Could I brew 6 gals, add water to make it 12?

[wickerman]

I am thinking of making a 12 gallon batch of pale ale, but don't really want to do two boils. Could I just use the ingredients for a 12 gallon batch in a 6 gallon brew, and add 6 gallons of water at the end, or will it be too diluted? I have a feeling I would have to add more hops for sure, but other than that I don't know why it wouldn't be fine.
Thanks,
wickerman

 

[Patro]

Its pretty commonly done for extract batches and the only real issue I've heard of is the difficulty mixing wort and water to get post-dilution readings. Maybe split the 6 gallons up before diluting so you don't have to worry about how well mixed it is and ending up with a weak beer and a strong beer.

Other than that calculating the required gravity and IBUs of the 6gallon batch shouldn't be hard. You'll probably need more than double grain as your efficiency will fall with higher gravity beers (you could just keep some DME on hand to correct the gravity), and sounds like you already know about upping the hops. A lot of the online IBU calculators take into account gravity and boil volume so those should help you figure it out.

 

[wickerman]

Thats kinda what I figured. I've done it before to a degree, just not half and half. I have a 15 gallon demi john that I'll use for the primary, then rack it to two 6 gallon carboys for secondary so it will all be the same as far as abv goes.
Thanks,
wickerman

 

[Cyclman]

Half batch- you'll need to add more hops for lowered hop utilization rates.

 

[buckeye2011]

I've done this with lower gravity (~1.045) all grain batches without issue. I used beer smith to do the ingredients but overall I ended up with about 10% lower efficiency in the mash which I calculated around. I also used 20% more hops to deal with the lower utilization. If you do it I'd keep a couple pounds of DME on hand in case you get really low efficiency, you can measure after the mash and add some DME to hit your target OG if necessary.

I would not try this with high gravity batches as the efficiency would be low enough to make it not worthwhile. Keep the OG reasonable and have some DME on hand just in case. It works really well.

 

[wickerman]

I have a bunch of dme, so I may just do an extract batch and see how it turns out. I don't want to waste a bunch of time and energy on something that I'm going to be dissapointed in. I'm just making a simple pale ale thats around 5%, nothing crazy or high gravity. Is 2 packs of yeast enough, or should I go with 3?
Thanks,
wickerman

 

[Ramitt]

. Is 2 packs of yeast enough, or should I go with 3?
Thanks,
wickerman

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html