Texas Two Step method

Ok... I decided I am going to do my extract boiling the "Texas Two Step method", but instead of doing on 2 different brew days I am going to do them one after another. So my questions are:

1. Once I am finished boiling and cooling the first 1/2 batch and I rack to my Primary, can I just put a solid bung in the carboy till I am finished with the second 1/2. Then add the cooled wort to the first batch and pitch the yeast?

2. Will the first batch be ok for 1.5 to 2 hours till I add the second batch & yeast?

3. Should I shake the carboy to mix the 2 batches together before adding the yeast?

Thanks again for all the great advice.

Cregar

Do finish cooling your wort in your carboy? If not pour the first batch in and aerate then pitch your yeast. The faster your fermentation starts the less chance of serious infections.

Cool your second batch and pour it in. Aerating and shaking the crap out of your carboy will not cause oxidation at this point. The yeast want and need that oxygen.

I'm guessing your doing this since your pot isn't big enough for a full boil? Sounds like more work (a LOT more work) for a possibly negligible difference to me. And instead of one set of steps to risk infection, now you have two.

Yep... I am in a "small" apartment so I can't do full boils. After reading the article at BYO .com on different extract brewing methods I thought the "Texas Two Step" would be the best.

I want to be able to keep to the actual color of the beer I am brewing and read that using the normal (concentrated boil) method "led to excessive darkening of the wort also, because it gets harder to extract hop bitterness the “thicker” your wort is, you can only brew beers with a low level of hop bitterness".

It really isn't that much more work... maybe a hour and half to two hours longer. If I seal off the carboy with the first batch in it, it shouldn't be at risk of infection.

Would a hour or two before pitching the yeast cause that much of a problem?

I'd say...do what the article says. Pitch the yeast after doing your first one. It's not going to hurt and the faster the lag the better off you are. In fact, I'd make a starter a couple days before since you are in essense doubling the risk of infections.

Sounds good... thanks for the advice

Hey, dudes. New guy here. I brewed maybe 5 or 6 batches maybe 6 or 7 years ago, but none since. I'm in the same boat - very small apartment with wimpy electric stove. I'm strongly considering the two step brewing for a Belgian Blonde Ale recipe I want to do sometime this week.

I understand increasing the risk of infection with two stages of brewing, but how bad is this? If I was going to do a partial boil, I was considering things like late extract additions (mentioned in that article) and possibly boiling water the day before then refrigerating it to cool it down (in a sanitary way...not exposing to the air in my fridge) before topping off my wort on brew day. Also, was considering making a starter.

I thought all of those things might increase the odds of infection in the same way this two step brewing process might.

With the two step brewing, I was thinking I could just pitch the yeast as is to the first 2.5 gallons which would, I think, be kind of like making a 2.5 gallon "starter" which I'd top off the next day with the other half of the wort. Also, I guess the threat of infection on the second day would be mostly from errors in chilling or in sanitizing the siphon tubing?

Anyway, just rambling. I need to pick up my old carboys from my parents' house, hopefully today, so I have a couple days to decide. I'm thinking to worst and most error-prone part of this will be having to cool the wort twice. I'm being super cheap at the moment and my freezer has been making ice for the last 24 hours. I'm prepping for two cools in case I choose to go this route.

Theres nothing wrong with super-cheap! I think that if your sanitation practices are sound you should be good...even pouring the rest of the wort in the next day.

Thanks! Well, I just picked up the carboys from my parents' house. The 5 gallon looks pretty good all around. Most of the 6.5 gallon is looking great, but there are some spots on the inside which are stained pretty good. I'm planning to soak these overnight in a bleach solution, and perhaps try to reach the stains with these nifty brushes I just picked up at the 99 cent store (more on the super cheap route

I'm so psyched to get back into this now that it's getting closer to brew day (which ain't going to be tonight since it's looking like the carboys can use at least 24 hours of care...). I'm already thinking of batch number two since now I need to justify my recent investments (new pot, new tubing, bottles, capper, auto-siphon, and some other small stuff). More evidence of this is the fact that I just rined out the bottle of Sam Adams Boston Ale I just popped and am soaking it rather than putting it in the recycling bin. Perhaps I can save myself on bottles for the next batch

And here's a link to a podcast with the person who wrote the two-step article for BYO. One point of interest to me is he sort of confirms what I guessed about making a 2.5 gallon "starter" when he says that pitching yeast into 2.5 gallons of wort gives you a pretty good pitching rate (I hope I'm not killing the terminology here...):

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr08-17-06.mp3

That link is from this page, which has some other really cool sounding podcasts I have queued up on my iPod:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/radio/

6.5 gallon carboy now filled with bleach solution. Will try to see which stains I can reach with the 99 cent brushes this evening, and if I'm not successful, will just drain tomorrow and see if any of the stains just go away. If not, will think of other strategies (I'm a really good planner, can't you tell???).

And one more reply to my own post for today, the extract brewing strategies start around minute 22, if I remember correctly from my eliptical machine session today. The first 21 minutes are on answering other questions and talking about canning wort for use as starters, so fast forward if you're not interested in that material....

And rinse the daylights out of your bleached carboys...with boiled water. Not "boiling" water as that will crack your carboy, but water that has been boiled and cooled. Then cap the carboy off with aluminum foil and you should have a very sanitary environment. On brew-day rinse it out with one-step or star-san.