I've been AG brewing for two years now and have been very satisfied making beers around 5.5abv and under and getting decent efficiency 73-76%. However, whenever i want to make something 7%abv or above i have to resort to partial mash/extract. This is because my max boil capacity is just under 7 gallons - I can't sparge all those grains with the proper amount of water because i simply don't want to do a two hour, double pot boil to condense all that wort down to 5.5 gallons, that's just a pit-ass.
I was thinking about running off most of the mash, heating these first runnings up to 190 or so, and adding that back to the main mash so that it raises the entire temp to 168F to mash out. the sugars would flow better and my efficiency wouldn't suffer so much. but this is still not great...
How does everyone else deal with this problem when making big beers with a limited boil capacity? any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!
I was thinking about running off most of the mash, heating these first runnings up to 190 or so, and adding that back to the main mash so that it raises the entire temp to 168F to mash out. the sugars would flow better and my efficiency wouldn't suffer so much. but this is still not great...
How does everyone else deal with this problem when making big beers with a limited boil capacity? any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!