BeerBalls
Well-Known Member
Okay - it's not as bad as the title sounds, but I am looking for some advice for my next AG brew with regard to volume of the boil/size of the kettle. I brewed a fairly big beer for my firt AG attempt - Nugget Nectar clone with 14 lbs grain bill (FG target of 1.075). I mashed in a cooler and batch sparged. I collected 4 gal first runnings from 5.5 gal strike water volume, and added a little over 3 gal to collect just over 7 gal pre-boil volume of wort in my 8-gal kettle. I used ProMash to do my calculations, and figured on about 17% per hour evaporation rate (which turned out to be low) for a 60-minute boil. Turned out my evap rate is more like 21% - I wound up with about 5.5 gal in the kettle at flame out. I chilled with an immersion chiller and transferred. I barely made the 5-gal mark, and that was with dumping all the sludge into the fermenter (which I had whirlpooled to avoid - so much for that). I ended up topping off the batch with almost 1/2 gal of water so that I don't wind up with 4 gal of beer. Needless to say, by then my SG readings were tossed out the window since I was just trying to salvage my beer. It's happily bubbling away in the fermenter now.
After that lengthy prelude - what do you guys do to avoid this problem? I can guess that increasing the pre-boil volume to about 7.75 gal will allow me to boil off at 21% and wind up with 6 gal, and figure on losing about 1/2 gal to the trub. Of course, I can't do that in my 8-gal kettle. What size kettle do you AG brewers use for 5-gal batches of bigger beers? Do I need to upgrade to a 10-gal pot? Am I missing something? I appreciate any feedback - thanks!
After that lengthy prelude - what do you guys do to avoid this problem? I can guess that increasing the pre-boil volume to about 7.75 gal will allow me to boil off at 21% and wind up with 6 gal, and figure on losing about 1/2 gal to the trub. Of course, I can't do that in my 8-gal kettle. What size kettle do you AG brewers use for 5-gal batches of bigger beers? Do I need to upgrade to a 10-gal pot? Am I missing something? I appreciate any feedback - thanks!