Can I do a five gallon AG in two batches?

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pnj

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a few weeks back I made a mash tun from a cooler, got the ingrediants for a five gallon Eds Pale Ale and was going to buy a large pot but have no run out of money.

Can I split my grains and mash half of them, boil them, cool them and pour it into my primary and then do it again for the other half?

At this point, I have WAY more time then I do money. Hours have been cut, forced time off, etc.

Thoughts/suggestions?

thanks
 
For sure! You're basically going to be doing two, 2.5 gallon batches. You may even want to check out different hops in each of your batches. May be a great time to see if you like the hops in the recipe or would like to do something different in the future.
 
Well, I was going to combine them back into one bucket. So using different hops probably woudn't work so well.....
 
You could also mash all the grain, collect all the wort, and then proceed to boil it in whatever pots you have availabe, and just approximate hop additions into each pot.

While inconvenient, you can get three pots going to hold all 5 gallons.
 
You could also mash all the grain, collect all the wort, and then proceed to boil it in whatever pots you have availabe, and just approximate hop additions into each pot.

While inconvenient, you can get three pots going to hold all 5 gallons.

+3500. I have spread among pots before, slightly annoying but pretty easy. If you just have a little extra you can add in as you go too.
 
I don't think I have that many large pots..

I have a four gallon and a few stock pots. I'll have to measure out the others but I don't think even the largest is even two gallons. I did an AG a few weeks back and used all the pots and ended up w/ about 3 gallons. I probably could have gotten more wort but not much..

How much liquid should I start with to boil down to five gallons?
 
How much liquid should I start with to boil down to five gallons?

I usually loss around a gallon to boil off in an hour. This is using one pot, starting at six gallons. I think you may lose a little more due to smaller boiling volumes in each pot so maybe start with 6.5 or so.
 
I wonder if it would be easier to add the hops to one of your batches and not the other. Since their getting mixed together anyway, how much of a difference would it make? You'll probably still want to boil your unhopped wort, for sensitization and to remove excess water. But does dividing up all the hop additions by two add anything? I'm speaking as someone without a hop scale, so if I did it I'd be just guessing on the amounts anyway.
 
I would probably add most of my hops to the larger pot, so I could boil more wort in the smaller ones. I'm starting to get excited!!!:D
 
You would be fine boiling one and then the other, and mixing them in the fermenter. Just split your ingredients exactly down the middle for each.
 
Before I got a bigger boil pot I used to boil in 2. A 5 gal and a 4 gal. I would only hop the 5 gal. I would chill the smaller pot first and then the larger. I'd then mix them in the fermenter. Never had any problems with this method. Worked out great. Just a PIA.
 
until recently I was using a 4 gal pot and was doing "mostly grain" recipes. I would use a pound or two of extract to get to the gravity. Then going into the fermenter was about 3.5 gallons of wort and 1.5 gallons of chilled water. This method worked well once I discovered the magic of Ferm Cap-S. Ice bath and chilled water cooled quickly to pitch temps too. I also used beer tools to get my quantities straight.
So I believe you could do an all grain on the stove with concentrated wort then dilute to proper gravity with chilled water. You want to bump up the hops for the lower utilization of smaller wort volume.
GL
 
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