME or LME 20-30 minutes before knockout to reduce carmelization and help with color and taste.

I am curious about the whole concept you stated of adding the last part of the DME at knockout to pasteurize. I was under the impression that the DME or LME needed a good 15-20 boil to fully sanitize it. Does this mean that when we are dealing with extract that we could add them at the end and just get them fully dissolved or did I misunderstand the posting? Thanks.
 
Is today the day?

I use the ole 5 gallon back-and-forth routine to aerate my 10 gallon batches too. I actually split up my yeast into each bucket before the aeration. I seem to get very consistent fermentations between the two primaries.

I don't transfer to a carboy though unless I'm doing a brew that I know will need a blow off tube like my Belgian Blonde. IF it's not going to blow off, you might consider doing the same...to save some time and trouble racking to another vessel. Pluss your carboys will already be clean for your secondary transfer.
 
My brother brews in 10 gallon batches with a 5 gallon boil. he has the carboys marked at 2.5 and 5 gallon levels, fills with 2.5 gallons of cold water, then fills with wort to the 5 gallon mark. He keeps 2 different packs of yeast and adds them at the appropriate time after mixing everything up. He is happy with how his turn out.
 
southern brewer said:
My brother brews in 10 gallon batches with a 5 gallon boil. he has the carboys marked at 2.5 and 5 gallon levels, fills with 2.5 gallons of cold water, then fills with wort to the 5 gallon mark. He keeps 2 different packs of yeast and adds them at the appropriate time after mixing everything up. He is happy with how his turn out.
Interesting. How does he determine the right amount of hops to add with such a high wort (boil) concentrate?

That would be a great tool to incorporate into BeerSmith…a calculator that is built around the process of a partial boil with water added to bring volume up.

I know a few people that would love to do 10-gallon batches but don’t have the boil pot yet.
 
That would be a great tool to incorporate into BeerSmith…a calculator that is built around the process of a partial boil with water added to bring volume up.

Actually, BeerSmith is how I design my recipes and it does allow for partial boil IBU calculation already. As you lower/raise your boil volume the IBU decreases or increases. This is dependant of coarse on your final batch volume and the amount of extract/grain you add to the boil. You can also designate your extract as post boil, which I have done in the past with good success at the advice of HB_99. It is with all of these variables at play that I designed my 10 Gallon Pale Ale recipe that I have postponed until this coming weekend.
 
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