dmercer
Active Member
So, we moved into a house in June, and with the added space, I decided it was a decent opportunity to move to all-grain brewing. Leaving myself a little room to grow, I bought a 15.5-gallon kettle and an SP-10 Bayou Classic propane burner.
I've done 3 all-grain batches. The first, I didn't use enough sparge water, so when I ended up short of my 5-gallon target, I redid the math and realized my mistake. The second batch, I did a simple cream ale for SWMBO and collected just shy of 6.5 gallons. Post-boil I just a hair over 4 gallons in the fermenter (I topped up with bottled water). I decided I had way too vigorous of a boil going on, so I attempted to correct that this past weekend. I collected 6.25g of wort, and after a 60-minute, barely-rolling boil (less vigorous than I used to do on my stovetop with extract when I didn't care about boiloff) I put about 4.6 gallons in the fermenter. That's around 25%.
The first two batches, I made obvious mistakes, but this last batch surprised me. They've all been fairly simple, 5-gallon (target) ales, so I don't know what I can try to get lower rates. Granted I'm brewing in the garage now and it was probably 45F in there this weekend, but no breeze, and it was close to 60F with the cream ale.
FWIW, my pot diameter is 16". I see the 15-gal Megapot is 19". Appreciate any advice.
I've done 3 all-grain batches. The first, I didn't use enough sparge water, so when I ended up short of my 5-gallon target, I redid the math and realized my mistake. The second batch, I did a simple cream ale for SWMBO and collected just shy of 6.5 gallons. Post-boil I just a hair over 4 gallons in the fermenter (I topped up with bottled water). I decided I had way too vigorous of a boil going on, so I attempted to correct that this past weekend. I collected 6.25g of wort, and after a 60-minute, barely-rolling boil (less vigorous than I used to do on my stovetop with extract when I didn't care about boiloff) I put about 4.6 gallons in the fermenter. That's around 25%.
The first two batches, I made obvious mistakes, but this last batch surprised me. They've all been fairly simple, 5-gallon (target) ales, so I don't know what I can try to get lower rates. Granted I'm brewing in the garage now and it was probably 45F in there this weekend, but no breeze, and it was close to 60F with the cream ale.
FWIW, my pot diameter is 16". I see the 15-gal Megapot is 19". Appreciate any advice.
Last edited by a moderator: