Annoying newbie questions

[Achilles_001]

Hi all, new to homebrewing and I am loving it so far. At the moment I have two one gallon batches under my belt, a simple ale which turned out pretty well and an english light dark ale which is still in the secondary stage. I would like to produce a larger 5 gallon batch but I have a few problems, mainly I only have access to a 6 gallon stainless steel stockpot and an electric stove. I live in an apartment so propane heating outside isn't an option and even if I get a larger pot, my electric range can realistically only boil 5 gallons on the largest element. I am hoping a few experienced members can help me out:

1) Is there any reason I can't produce a 5 gallon batch in that pot? I know you are supposed to have 30-50% of your target volume in there to start off with, but can I steep the grains in the 5 gallons and then, during the boil, simply add the runoff by of what I pour over the grain bag, to top it off and keep it around 5 gallons? Would this kill my efficiency and cause a beer with little alcohol content? I do have a second 1 gallon pot, would it help at all if I were to split it up a bit. Merging the two pots as I lose water to evaporation?

2) Not biab related but I have seen many people recommending using a secondary fermenter after the primary fermentation is complete. Given my limited space, is there are reason why I can't reuse the primary container? Siphon the beer into a sanitized stockpot, clean the primary, then siphon it back in. Does this greatly increase the chance for infection/oxidization?

Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

[mongoose33]

1. I brewed yesterday; started with 6.75 gallons, and with evaporation and trub loss, I have about 5.5, maybe closer to 5.25 gallons.

Typically a 5-gallon batch starts in the 6.5 gallon area.

So you need a larger pot.

2. Unless you're aging beer a very long time, forget the secondary. Back in the day when yeast was sketchy, it was recommended that brewers rack the beer off the yeast cake and into a secondary. Today, not so much. I don't use a secondary.

 

[Sadu]

I just brewed a 6 litre batch in a 7.5 litre pot. So basically the same as whay you are trying to do but scaled down to litres instead of gallons. Efficiency was 77%, best I have got yet, I was getting 72% with a full volume BIAB mash. I was actually aiming for 4.5 litres but I think I screwed my water calcs and ended up with 6 litres. Part of that was that my gas cooker was a bit small and I couldn't reach the vigourous boil I was aiming for.

Anyway, run your own numbers using this as a guide, but I think you can successfully brew 5G in a 6.5G pot if you add the sparge water to the boil over time. I did a 90 minute boil.

I mashed 60 mins BIAB in a plastic chiller using 5 litres of water. When that was ready, removed the bag, gave it a minute to drain and poured into the kettle. Started heating.

Then put the bag back in the chiller and rinsed with 2.5 litres water at 78c. Left it a couple of mins, gave a good stir, removed the bag. Wort went into a spare container. Then same again with 1 more litre. The first rinse was quite brown, the second was basically clear. You could do this in a single rinse if you wanted.

Once the boil starts, added the hops and watched out for boilovers. Then over 30 mins I added the 3.5 litres sparge water to keep the kettle topped up and the boil going.

Finished with 6 litres in a 7.5 litre kettle. Good efficiency, no boilovers, no topping up the fermenter.

 

[TexasWine]

Definitely employ the technique @Sadu outlined. I believe this is called maxiBIAB in some circles.

And remember, 5 gallons to the fermenter does not equate to 5 gallons to the bottle/keg. There are different definitions for "5 gallon batch". To me, it means 5 packaged gallons, keg or otherwise. That's why I usually put 6 gallons into the fermenter. To others, they may be talking 5 gallons to the fermenter.

And yes, forget secondary for the most part. Beers using whole fruit would be another time you might use it. Bulk aging can be done in the keg or bottle.

 

[TurnipGreen]

Sadu has a good plan for getting you 5 gal in a 6 gallon pot. You could also use some extract or brew a bit heavier grain bill and top of with water.

2) transferring you beer around to re-use a primary will definitely raise your chance of infection. Think about it, you need to siphon, leave in bucket, siphon again, the back into a cleaned fermenter. Each step these is an opportunity for a wild critter and oxidation.

Especially if you are limited on space, try skipping the secondary. You'll never go back to all the mess and cleanup of extra racking.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Squeeking a large batch from a small pot is doable, but will come easier with experience.

Another option is to brew a concentrated wort, and top up the fermenter with water.

