brewing ten gallons with 6 gallons boil pot

Hi there,

By now I brewed a 6 gallon batches, but finally I got some bigger fermentation buckets that could hold up to 10 gallons.

I have a pot that makes 6 gallons of beer with no problem....

If I make a high gravity wort and boil it with hops enough for 10 gallons, and then after boil I just top up with water - would it be ok?

what are the advantages and disadvantages of brewing like this?

thanks

Very low efficiency, for starters, just because you wouldn't be sparging at all.

Beyond that, I'd imagine it's just the standard issues with partial boils: lower hop utilization, darker color, etc.

MalFet said:

Very low efficiency, for starters, just because you wouldn't be sparging at all.

Beyond that, I'd imagine it's just the standard issues with partial boils: lower hop utilization, darker color, etc.

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no, I intend to sparge as normal and get, for instance, 6 gallons of 1.070 wort prior to pitching. then I would just top up with 3 gallons of boiled water and dilute this wort to lower gravity.

400d said:

no, I intend to sparge as normal and get, for instance, 6 gallons of 1.070 wort prior to pitching. then I would just top up with 3 gallons of boiled water and dilute this wort to lower gravity.

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Fair enough, but you'll still be sparging and mashing with less water than you ordinarily would for a 9 gallon batch.

400d said:

no, I intend to sparge as normal and get, for instance, 6 gallons of 1.070 wort prior to pitching. then I would just top up with 3 gallons of boiled water and dilute this wort to lower gravity.

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Yeah, but that's poor efficiency. Cause you're mashing to get ~7 gal at ~1.060 preboil grav, when you could be mashing to runoff 10 gal at 1.030 to make the same OG beer with a full boil. See what I mean?

jaythebassist said:

Yeah, but that's poor efficiency. Cause you're mashing to get ~7 gal at ~1.060 preboil grav, when you could be mashing to runoff 10 gal at 1.030 to make the same OG beer with a full boil. See what I mean?

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sure, but that's why I ask what are the exact consequences?

If I still get good beer using this technique, than I don't see why not doing it. On the other hand - I'd rather have 6 gallons of good beer instead of 9 gallons of bad or average beer, if you know what I mean....

400d said:

sure, but that's why I ask what are the exact consequences?

If I still get good beer using this technique, than I don't see why not doing it. On the other hand - I'd rather have 6 gallons of good beer instead of 9 gallons of bad or average beer, if you know what I mean....

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Well, you won't get the same hop utilization, but other than that there's no reason you shouldn't get good beer. It'll just be way less cost-effective.

400d said:

sure, but that's why I ask what are the exact consequences?

If I still get good beer using this technique, than I don't see why not doing it. On the other hand - I'd rather have 6 gallons of good beer instead of 9 gallons of bad or average beer, if you know what I mean....

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Like I said before, lower efficiency, lower hops utilization, and darker color. Plenty of people do partial boils with extract; the only added consideration for all grain is the lower efficiency.

MalFet said:

Like I said before, lower efficiency, lower hops utilization, and darker color. Plenty of people do partial boils with extract; the only added consideration for all grain is the lower efficiency.

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If efficiency is the only cost I have to pay, than I'll just do it. What bothers me now is what efficiency should I have in 6 gallons in order to get 1.050 after adding 3 gallons of water to it?

400d said:

If efficiency is the only cost I have to pay, than I'll just do it. What bothers me now is what efficiency should I have in 6 gallons in order to get 1.050 after adding 3 gallons of water to it?

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I normally get around 80% eff, and when I did a 3/6 gal partial boil I got 50% eff.

Yes you can do it. This is exactly what Bud, coors and miller do.

I would brew the high OG wort and ferment it out. Then before you keg or bottle, boil your make up water. this will kill anything bad and it helps to boil out the oxygen in the water that will oxidize your beer. When you mix just keep an eye on the gravity so that you dont go to low, or do it by taste.

400d said:

If efficiency is the only cost I have to pay, than I'll just do it. What bothers me now is what efficiency should I have in 6 gallons in order to get 1.050 after adding 3 gallons of water to it?

