Apartment all grain?

Well I currently live in a 2nd floor apartment and would love to do all grain. I do have a small balcony I can brew on, however it is wood and don't really trust it. My second option would be to brew on the front sidewalk. However I would then have to carry hot wort up two flights of stairs. Now I'm no weakling by any means so I'm not worried about the weight. Just more the risk of the burning myself. I could do a split boil I have a 6 gallon pot and a 5 gallon pot. Then there is the hassle of cooling two pots...

I read DeathBrewer's write up on stove top brewing. However then there is top off water added. I am a bit worried that my efficiency will then suffer too much.

So I basically have three options. What would you apartment brewers do?

I don't get why you need to top off on the stove top. I use my regular BK on the stove top when I do batches in the kitchen.

Ah you have a 6 gallon pot? That's not really big enough to do full boils anyway, is it?

I just brew fully inside. I have a 7 gallon pot and have done full boils both on an electric stove, and on my now gas stove. My pot is quite wide so it actually fits over all four burners. Plus, my stove is really small, so that helps.

If you needed more power to boil more inside, you can use a heat stick.

Also, I don't think you'll have much issues starting off with a 5 gallon boil and boiling down to 4 gallon with a top off. The difference will be pretty small.

I'm doing all-grain and I wish I had 2 pots that big! One 5-gallon and one 3-gallon are all I have. I just do partial boils. Try stuff out, you'll come up with a process that works for you.

I do stove top 2.5 gallon batches and just brew more often. Using DeathBrewer's method I have gotten low-mid 70's efficiency for the last 3 batches I have done. I have 2 4 gallon pots that I do this with.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/first-all-grain-today-144596/
Pics from my second floor apartment brewday. You just need two heatsticks, a ~32qt pot, and a MLT cooler with a braid.

For years during the mid-90s all I did was stovetop all-grain, probably brewed 50 batches this way. Just split your batch between two boilpots. (I used two 4 gallon pots -- no problem on my stovetop getting 3.25 gallons in a 4 gallon pot to boil.) It'll work great.

cford1 said:

I just brew fully inside. I have a 7 gallon pot and have done full boils both on an electric stove, and on my now gas stove. My pot is quite wide so it actually fits over all four burners. Plus, my stove is really small, so that helps.

If you needed more power to boil more inside, you can use a heat stick.

Also, I don't think you'll have much issues starting off with a 5 gallon boil and boiling down to 4 gallon with a top off. The difference will be pretty small.

Click to expand...

+1 to the heatstick. An extra 1500W will make all the difference in being able to do a full boil.

To those of you who do double boil pots, do you try to equalize the wort (as far as gravity is concerned)? If so, how? If not, how do you compensate for hop utilization - do you just figure you will over-utilize on the lower gravity pot to make up for the under-utilization on the higher gravity one?

I believe the best approach to doing a two pot boil is to attempt to have similair gravities w/ the hops split b/w both kettles. Just think of it as making two half batches simultaneously. Don't get crazy...just brew.

Stovetop brewing is just as easy as brewing outside, if not more so. I have a 10gal brewpot that fits easily over two burners on my stove. I actually mash on my stove in my brewpot (step mashes are a cinch that way). I routinely get 83% efficiency brewing and mashing on my stove. I actually just did a double batch of a belgian quad on my stovetop, but I had to split it into two brewpots.

Why cant he just mash in two separate pots, boil the 2.5gallon wort and top off with water to 5gal ?

Or is the grain not gonna mash properly not having enough water/grain ratio ?

Dont worry about your efficiency, if your looking for extra gravity points why not throw in some malt extract.

My first brew was an all grain, it wasnt worth the extra cost and trouble of handling so much grain, partial mashes are great, and they arent exactly inferior, it just seems that way. Im overly proud of the hobgoblin clone i made, far exceeded my expectations!! It was a partial mash, I mashed less than 200grams of malt for a 2gal recipe.

I do AG in two pots on my tiny stove. It takes a good 20 plus minutes to get each pot boiling, so I only add hops to one pot. They get mixed together in primary, so there shouldn't be an issue.... ?

I use an Extreme rectangle cooler for my tun. Lately, I've been doing 'no chill' and I just use my bucket with an airlock. I put a tiny piece of paper towel SOAKED in star san into the airlock and pitch my yeast the next day. Using my wort chiller in my sink, with two pots of wort, sucks. No chill makes my brew day better.

Sum1Stu said:

Why cant he just mash in two separate pots, boil the 2.5gallon wort and top off with water to 5gal ?

Or is the grain not gonna mash properly not having enough water/grain ratio ?

Click to expand...