This will not be as efficient, but a pound or two of extra grain is not a huge expense if you want to go this direction.

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Use two pots on your stove and try some Fermcap-s to avoid boil overs.

 

[RdeVjun]

1)
As touched on by posters above, the MaxiBIAB methodology should be helpful, so here's the original guide: http://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=352

MaxiBIAB is formulated for a 19L pot and 21-23L brewlength, while it also suits indoor/ domestic stovetops, in many ways its a 'try before you buy' because most often you only need the pot and the bag to give all grain brewing a go.

The method sometimes gets a negative wrap over there, it can be challenging for novices to attempt, nevertheless its still relatively simple compared to other techniques and its a competition winner; should suit the OP's circumstances quite well.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of that guide.

 

[ThePaleAler]

Squeeking a large batch from a small pot is doable, but will come easier with experience.

Another option is to brew a concentrated wort, and top up the fermenter with water.

This will not be as efficient, but a pound or two of extra grain is not a huge expense if you want to go this direction.

This will do the job. I have a 9 Gal pot and have made a double batch of a blonde ale in one go. Did a bit of math and calculated the gravity of concentrated wort needed and simply topped up my fermenters with bottled water. Think I put 3 Gal in each and topped each up with 2.5 Gal. Bottled 10 Gal in total from my 9 Gal pot.

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot do this with high gravity brews. Also you have to keep an eye on your IBUs, because hop utilization for high gravity wort decreases noticeably and you might end upw ith an unbalanced beer.

 

[tgolanos]

Do you have counter space for an electric cook plate? I've been doing a split-boil with 2 19L pots, one on the electric stove and one on the hot-plate. Split everything as evenly as possible between the 2 pots and you should be good.

 

[IslandLizard]

As @Sadu said, split your boil over 2 or more pots. Most stoves have one large and 3 smaller burners. Spread the volumes out accordingly. To get your hops utilization, you can spread your hops proportionally over those pots, or just recalculate for the higher gravity.

Leaving the lid on partially (about half to 2/3-way) really helps to retain a good boil, while still providing an adequate boil-off. Some insulation (e.g., Reflectix, bubble wrap, neoprene) around the kettle (only on an electric, non-combustion stove of course!) and on top of the lid also assists in retaining a better boil and thus a good boil off. One gallon an hour boil-off is about the average aim for 5-6 gallon batches.

Juggling wort:
You could store your first runnings in a bucket while squeezing and sparging the bag, or sparge the bag in a large bucket, leaving the wort in the kettle.

 

[soccerdad]

There are no annoying newbie questions Only annoying newbies ! Just kidding - welcome to biab world.

 

[PADave]

You could move to a place where you can do a bigger setup.

On a serious note, skip the secondary.

 

[VT_jlee]

These are all great suggestions to maximize volume on your setup. Another option is to use http://biabcalculator.com/ to figure out how much grain and water you can fit into your kettle. With a 5 gallon pot you can likely get 3-3.5 gallons out of it (yes this is less than 5 gallons of wort but your process will be pretty much identical to what you are currently doing).

I have an 8 gallon kettle, so I use that calculator to figure out how much beer I can make. I can usually get around 4.75 gallons of sessionable beers, and higher abv (1.070-1.080 OG) beers usually end up around 4.25 gallons. It's all a trade off between amount of grain, length of boil, boil off rate, etc. This will likelyctriple your production over your current set up but keep the process pretty much the same.

Oh, and don't bother with a secondary for regular beers. Secondary only comes into play when aging on wood or fruit or adding some bugs.

 

[GHBWNY]

Another way to create a 5 gal brew from a 5 gal pot is to do an extract brew. Although that might not be an option you want to consider right now, it is possible to make a great beer with LME and steeping grains in a single 5 gal (or less) pot. I've done a few SHaME brews (Single Hop and Malt Extract) with great results where time, space and equipment are limited.

 

[jjeffers09]

Don't forget top up water. If you make a higher gravity boil, then chill with "top up - ice" to quick chill increasing volume, but getting all of the chemistry benefits from a strong boiled wort. Isomerization of hop acids and other important factors that I am not going into. Obviously ideally you will want to have a full boil in a 10 gallon pot for a 5 gallon batch, but improvising for the time being it isn't so bad.

 

[Soyben]

I would recommend reading through a bit of DeathBrewer's easy partial mash forum. You can modify it to fit your system.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=75231