Help, 5 gallon AG batches with extract supplies

[togabear]

I want to preface this by saying, I live in a one bed room apartment in NYC with my SWMBO, so equipment storage is a problem for me. A mash ton or a larger 8G pot would be the needle in the hey stack after the kegs, new fermenters, and keggerator.

I also really want to switch over to a AG after doing several partials and I have been reading the following posts on doing AG with extract hardware:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/all-grain-brewing-extract-brewing-equipment-pics-142648/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/brewing-all-grain-my-bottling-bucket-146175/

Thank you Deathbrewer, corvax13, and DRoyLenz for testing these techniques out! If mine doesn't work, I am definitely following your guides.
Problem is that these are small batches, which is nice for experimenting, but not really practical for me to spend that much time for every brew just to get 2.5G.

I realized it might be possible to get a 5 Gallon batch using this method using a 4G stock pot, 2 2G pasta pots, and a bottling bucket. I'm sure there are other people out there like me who want to go AG, but only have money/space for these items. This could probably also be done with only one pasta pot or a large baking dish in the oven.

Any way, on to the idea (this mostly copied from corvax13 post)
- Brew in a Bag-two smaller bags for the 2G pots, and a larger 1 for the 4G pot
- I mash in the brew kettles at 150 to 155F for an hour.
- Once mash was done, lift out smaller bags from pasta pots and place them in larger bag (from stock pot) in the bottling bucket.
- Pour wort from the three pots over the grains, and filter wort through grain using bottling bucket in the large stock pot (will now hold more wort now that the grain is gone). Recycle first 2 quarts.
-Right after pouring wort over the grain, heat water in the two small pots to a boil for sprage water.
- Added my sparge water. Cycle runoff into smaller pots.
-start boiling all three pots. Just boil the two smaller ones to sterilize them. Add hops to the large pot. You will just need to add a few more hops than to a 5 G boil.
-Cool. Combine in fermenter.

The advantage with this is that you can use all the grain for a 5G batch with close to or the same 1.25 quarts/lb grain. Also you basically do a full boil, divided. This will allow for quicker cooling for those with a small sink and no wort chiller.

The problems are you might get less efficiency, slightly more complexity, and its not a true full boil. I think efficiency will only be a problem with high OG beers where the water to grain ratio gets worse do to small volume.

Tell me what you guys think. Sorry this is rambling, poor gramer, spelling mistakes-I'm late for work and wont have time later in the day to post this ether! I'm going to try this next week, unless any of you point out a major flaw. Also, if you have done this please tell me your results!

 

[cvstrat]

I have no doubt that it could be done. My question is why? Extract beers can rival AG any day. I'm all about pushing the envelope and trying to find inventive ways to improve my brewing so I'm totally supportive of your efforts. I guess I feel like there needs to be a really good reason to complicate the hell out of your brew day. I'm also thinking ahead for when you might have another place that is more compatible to AG brewing you might be able to use that money to buy an 8gal kettle, bigger mash tun, and so on. I guess I'm thinking why spend money on a smaller more complicated system when you will end up rebuying all that over again maybe in a year or two?

Again I support your effort and would be interested in seeing photos/video of it in action.

 

[Walker]

Maybe you could take a small step and move to partial mash first? It still wouldn't be a full boil, but you could make a small mash-tun and get half of your fermentables from grain, and get the rest from extract.

This would open a lot of new doors for you because you would have access to a lot of new grains that don't really work that well as simple steeping grains.

 

[togabear]

Thanks for your guys input!

Oh I have done partial mash a lot and I enjoy doing it, so if this doesn't work I will fall back onto that. I was just thinking about ways to make the process larger without actually increasing the amount of equipment. This is experimentation, not a final method. I'll definitely post picks.

As far as the cost goes, my SWMBO is a foody at least and I already have two pasta pots that are 2 gals and a 4 gal stock pot, so I wouldn't need to buy anything but grain and yeast. I would do something medium gravity and simple first as a proof of concept. Its just the cost of time after that.

I forgot to post this this morning in my rush. Has anyone tried using the bottling bucket as a mash tun? Put it in a sink full of warm water (my tap water is 148F-HOT!) with a few towels over it? That would actually simplify this a lot! Could still sprage and boil the 5 gals in the desperate pots. Maybe I'll try both methods. If they don't work, back to partials and small AG batches for experimentation.