No reason for that to not work, although you will want the water/grain ratio to be the same. It just would be almost twice the work, and it will be more difficult to maintain temperature on two half mashes than one larger one. But it will work.

pnj said:

I do AG in two pots on my tiny stove. It takes a good 20 plus minutes to get each pot boiling, so I only add hops to one pot. They get mixed together in primary, so there shouldn't be an issue.... ?

Click to expand...

Well, if you calculate your hops quantity based on a 1.050 SG and you put it in the pot that has the second runnings and they are 1.020 you will have way too much hops. And the converse is true as well, putting them in the first runnings at 1.080 will way understate your hop profile.

I was wondering if boiling at the extremes (low and high SG) has any adverse effects. It seems logical that they would at least tend to even each other out but I wasn't sure if utilization is linear.

Dont go double boil, different boils just seems like another thing to calculate. Build a 2000w heating element and partner it with your stove, or be even cooler and just build 2.

+1 on doing a single boil in a big pot on your stovetop for all grain. A few months back a friend and I wrote an article on Popular Mechanics that details our process:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/workshop/4324487.html?page=1

The pot I'm using is a 10 gallon Megapot I bought from Northern Brewer specifically because it is wider/shorter than most pots I was finding. The wider pot helps you spread out over two burners on a typical apartment stove.

Wow! Way more responces than I anticipated. The heatstick Idea passed through my head. I may construct one as I am pretty handy. I currently do PMs. Love that extra mashing step aside from extract. I will be buying a 5g igloo to mash in. Don't need the 10 as I won't be brewing 10 gallon batches for a long long time. Love the ideas.

I'm using a 5g Rubbermaid to mash in and found out on my frirst batch (Edwort's Haus Pale Ale) that it's not big enough to batch sparge in. Mine has a false bottom so I was able to do a fly sparge. My second batch (Edwort's Robust Porter) had 13# +13oz of grain and I could only get 1 qt H2O per # of grain. Was really thick and hard to stir. Also had problems with stuck sparge issues. I'm going to get a larger square cooler unless I find a deal on a 10g round.

Sounds like your brewing situation is similar to mine! I've never had a place to brew outside so I suppose I don't know what I'm missing. I'm brewing inside using a combination of Deathbrewer's stovetop brewing tutorial and the Hombrewer's Companion sparging method.

My equipment is really basic - 4 gal pot, 5 gal pot, bucket sparging set-up from the Homebrewer's Companion (drill holes in the bottom of a bucket and set it inside your bottling bucket, drain into pot from spout).

1. I heat up mash water in 5 gal pot and add grains inside of the grain bag. My pots seem to lose a lot of heat with their glass tops so I move the pot off the stovetop and set it on some potholders on the counter. Then I wrap it in a fleece blanket which really helps prevent the heat loss.
2. Heat up my sparge water in the 4 gal, then put the grain bag in my sparge buckets and proceed to sparge.
3. For a 5 gal batch of course I end up with over 5 gal of wort so I split my boil between the two pots. Here's the really scientific part - I use my half gal pyrex measuring bowl to scoop wort back and forth between the pots to more evenly distribute the specific gravity (takes about a minute?).
4. I split the volume of wort and hops evenly between the two pots.
5. For cooling I have tried a couple of things. I have a double sink, which is REALLY NICE for the two pot method. It's actually been quickest for me to make up extra ice before hand and cool using an ice bath for my two pots in my sink since I have around 2.5 gal in each pot. I do have a wort chiller but for my particular situation it hasn't always made sense to use it.

I'm looking forward to hearing suggestions and tips from others on this thread. I've done about 10 AG brews this way and it always end with a sticky kitchen floor!

Get a 10 gallon MLT cooler. The 5 wont cut it for 5 gallon high gravity beers. You just dont have enough space. For EASY apartment brewing, build 2 heatsticks from here: http://www.cedarcreeknetworks.com/heatstick.htm I have 2 of those, one a 4 foot cord one an 8 footer. I have a pot from a turkey fryer that is about 8-9 gallons. If you are doing full boils, expect to have about 7 gallons in your kettle PRE-boil. I use this pot as my HLT also. Heat up my strike water using both heatsticks to get it up to temp really fast., move it to the MLT(although with the heatstick I could directly heat the strike). Then begin heating the sparge water about 30 minutes through the mash. For this I only use 1 heatstick as I am in no hurry. Once both running have been collected and I am ready to boil, I plug in both heatstick to take it from about 160-212 pretty darn quick. Then I unplug one and the other keeps it at a HARD boil. The heatstick cost between 20-30 bucks to make but are much better/more efficient then turkey fryers, PLUS you can use them indoors. I dont brew on the stove, but instead set all my stuff on the counter with double stacked towels under them. It works like a charm. My second time out I got mid 80s efficiency doing a double batch sparge.

