all grain brewing split boil indoors will it work?

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LSDracula

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Well I just saw an interesting video on basicbrewing.com where they did an all grain pumpkin ale indoors by splitting the boil. 2.5 gallons in two 5 gallons pots on the stove. Is there any reason that this method would not work? It would save me a lot of money for the transition to all grain in this method because I would avoid having to buy a 7 gallon pot, propane burner, and a chiller. You could just cool the 2 pots using both sides of the sink or a bathtub and bags of ice. Also, you would avoid having to brew outside and since I live in AZ where it is currently 115 degrees out there it would not be enjoyable to be boiling wort outside.
If this is a viable option for me I may make the jump over to all grain a lot sooner than I thought.
Also. Does anybody know of a place on the web that I could find instructions on how to build a full size mash ton out of a 5 gallon water jug or a large ice chest?
 
Yes, you can definitely do this. I've done that, when brewing outdoors was impractical. Look at the bottom of this thread for a list of other, related threads on this topic. Best wishes!
 
If you are like me, and feel like home depot is a foreign country, you can always make an MLT out of 2 plastic fermentation buckets. I think charlie p. speaks of it in his book. You just drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of one and put it inside another. I borrowed one from a friend, it probably had about 100 1/8" holes. I probably would have opted for more smaller ones, but it worked great. Then you just drill a hole slightly smaller than your tubing so it has a nice tight seal. The hot mash liquid will expand the tubing. I didn't have a single drip. (although i suppose it would expand the bucket slightly too...but whatever, not a drop). Then just have a clamp at the end of the hose whilst mashing. then release for the fun to begin!

Obviously, just make sure that you pour your boiling kettles back and forth a few times before beginning the boil so it is homogenized.
 
Yes it will work just fine... I do the same thing, however I use an 8 gallon kettle and a 5 gallon kettle. My 8 gallon kettle is big enough to hold most batches, however recipes that call for a 90 minute boil are usually right at 8 gallons preboil, and that makes it impossible to boil without having a boilover (even when using the foam control drops). Just remember to split your hops accordingly as well.

The other reason I use two kettles is simply because it takes a lot less time to come to a boil when I have the wort split into two kettles vs one (I brew on my stove top).

The main problem that I see with using two 5 gallon kettles is that getting an accurate preboil gravity reading will be a challenge. You will not be able to determine your efficiency unless you have a uniform sample, and with your wort split into two kettles, you may not be able to get a true reading.
 
Yes it will work just fine... I do the same thing, however I use an 8 gallon kettle and a 5 gallon kettle. My 8 gallon kettle is big enough to hold most batches, however recipes that call for a 90 minute boil are usually right at 8 gallons preboil, and that makes it impossible to boil without having a boilover (even when using the foam control drops). Just remember to split your hops accordingly as well.

The other reason I use two kettles is simply because it takes a lot less time to come to a boil when I have the wort split into two kettles vs one (I brew on my stove top).

The main problem that I see with using two 5 gallon kettles is that getting an accurate preboil gravity reading will be a challenge. You will not be able to determine your efficiency unless you have a uniform sample, and with your wort split into two kettles, you may not be able to get a true reading.

I figured I would have to mix all the running's into my 6.5 gallon ale pail or other large container first. Then stir it up and take a reading before splitting it into the 2 brew pots. That way I could get a preboil gravity reading and I would be sure to get even hop utilization between the 2. I had read earlier today that wort gravity directly affects hop utilization so I would want the contents of both brew pots to be as similar as possible.
 
I figured I would have to mix all the running's into my 6.5 gallon ale pail or other large container first. Then stir it up and take a reading before splitting it into the 2 brew pots. That way I could get a preboil gravity reading and I would be sure to get even hop utilization between the 2. I had read earlier today that wort gravity directly affects hop utilization so I would want the contents of both brew pots to be as similar as possible.

The other thing you have to consider is that with 2 kettles boiling, your boil-off is going to be double, which means your preboil volume will be larger than normal... so even with a 60 minute boil, using 2 kettles is probably going to give you a preboil volume of 7 gallons or more. I'm brewing a batch right now and my preboil volume was 7.75 gallons in my 8 gallon kettle...
 
The other thing you have to consider is that with 2 kettles boiling, your boil-off is going to be double, which means your preboil volume will be larger than normal... so even with a 60 minute boil, using 2 kettles is probably going to give you a preboil volume of 7 gallons or more. I'm brewing a batch right now and my preboil volume was 7.75 gallons in my 8 gallon kettle...

I think I'll have to play around with a few more extract batches to see just how much I can actually get to boil on my gas range. Also, I'll try to make an assessment of how much boil off I'm going to be dealing with. In theory I think the split boil idea would work but I'm gonna have to do some experimenting before I go and spend another 40 bucks on another brew pot. I'd hate to buy one and have the method not work the way I wanted it to.
 
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