shek
Well-Known Member
Now that I've got several AG batches under my belt, I am thinking about trying to max out the mash size I can squeeze out of my 5G water cooler. Looking at a few of the previous batches I think I might be able to cram at least 14 or maybe even 15 pounds of grain into a mash if I get down around 1 qt per lb of strike water. With efficiencies around I think I'm going to try to collect 12 gallons of wort. I would then split the 12 gallons and do two simultaneous boils on my stove. I currently only really have room and hardware to do a primary ferm for one batch at a time. After doing two separate six gallon boils at the same time, one batch will be chilled and pitched into, while the other batch will be placed while hot into an appropriate no chill vessel to be saved for when the first batch is finished in the primary. I think this should help give fill out my pipeline of brew without needing to brew every other week. The only hardware I would need is another aluminum pot and a jug for the no chill (shouldn't cost me more than about $30). I have verified that I can boil 7 gallons on my stove using an aluminum pot on just a single burner. I'm aware that the no-chill batch will need to have an adjusted hop schedule. This will let me brew ten gallons of almost the same beer (assuming a nail the nochill hop schedule), or maybe adjust the runnings so that one batch is high grav and the other low grav. Can someone confirm my sanity?