I think I'll probably just end up splitting my boils. From reading here. I think I will look at a square cooler instead of the 5 gallon round cooler. I will have to read more about splitting the hops between the two pots. Keep the suggestions coming. I know i'm not the only one in this position as said by many.

wow so you don't use the stove at all? Thing that is keeping me from buying a larger pot is that I just bought a really nice 6 gallon pot since I was doing PMs. Then decided it was time to go all grain. I could probably split my boils for now till i get a larger pot and make a heatstick or two. Do you use the same outlet or do you have to split it between two outlets?

Two 20 amp outlets for 2 2000w elements. Works well!

2 GFI outlets about 6 feet apart.

There is no way I could boil a full 7 gallons on my stove in one pot.

My way may not work for others but it's what I have so it's what I use. My beer tastes great.

I must be a dummy but I don't see what the OG has to do w/ hop utilization? I thought it had to do w/ how long you boiled the hops for? The longer the boil, the more bittering oils you'll pull out of the hops.
What am I missing?

The bigger the boil, the better the hop utilization. 3 oz in a 5 gallon will utilize better then 1.5 oz in 2.5 gallon.

Hey CoalCracker, is your stove gas or electric? I have a gas stove and can boil 7.5gal in a 10g stainless crappy pot I bought at the camping store for $60, it works great. For the record, I have 898 sqft and my kitchen is tiny. I have 7 fermenters (4 active now) and brew all grain.

I currently have an electric range. It has an issue bringing 3.5 gallons to a boil. What I may do is boil 5 gallons and watch it closely to avoid a boil over then boil the remaining in a small pot. I really don't want to buy another pot as I'm not sure what I'll do with the others. haha
Boiling the 5 gallons should be close enough to a full boil to get the best utilization without it effecting too much taste.

pnj said:

There is no way I could boil a full 7 gallons on my stove in one pot.

My way may not work for others but it's what I have so it's what I use. My beer tastes great.

I must be a dummy but I don't see what the OG has to do w/ hop utilization? I thought it had to do w/ how long you boiled the hops for? The longer the boil, the more bittering oils you'll pull out of the hops.
What am I missing?

Click to expand...

Higher gravity boils pull less oils out of the hops.

So the lower the SG of the boil, you need to use LESS hops ? Because you get more utilization of them ?

In general, yes.

If you feel like driving, your more then welcome to come down to my house and brew in my garage with me. I'm in the Reading area, so it is a bit of a drive. I'm always looking for a good brew partner though to help out/spark new ideas.
Tom

Tom, appreciate the invite and may take you up on that. I am actually in Reading about twice a week as I have a good friend that lives there. I actually have another friend that just recently got into brewing as well and may be interested in hanging out on a brewday.

Best solution IMO
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/countertop-brutus-20-a-131411/

The more the merrier bud! Shoot me a PM and we can exchange phone numbers.
tom

I have looked into the countertop 20. However, it is only setup for 2.5 gallon batches. I'm looking to do 5. I could easily scale it to do that. However, I will be splitting my boils. I am going to mash in a 5 or 10 gallon rubbermaid, then drain into a bucket. Stir to get the OG right throughout. Then split evenly into my two brew kettles. Then split the hop additions evenly. Fill the bathtub up with ice and water to cool. Mix back together in the fermenter. A lot of work but that seems like my really only option here. I could get the 7.5 gallon pot, then I would need two elements. Not sure how I would go about powering them. I have the outlets, but only one is GFI. Really like the Countertop brutus though. May do that eventually. I would still need to get a CFC.

The countertop 20 is good to 4 gallons of finished beer FWIW. Just seems a lot easier and way more fun than what you have planned above. Just my .02 but I would rather have a better time brewing slightly less beer. Also, plug in GFCI's are easy to get like this one:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/shockbuster-gfci-outlet-adapter.html

Do you have a budget?

You know, I have one of those GFI's for my saltwater tank. That didn't even occur to me to use one of those.

I'm picking up a 10g rubbermaid cooler tonight. I think I am going to splurge and slowly get parts to make this setup. If I can use my stove with an 8 gallon pot and a heatstick, I may be able to get a full boil going. Then I can drain the pot into the CFC. Unfortunatly I do have a budget. So I will gather the parts slowly for this set up. Going to read that whole thread top to bottom to make sure I understand everything fully. The wiring doesn't bother me as i'm in IT and took some EE courses.

If you used a 10 gal cooler for a 5 gal batch, would there be a significant increase in heat loss due to the excess head space?