Can I brew beer in a 5 gallon cooler but boil the wort in 2 smaller pots?

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Elysium

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Do you guys think it would be possible to make 5 gallon of wort in a cooler and then boil it in 2 different pots (since I only have 3 gallon pots), dividing the necessary amount of hops between the 2 pots, and then pouring the contents of the two 3-gallon pots in the big fermenter?
 
I had to start doing this once I started all-grain, because I wound up needing more wort to sparge than I had realized, especially for higher gravity beers. But yeah, you can definitely do it. It's easy when your two pots are both the same size, since you can just split everything in half. (Try not to just put the first runnings all in one pot though, since then you'll have two different boil gravities, which will change hop usage. Mix the wort together.)
 
I had to start doing this once I started all-grain, because I wound up needing more wort to sparge than I had realized, especially for higher gravity beers. But yeah, you can definitely do it. It's easy when your two pots are both the same size, since you can just split everything in half. (Try not to just put the first runnings all in one pot though, since then you'll have two different boil gravities, which will change hop usage. Mix the wort together.)

Thanks for the reply. I'll make the wort in one go, then use 2 pots to drain the wort and in those 2 pots I'll boil them with the hops. Then I mix them into one in the fermenter. Is this what you meant?
 
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I mean that when you drain the wort, don't just drain into the first pot, add sparge water, and drain into the second pot. If you do that, pot #1 will have a much higher-gravity wort than pot #2, which will affect hop usage. So make sure that you mix the wort a bit when you drain it from your cooler and sparge.
 
I do that all the time - one thing to watch out for is timing - it's really REALLY bad when both pots have boil off at the same time . . . . if you get what I mean!
 
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I mean that when you drain the wort, don't just drain into the first pot, add sparge water, and drain into the second pot. If you do that, pot #1 will have a much higher-gravity wort than pot #2, which will affect hop usage. So make sure that you mix the wort a bit when you drain it from your cooler and sparge.

What if I just mix the main wort and the wort from sparging? Isnt that what I should do anyway?
 
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