Full mash split into 5 smaller batches

So I'm thinking of making five 1.25 gallon IPAs, all with the same grain bill and mash profile but with unique hop schedules. Actually, other than the hop schedule, everything else will be the same. It's an experiment.

So my thought is to start with this grain bill:

Pale Malt (2-Row) US 15.00#
Carapils/Dextrine 1.25#
Caramel/Crystal 40L 1.25#

Single infusion mash@152F, 1.25 qts/lb and batch sparge. I expect about 8.45 gallons total preboil, and for my system including evaporation during the boil (13%), that gives me about 6.25 gallons postboil. I expect that should give me 1.068 OG with 68% efficiency and an SRM of 8.8.

Now I want to split the preboil volume 5 ways and boil those separately (thereby creating 5 separate "small" IPAs). I can handle boiling two at one time. That means 3 will have to sit a while until the others are in the fermenter. Is it OK to let them sit and cool and then take care of the next 2 and so on? Will I lose anything by letting the preboil volume cool down?

And on one of those 1.25 gallon IPAs, I plan on only using Citra hops (all added late in the boil) with the following schedule for a total of 75.5 IBUs (yeah, I'm a hop head):

Citra 12.0% 0.50 @20
Citra 12.0% 0.50 @10
Citra 12.0% 0.25 @5
Citra 12.0% 0.50 @0
Citra 12.0% 0.50 dry hop

Hey, that's equivalent to 11.25 oz. of hops for a typical 5.5 gallon batch size! What dost thou thinkest?

Since this is an experiment, what is your hypothesis? Do you think the beers will be drastically different and if so, in what way? Will you expect certain characteristics from each beer?

idk it seems like a lot of work. I think that if you were to use the same hops for all 5 batches you will see a big difference between the batch with mostly late additions and the batch with longer boils, but the middle 3 will be pretty much the same and if you were to do a blind taste test, you might not even be able to tell the difference between them. However, you might find the combination that you like the best

soonami said:

Since this is an experiment, what is your hypothesis? Do you think the beers will be drastically different and if so, in what way? Will you expect certain characteristics from each beer?

idk it seems like a lot of work. I think that if you were to use the same hops for all 5 batches you will see a big difference between the batch with mostly late additions and the batch with longer boils, but the middle 3 will be pretty much the same and if you were to do a blind taste test, you might not even be able to tell the difference between them. However, you might find the combination that you like the best

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Actually, I plan on using different hops (varieties and amounts) for each batch. The one I described uses only Citra hops. Another may use a combination of cascade, simcoe, centennial, etc. I just want to try out different hop combinations and schedules...just to try things out. I think part of homebrewing is about experimenting. In this case, it's just a small part.

If you use different hops for different, how are you going to know if what you like is the actual hop or the boil schedule?

soonami said:

If you use different hops for different, how are you going to know if what you like is the actual hop or the boil schedule?

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Well that's the point isn't it? If I like a particular beer, then it's everything that's different about it than the others. So if the hop schedule and the hops themselves are what's different, then that's why I liked that beer. Certainly another experiment would be to use the same hops for all 5 batches but different hop schedules. Then it would be the hop schedule that made the difference. Or maybe try different hops with the same hop schedule. But that's just another type of experiment. Which I may very well do in the future!

The point I am making is that by changing two variables (hop variety and boil time) you cannot be sure which one is directly responsible for affecting the flavor in the manner in which you find preferable. If you have 5 beers with fairly different types of hops and boil schedules, you could have combinations that would not allow for a good comparisons. If instead you had two boil schedules and 3 hop varieties that allowed for pairwise comparison where you could employ the Condorcet method the maybe you could determine which beer was the best and for what reason.

Man this is going to be a long brew day...

soonami said:

The point I am making is that by changing two variables (hop variety and boil time) you cannot be sure which one is directly responsible for affecting the flavor in the manner in which you find preferable. If you have 5 beers with fairly different types of hops and boil schedules, you could have combinations that would not allow for a good comparisons. If instead you had two boil schedules and 3 hop varieties that allowed for pairwise comparison where you could employ the Condorcet method the maybe you could determine which beer was the best and for what reason.

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I see your point. But my only experiment this time is to see which I like the best. I don't care to learn what method works best. I just want to see a favorite come out that I can brew larger batches of later on. But in any event, the real question is if I can let the preboil volume cool down prior to the boil on some of those batches.

I like it. If I had the energy and patience, I think it would be a fun experiment to do.