All grain with 2 pots

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

snipper_cr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
Messages
221
Reaction score
2
Location
Somewhere in Illinois
So I want to be able to do all grain but I have no easy way of bringing 5 gallons to a boil. With my stove I can usually bring 3 gallons to a boil (use that with my partial boils). Is there anyway I could use 2 boil bots with the runnings from my mash/lautering tun? I would imagine the hardest part would be the hops, making sure I divide up the hops properly. Also the boil off would be tricky I bet.

Any recommendations?
 
I don't suggest messing with this. Turkey fryers are relatively cheap around now (-$40 for a fryer and 7 gallon pot). Seven gallons is pushing it, and you'll really have to watch for boil-overs, but I did it for a long time. Don't do all-grain until you can comfortably boil all 6.5-7 gallons of water in the same pot.

Another thing about turkey fryers is they are usually cheap aluminum. I never noticed a difference between my SS and turkey fryer alum., but some will frown on it.
 
When I first started AG, I did split boils. The key was to have two pots of the same volume at the same time, and to split the hops evenly. You also should split the runnings evenly- 1/2 of the first runnings in each pot, and 1/2 of the second runnings split evenly, so that the hops utilization is the same in both pots. You should have both pots boiling at the same time, and your boil off will be twice as much with two pots, but it can be done.
 
Don't let this stop you. Several people brew like this using smaller pots, small stoves, etc... You'll have to tweak your hop addtions and calculate boil-off, but after a batch or so, you'll have it all worked out.
 
I did my first AG in two pots on the stove because I didn't want to wait for my new kettle to come in the mail. I did 4 gallons in 1 pot and 2 gallons in another and split all my hop additions up with a 2:1 ratio. Turned out great.
 
This is how I do it. I have a five gallon and a four gallon kettle.
I do 5.5 gallon batches.

I live in an apartment and don't have the space for a turkey fryer. My stove is tiny also.

I usually put all the hops in one kettle and then mix the two kettles in my primary.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So I did some looking around and found this

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000BXHL0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

And it is considerably cheaper getting this as opposed to a large stock pot and burner at say, northernbrewer. Is there any reason to go and get a seperate stock pot and burner, as opposed to a turkey fryer?

Nope. Lots of people brew with this exact setup. And make award-winning brews doing so. The one thing to watch out for is that 30qts isn't such a huge pot, and 6.75 gallons of boiling wort will keep it pretty full and pose a pretty big risk for boil-overs. But if you get some Fermcap (highly recommended) that won't be a problem either.

Good luck!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
+1 on the Fermcap

Especially if you use the Bayou Classic setup.

I use that same setup in my apartment, and I have had the wort all the way to the rim on boils many times, but only because I was confident the Fermcap would keep it from boiling over.
 
So what would I attach that burner to? Just a propane tank that I would get at a hardware store or often times see at Walgreens?

Yes. That's all you need. I think you can get about 3-4 brews out of one propane tank. I've never really noticed, since I usually don't brew on mine. Someone else can tell you how long they last. (I have a really nice gas stove in my house, and live in a very cold climate, so I like to brew indoors.)
 
I don't want to steal the thread, but curiousity has really gotten me. I've done 1000x more reading on this site than questions I've asked. Most of my posts have been help from my knowledge of personal experience and/or what I have read.

However, as I've read amongst other threads and early posts in this thread everyone talks about splitting hops and such if you are using 2 pots for example. One individual posted on this thread that he puts all his hops in one pot and combines the two later. I thought "Oh boy he's in trouble." I was fully expecting responses to him saying, Oh no, you need to split those hops up. That's not right. You can't throw them all in one and not the other. Perhaps it slid under the radar in this case.

So I'm curious why exactly do you need to supposedly split the hops up evenly between the 2 boils? This isn't how I brew but I am just very curious. Could be a bad analogy, but if you're making chicken soup, and you have two pots of vegetables and broth, and you put all the chicken in one, and then combine the two pots, you still impart that chicken and it's flavor over your combined soup. No? Different with hops? Reality, or myth? Is there some hop chemical something-or-other thing I'm not understanding?
 
Yeah, it has to do with hops utilization. The more material in the wort, the less effective the bittering will be. So, I would run off the first runnings, evenly split, and the second runnings in the same way. That way, both kettles are roughly the same SG and have the same amount of break material. Then, the hops are divided.

Adding all the hops into one pot and adding unhopped wort at the end will impact the bittering, so you'd have a bit less bittering in the batch than you would if you boiled the hops equally. How much difference? I couldn't say- probably not a huge difference but enough that I evenly split the boil for that reason. If you want predictable results, and to hit your target IBUs, you have to account for that.
 
Back
Top