Help me set my brew recipe

Ok, I'm going to do the Stone IPA all-grain (In the recent copy of BYO) tomorrow but I have a few issues and I'm looking for advice on how to make a few adjustments.

Roughly 14lbs. of grain, 2 kinds of bittering hops at 90min., another at 15 and then it's dry hopped.

My issue is that the recipe calls for a 90 minute boil. I use a turkey fryer and a 7.5 gallon kettle. I usually aim to start the boil with 6.5 gallons and then burn off 1 gallon during a 60 minute boil.

I don't have the brewpot capacity for a 90 minute boil. Am I better off boiling down for an hour and topping up for the last 30 minutes, or making adjustments and just going with a 60 minute boil??

What kind of affects will reducing the boil have on the beer?

If I do make it a 60 minute boil, how do I adjust my hop amounts and addition times?

I'm also wondering if mashing with half a gallon less water than it calls for will have any major affects on wort??

Last question, (thanks in advance) I want to batch sparge and beersmith calls for 3 seperate 1.38 gallon sparges. Can I just add these together and do 2 2.07 gallon sparges? Just seems easier than having 3 pots of sparge water.

Sorry for all the questions, but this is only my 3rd all-grain batch and I want to get it right. I plan on getting a bigger kettle to solve this in the future, but for now, I have to work with what I've got. Thanks!!

What are you mashing in? I would mash with the correct amount of water, because water/grain ratio can affect efficiency and attenuation.

If I were you, I would plan for a 90 minute boil, collect 6.5 gallons on wort for the turkey fryer, and collect another 1 - 1.5 gallons of wort in another vessel and hold off to the side. Add a few pints of extra wort every 15-20 minutes of the boil, being carefull not to lose the boil. This way you are topping up with wort, not water.

Beersmith will calculate everything based on either a 60 min or 90 min boil.

Eastside

You have Beersmith, that's a good start. That should answer most of your questions re hop utilization in a 90 vs 60 min boil. I would just reduce you boil to 60 min and adjust everything else accordingly. That is to say, you know what your IBU and OG should be, so set your boil volume to what you can accomodate (6.5 gal), set a 60 min boil and see what beersmith gives you. Then use the gravity and ibu adjust buttons at the top to dial in.
As for sparging, yes, you can do a double sparge rather than a tripple just so long as you use the same over all amount of sparge water.

jacksonbrown said:

You have Beersmith, that's a good start. That should answer most of your questions re hop utilization in a 90 vs 60 min boil. I would just reduce you boil to 60 min and adjust everything else accordingly. That is to say, you know what your IBU and OG should be, so set your boil volume to what you can accomodate (6.5 gal), set a 60 min boil and see what beersmith gives you. Then use the gravity and ibu adjust buttons at the top to dial in.
As for sparging, yes, you can do a double sparge rather than a tripple just so long as you use the same over all amount of sparge water.

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That's the problem. I don't have beersmith. I was just using it at the brew shop for a minute, so I don't have a way to reformat the recipe. Might just have to buy it.

Ah. If you download it you get a free trial for X amount of days. Then you can make your decission to purchase it or not. But I would reccomend it. It's a very valuble resource and tool.