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Well, if you want to make 9 gallons of 1.050 wort by adding 3 gallons of water, you'll need to start with 6 gallons of 1.075. If you have your grain bill, it's easy enough to figure out what efficiency you need.

But, in reality you probably want to go the other way: presume an efficiency and then build your grain bill from there. What will your efficiency be? There are ways to make an approximation, but it will always end up being a bit of a guess.

You'll need to bump up your hops too. It's hard to say by how much, but 10-15% seems like about the right ballpark.

mikelikesit2000 said:

Yes you can do it. This is exactly what Bud, coors and miller do.

I would brew the high OG wort and ferment it out. Then before you keg or bottle, boil your make up water. this will kill anything bad and it helps to boil out the oxygen in the water that will oxidize your beer. When you mix just keep an eye on the gravity so that you dont go to low, or do it by taste.

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but I thought of adding extra water prior to fermentation

mikelikesit2000 said:

I would brew the high OG wort and ferment it out. Then before you keg or bottle, boil your make up water. this will kill anything bad and it helps to boil out the oxygen in the water that will oxidize your beer. When you mix just keep an eye on the gravity so that you dont go to low, or do it by taste.

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Out of curiosity, why ferment before diluting? I've usually seen people do the opposite.

MalFet said:

Out of curiosity, why ferment before diluting? I've usually seen people do the opposite.

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I'll never dilute after ferment again. I don't know if that was to blame, but the beer was certainly "off". As for the OP, why not run off a couple more gallons of sparge into a 5 gallon bucket while you are boiling the 1st 1/2. Cool the first, bring the 2nd running to boil and then add that. You will get better efficiency. For the 2nd runnings, you just need a brief boil to kill microbes, because you've gotten your hops utilization from your 1st runnings. Just plan accordingly.

I do all grain partial boils. I usually do 5.25-5.50 batches. I do 4.75 - 5 gal. boils and top off with about 1.5 gallons of water. I get about 70% efficiency usually but do need to adjust my hops. I use beersmith and find that it works pretty well at calculating the amount of hops I need. I am planning on trying a 10 gallon batch of a belgian wit while still just doing a 5 gallon boil.

MalFet said:

Out of curiosity, why ferment before diluting? I've usually seen people do the opposite.

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I guess it is done this way to solve the space and lack of equipment issue (kettle to small for full boil).

If you have the room boil 10 gallons of wort. If you dont, boil 6, add water.

Why ferment 3 extra gallons of water? While you are fermenting your beer you can boil and carb your make-up water. The big fizzy pale yellow beer companies make 7-8% abv beer. Then they mix with carbonated water at bottling. There is a bit of science to it I guess. For us homebrewers, head retention I think suffers the worst because of the dilution. I would add a couple pounds of wheat to the grain bill just to help with this.

mikelikesit2000 said:

I guess it is done this way to solve the space and lack of equipment issue (kettle to small for full boil).

If you have the room boil 10 gallons of wort. If you dont, boil 6, add water.

Why ferment 3 extra gallons of water? While you are fermenting your beer you can boil and carb your make-up water. The big fizzy pale yellow beer companies make 7-8% abv beer. Then they mix with carbonated water at bottling. There is a bit of science to it I guess. For us homebrewers, head retention I think suffers the worst because of the dilution. I would add a couple pounds of wheat to the grain bill just to help with this.

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I'm not sure that there's a relationship to boil kettle size, since we're talking about the difference between boil 6 -> add 3 -> ferment 9 vs. boil 6 -> ferment 6 -> add 3, but perhaps I'm just not following you correctly.

My understanding is that the reason BMC makes strong beer and then dilutes is because their production constraint is generally their available fermentor volumes. They ferment strong and then dilute at packaging because it allows them to produce relatively more beer with relatively fewer fermentors. I've never seen any science suggesting other reasons (particularly about head retention), but if you have sources suggesting so please do pass them along to the rest of us.

I've also not seen anything to suggest that 6 gallons of 1.075 og beer diluted to 9 gallons of 1.060 og beer will have different head retention than 9 gallons of 1.060 beer, but I would be interested in seeing anything you have that says they will.