Amount of water

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Kaedos

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So I've brewed a couple of batches so far, with the help of my LHBS. I ended up buying ingredients from them after having already purchasing a wheat kit.

So I have this partial wheat kit sitting around that I'm cannabilizing.
Here is my recipe:
2 - 3.3# cans of unhopped wheat malt extract
2 # of Muntons Amber DME

1 oz Centeniall hops (at 30min)
1 oz Cascade at 30min
1 oz Cascade at 15min

Now my real question is with the 6.6 pounds of liquid extract, and the two pounds of DME, how much water should I boil in my brew pot to add these ingredients to? (I don't have the capability to boil 5 gallons at this time)
 
Alright, I didn't know if there was a magical number there, something to do with the point of solubility of sugars in water.
 
Kaedos said:
Alright, I didn't know if there was a magical number there, something to do with the point of solubility of sugars in water.
Click to expand...

Amount of water really (practically) only makes a difference concerning hop utilization. The more water you have in the kettle, the higher the IBU's in the finished product.
 
If you have a 5 gallon (20QT) kettle,you can boil up to 3.5 gallons safely. If you keep an eye out for hot break. I even boil that much in mine for PM.
 
Excellent, I really appreciate the responses. I'm pretty much throwing together some random ingredients that I just have on hand because I'm itching to brew and I'm broke - so who knows what will result. I tried using the brewing calculators, but I'm not very good with them yet either.
 
Not to get to crazy here...but...

Once I got a flow chiller I started doing full boils of water and everything else except the malt extracts. I add those at flameout after the last hop addition.

You will get better hop utilization (which may or may not matter to you), the boil overs just don't happen (for me at least) and you will never have to worry about scorched malt extract on the bottom of the kettle...
 
Well, I formulated my recipe and did it up tonight, with about a gallon and half of water in the pot. I can't do full boils yet as I'm brewing on an old electric stove.
I crushed the pound of grains and infused at 160 for half an hour, then sparged some of the wort over it. Brought to boil, added 2 pounds of the amber dried extract, and the 6.6 pounds of wheat malt extract. Cascade and Centeniall hops for 30 minutes, then another ounce of Cascade at 15 minutes. I chilled with 6 bottles of frozen water (after sterilizing in the sink) and brought down to pitching temp in about 15 minutes. (Also the bottled water I was using was chilled in the freezing to about 40 degrees, so that helped). This is my third batch, and I think it went very well. If I used my hydrometer correctly, I believe my starting gravity is 1.058, reading taken at about 70 degrees.
 
Kaedos said:
Well, I formulated my recipe and did it up tonight, with about a gallon and half of water in the pot. I can't do full boils yet as I'm brewing on an old electric stove.
I crushed the pound of grains and infused at 160 for half an hour, then sparged some of the wort over it. Brought to boil, added 2 pounds of the amber dried extract, and the 6.6 pounds of wheat malt extract. Cascade and Centeniall hops for 30 minutes, then another ounce of Cascade at 15 minutes. I chilled with 6 bottles of frozen water (after sterilizing in the sink) and brought down to pitching temp in about 15 minutes. (Also the bottled water I was using was chilled in the freezing to about 40 degrees, so that helped). This is my third batch, and I think it went very well. If I used my hydrometer correctly, I believe my starting gravity is 1.058, reading taken at about 70 degrees.
Click to expand...

Next time, add the bulk of the extract at the end of the boil and the beer will taste less like "cooked extract" and not be quite as dark, especially if you can only boil 1.5 gallons. I'd use a pound of extract at the beginning, and add the rest at flame out.
 
Huh, that's certainly different from the way I've been doing it now. So are you saying that the infusing of the grains is more important than the boiling of the extracts?
 
Kaedos said:
Huh, that's certainly different from the way I've been doing it now. So are you saying that the infusing of the grains is more important than the boiling of the extracts?
Click to expand...

Extracts don't really need to boiled at all. They've been processed already. The boiling is for the hops utilization- hops oils isomerize only in boiling liquid.

Many people add the majority of the extract at the end of the boil, to pasteurize it. I'd do the same.
 
I think that makes perfect sense, and I wish I had come to that on my own. I think I'll do exactly that next time. Thank you! So how about the crushed grains, should have I changed the way I incorporate those?
 
Kaedos said:
I think that makes perfect sense, and I wish I had come to that on my own. I think I'll do exactly that next time. Thank you! So how about the crushed grains, should have I changed the way I incorporate those?
Click to expand...

You can steep the grains for 20-30 minutes at 150-160 degrees, and then remove them and bring the resulting liquor (it's called 'liquor' at that point) to boiling and add one pound of extract. Once it's boiling again, add your first hops and set your timer to coincide with the end of that time. Generally, it's 60 minutes but in your recipe it was 30 minutes. Add your hops accordingly, and then add the rest of the extract at flame out, and stir well. Then cool.
 

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