Pliny

So I bought all of my hops / grains / extracts to brew this wonderful beer but want to run a few processes by the experts to ensure that I do not eff this up - this one was expensive <60 - obviously mostly from the 1LB of hops!

http://brushvalleybrewer.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-homebrew-recipes-pliny-elder.html

Here is my situation - I am a beginner with just a few successful batches - and I can only boil about 3.5 - 4 gallons. This specific recipe was prepared with the final volume of 5 gallons (after trub and boil losses) - but essentially starting with 7.5 gallons in the kettle. The recipe states that the ingredients were adjusted in accordance with the boil volume. I have no idea what my exact boil evaporation rate is...

I guess my main problem is trying to reverse the process to recalculate the ingredients based on my boil capacity. At then end of the evening, I gather that I need to pour 5.5 gallons into the primary (.5 gal loss in fermentation trub).

Could I simply steep the grains, add the LME (substituted for DME), add my hop additions at the specified time intervals and then once the 90min boil is complete determine the volume I have? I could do this by marking my kettle in 1/2 qt increments. Then transfer the wort over to the primary and adding the remaining balance in water bringing my final volume to 5.5gal?

How much will this impact the FG and overall taste?

Just boil what you can. Might get another opinion on this, but it's better to boil less wort and get a good vigorous boil than to have a weak boil with more volume. Rack to primary and add cool tap water to make up between 5 and 5.5 gallons total volume. RDWHAHB.

I made the partial grain version of Pliny from Austin Homebrew only boiling about 4 gallons of water. Turned out great. Although I diluted up to 5.25 gallons I had pretty significant loss due to trub in primary and secondary fermenters. I'll make this again.

Day 1 I would boil half the extract with half the hops, chill, and pitch. Day 2 I would boil the rest, chill, and rack onto the previous days now happily fermenting wort. Without doing a full boil you won't get the IBUs the beer needs to be Pliny. Doing a two step boil will also keep the color lighter and the flavor less melanoidin -y. You can also adjust the amount of water you use the second time around to get to the right volume in the fermenter.

The gravity numbers in that recipe look a bit off to me, there is enough extract/sugar to get you to ~1.100. You'll lose some to hop absorption, but I'd be surprised if it is 1/4. It is already slightly bigger than PtE as it is.

Oldsock said:

Day 2 I would boil the rest, chill, and rack onto the previous days now happily fermenting wort.

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Not in the same situation as the OP. Just curious. Would you aerate / oxygenate the second batch of wort before combining?

AnOldUR said:

Not in the same situation as the OP. Just curious. Would you aerate / oxygenate the second batch of wort before combining?

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That early in the fermentation some extra oxygen would be a fine idea. Since you are increasing the volume of the wort the yeast would need to do a bit more growing.