New to Brewing

I am planning on brewing an APA in a couple of weeks with DME and specialty grains. My questions are:

How much water should I steep my specialty grains in if I want the boil to be 6 gallons?

Does the water have to be warm when added to the initial water?

Will 6 gallons boil down to 5 in an hour, or should I go less? Like 5.5

Thanks Guys!

Is this a kit?

Kind of. Its a recipe I found online that looks straight forward. It does say to do 3 gallons and add the rest later to make 5, but I dont want to do that. I would rather do a full boil. I want to get the most out of hops, and cut out one more step. I understand that full boils give you better results as well. It says to steep in a Gallon first, but since I want to do a full boil I was curious if it will be ok to add 5 gallon after steeping.

Oh,

It's ingredients from a recipe on the internet. I just got all the ingredients from my LHBS.



I put the recipe I found and put it into brewers friend to the specification I want to do. I just don't know what the best way to go about the steeping to adding the additional water for the boil is....

Depending upon how much grain you are steeping, you will usually see people specify somewhere from one to three gallons. In your case, since you say you want to have six gallons, you would steep in some amount of water, say 2 gallons, somewhere around 160F, plus or minus depending upon the amount of grain being steeped. After it rests for maybe a half hour or so, you would add this to enough water to come up with six gallons, then start your boil.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter13.html

The amount of water loss in an hour boil is relative to the boil strength, humidity, and size of boil pot. I lost a lot less boiling on the stove in the kitchen than I do on my propane burner outside. Generally a good boil I'll lose around a gallon inside and two outside, but that's my equipment. Once you are familiar with how your own setup works, it's smart to stop focusing on volume and begin focusing on specific gravity instead, to help get predictable results. In your case, your target volume (5 or 5.5) should be defined by the recipe. If it targets 5 gallons, you would need to add to the ingredients list to get 5.5, or you'll end up with a lighter beer.

If your kettle is big enough to boil 7 gallons or so, then boiling 5 1/2 gallons, allowing 1/2 gallon for boil off would work. I use a 5 gallon kettle for steeping or partial mashes. I steep in 2 gallons, then sparge with 1 1/2 gallons. This gives me 3 1/2 gallons boil volume. You could jus sparge in enough water to ad the steeped wort to for your actual boil volume.

How big is your boil kettle? Are you boiling on a propane burner? Or on the stove? Gas, electric, ceramic cooktop, induction?

FWIW, I boil on a propane burner and boil off 1.5 to 2 gallons per hour.

I have an 8 gallon boil kettle, and I will be using propane. Do you think I will loose 1.5 gallons?


Awesome!! Thanks guys! I'm really excited to get things going.

Any input is good input!

fimpster said:

How big is your boil kettle? Are you boiling on a propane burner? Or on the stove? Gas, electric, ceramic cooktop, induction?

FWIW, I boil on a propane burner and boil off 1.5 to 2 gallons per hour.

Click to expand...

This is crucial. I need 7.3 gallons to end up with just over 5 in the fermenter. You will need to dial in your boil off rate over the course of a few batches to know for sure.

Also, if the recipe was designed for X gallons with x ounces of hops added at x minutes and x added at x minutes left. Changing to a full boil without making adjustments will change the bitterness, flavor and aroma from the hops originally designated.

Understood!

That's why I took the recipe I found and put it into brewers friend. I Adjusted the boil volume and then adjusted the Hops additions according to the style and what I am looking for. I don't know if I should just go on the safe side of 6 gallon boil or 5.5. I don't want less than 5 gallons so its ok if I end up with a little more. What do you guys think?

Since you're boiling on propane, I'd start with 6.5 gallons pre-boil. You'll easily boil off a gallon or more in an hour.

If you dont mind using up a little propane, you can always boil 6.5 gallons of water by itself and see how much you lose in an hour. That's what I did when I moved outside to a propane burner.

Edit to add: If your kettle has a valve, you can also use this wet run to empty your kettle after the boil and measure how much dead space you have (room left over that wont drain). Brewers Friend and all other software programs have fields where you can enter this data to dial in your volumes.

Ok!

I have two printed out versions for the recipe. One is for 5.5 and one is for 6 gallon boil. I will do another for 6.5 and see how the figures look.

Thanks for the advice!