 

[togabear]

I did my first AG! It actually wasn't much harder than a partial and more fun. Keeping true to only using extract supplies, I used the bottling bucket as my MLT. After googling I have found others who have done it too. I kept temps within a degree-did it at 154F without a problem for an hour.

Make sure your bucket is at least HDPE, which is safe over 160F for short periods and can be filled with <160F liquid for longer-like mashing. Its really up to you if you find this safe, and there are threads on this site with people on both sides of this. Does anyone know what coolers for MLT are made of anyway? Probably something similar.

Any way, just filled my kitchen sink with very hot tap water and added a little boiled water too. The sink temp was about 155 to 160F. Added a little bit of star san to keep everything nice and clean to the sink. I would make sure you clean your sink really well before doing this. I treated mine with B-Brite first and cleaned well. You are going to boil afterwords, but its best to be too careful rather than having spoiled beer. You could also use another bucket for insulation, sleeping bags, lots of blankets,

I then placed the bucket in the sink, added the 4 gallons of strike water and then the grain. I ran out of grains bags during this and had to add several pounds free grain. Clogged up my spigot towards end, but was fixable. Next time will use a big 5 gallon nylon bag so it can hold everything. I then placed a pot cover and two towels over the top. I did a sparage with about 2 to 3 gallons of water. Drained everything out into pots.

I then boiled 3.5 gallons with hops and the other gallons separately to sanitize in my other two pots. Cooled them down in same sink using ice and frozen water jugs in about 20 mins. Had to cool the smallest pot in a large mixing bowls as there was not enough room in sink. I did top off with about .5 gallons of boiled water after.

My friend broke the hydrometer during this-reads what I would estimate 0.075-to about 0.08 (no markings that low) in water at 70C. I think OG was about 1.052 to 1.057ish after correction (read 1.03ish at 90C). I was aiming for 1.055 so its close enough for me.

Looks nice and dark for a lighter gravity porter, tasted good too, and fermenting away now. Only has about 1/2 inch of sediment on bottom. Pitched Wyeast smack pack at 3 AM when the wort was 75C and it had blew all the star san solution through top of air lock by 10:30 AM. Got a blow off tube on it now.

For anyone who just wants to try this, its really easy. It just takes a little longer than a partial because you have to drain out bottling bucket, which took me a while because of grain clog. This shouldn't be a problem if youre not a moron like me and get the right size grain bags. Also, it takes up a little bit more stove space, but I didnt have any problems with this. If anyone is interested, I will post pics, but I think you can get an idea of what I did.

 

[HomerJR]

This sounds interesting! Did you put the grain in the grain bags, then into the strike water? My guess is you'll get better efficiency when you use one big nylon bag, then you can do a little stirring to make sure all the grain is soaked well. Did you just drain out of the bottling bucket spigot afterwards?

Amazing what we can come up with when we have limitations on space, $$, or whatever!

 

[togabear]

This sounds interesting! Did you put the grain in the grain bags, then into the strike water? My guess is you'll get better efficiency when you use one big nylon bag, then you can do a little stirring to make sure all the grain is soaked well. Did you just drain out of the bottling bucket spigot afterwards?

Amazing what we can come up with when we have limitations on space, $$, or whatever!

Part of my motivation is that its finals week for me and I need a source of procrastination! I'm done thinking about yeast tetrads and rather think about brewing.

Any way, yes and yes, I put some of the grains (all of the specially grains) into the bags, but there was some 2-row free because I didnt have enough bags. I think the nylon bag would work the best and I will do it next time. I fully plan on doing this again it was so easy.

I drained all the liquid from the spigot into the pots (except first 2 quarts which I ran back through), removed grain from the bucket, and recombined all the liquid back into the bucket after. I don't know if this is necessary, but I couldn't fit the sparage and the first mash in one pot and wanted to make everything homogeneous for boiling. The whole draining process took about 30 mins because the spigot got partially blocked unsurprisingly. I also ran everything I was draining through a strainer to make sure it was clear and use Irish moss in the boil.