AG with a limited boil size?

I am contemplating having a go at my first AG brew. It will be definately very rough around the edges, but I'd like to try it anyway!

I only have a 19 quart boil pan at the moment though (I do also have an 11 quart one too). I can get my oven to maintain a temperature of about 152F so my thoughts are to mash at this temperature in the smaller pan, with about 1.1 quarts per pound of grain. Then sparge with 1.5 quarts per pound, which would make with a typical 10lb grain haul a total volume of liquid of 26 quarts.

Is there anything stopping me from boiling about 16 quarts of this and using it for the hops etc. and just pouring the left over wort which I couldn't boil into the fermenter afterwards (assuming the volume is correct)? Or is it critical that the wort is actually boiled?

I guess the alternative is to boil the two pots together, but I only have one powerful gas ring, the other isn't as good and I think I might be struggling for space on the hob anyway with the main pot there.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Maybe you should just do smaller batches? Have you done a partial mash yet?

For all-grain brewing, you really need to boil the entire volume of wort to get a proper protein break. You can get away with adding extract late, but AG wort.


TL

Yes, boiling the wort down is essential to AG brewing. It not only brings your OG down to its proper mark but it kills a lot of nasties that could potentially make it into your fermenter causing the beer to just be plain crap. If you are going to do it this way I suggest boiling down in increments, do NOT just top off your fermenter with the unboiled wort.

I know a couple brewers who do split pot AG boils, but I have never done it myself. But you can do small batch AG. I do it on my stove, and make 2.5 gallon test batches all the time. Depending on your boiloff, you need between 3 and 3.5 gallons preboil.

I use a 5 gallon pot for that.

Just get the proper equipment and avoid failures due to equipment. Yes you can do it with smaller pots but you will have to make smaller batches.