Review brew plan/recipes for 2.5gallon Brew in bag experinment

Hey guys,

Please review my thinking on my brewing plan and recipes. Please add comments.

I am a newbie solo homebrewer. My homebrew experience is helping out with my 20yr veteran AG/kegging neighbor with his batches. With that being said, I am by passing the traditional starter kits and 5 gallon brews. Instead I want to learn about IPAs, AG brew in bag method with 2.5 gallon batches. I’ve always believed in “variety is the spice of life” and smaller/AG batches will allow me to do this.

Equipment

3-3 ½ gallon food grade buckets with lids from US Plastics, much cheaper than better bottle
Siphon, tubing, air lock, sanitizing, bottle bucket, hydrometer etc-buying from LHBS or donated by neighbor
32 QT kettle and propane burner
60qt Yeti marine grade cooler for swamp cooler. Will be able to put all 3 fermenters in and close cooler lid to keep constant temperature w/out exchange frozen water bottles.
5 gallon paint strainer bags from Lowes.
Vegetable steamer for false bottom-Thanks revvy

Recipes: Ordering grains from Brewmasters with pre crushed grains
Halved BBT forum Bee cave brewery house pale ale
Halved Da yoopers pale ale
Halved Basic Brewing Radio’s amirrillo pale ale

I am going to dry hop in primary fermenters.

Questions/concerns

1. Thinking that 3 – 3 ½ gallons for mashing/boil volume is good. I will have less grain absorbtion and evaporation due to smaller batch size
2. Do I halve yeast or pitch with full dry yeast packet?
3. Do I halve bottle priming sugar or use instructions for 5 gallon priming recipe? I would think to halve it not to have bottle bombs.
4. Is there a boiling time guideline for hop utilization. I noticed some recipes say add hops for bitter, flavor and aroma without showing boil times. From reading books recommended on forum my thinking is:
Bittering hops can be boiled anywhere from 60-45 min from boil time
Flavoring hops can be boiled anywhere from 30-15 min from boil time
Aroma hops can be boiled anywhere from 5 minutes to flame out.

Thanks for the time and advice. I am looking forward to having 3 cases of different IPAs, nailing down my brew process and being up to date on AG brew in a bag.

Best of all 3 cases of my own home brew. Then next will be 3 different types of brown ale.

1. Sounds good for an extract.
2. I would pitch the whole packet. Better to have more than less. And depending on your O.G.s, you'll probably be perfect adding the entire packet.
3. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html Let me add that hop utilization is dependent on several different factors and is slightly different depending on the individual's technique.
4.http://www.brewsupplies.com/hop_characteristics.htm.

Here's an additional article to read that was really helpful during my extract days.

http://***********/stories/techniqu...brewing/10-10-steps-to-better-extract-brewing

Legin,

Thanks for the hop boiling graph. That will come in handy for a good guideline.

Evaporation might have more to do with surface area than volume.
Definitely halve the priming sugar.