Lower volume wort

[timo944]

We seem to have a stove that takes the wort a long time to come to boil - over 20 mins for a 3 gallon wort. This has led to some problems, including the amount of time it takes to come back to boil after addition of LME. There is also a fair amount of evaportaion.

New stove is not in the near future unless one of you buys our house in NC.

Is there any problem using a much lower volume - say 1.5 or 2 gal for a 5 gal batch and just making up with H2O? My goal would be a 1.5 gal wort - keep the addition amounts the same, and add 3.5 gal + water to get to the 5 gal goal.

TIA timo

 

[dr0506]

I think you may have issue with your hop additions if you're trying to jam that much malt extract into such a small volume. If I remember what I've read about hop oils and alpha acids correctly, because you've got so many fermentables in the wort (cramming it all into 1.5 gallons instead of 3), there is less ability for the hop oils to successfully dissolve into the wort. To compensate you may need to increase the amount of hops you add at each addition, particularly your bittering hops. There may also be additional problems with efficiency but I don't know quite enough where that is concerned to say for sure.

I can't think of any other major ramifications off the top of my head. Most extract recipes have you diluting to 5 gallons anyway.

 

[jtratcliff]

Can you supplement with a heat stick? $40 on amazon (look for a bucket heater).... You can probably build one cheaper if you're a DIY type.

MoreBeer has one as well. Bobby_M is putting one together too if you'd rather buy from an HBTer?

That'll get you to a boil quicker than a stove alone.

 

[microbusbrewery]

+1 what jtratcliff suggested, supplement the burner. You'll get reduced hop utilization with higher gravity boils.

 

[timo944]

I was unaware of the heat stick - makes a lot of sense. I will go this route. Thanks!