small brew pot issue

[dryan1986]

I have a six gallon brew pot now cause i have been doing extract brews. Ordered stuff to do all grain including converting a cooler to a mash tun. My question is if i do my mash, and sparge like normal wpuld it be harmful to take a gallon out of the wort during boil to prevent boilovers? Or having to full of a brew pot? I know the best solution would be to buy a larger brew pot, but being my first allgrain i dont know if im ready to shell out that kinda money again on a brew pot. The boils more about extracting the hops charactora than doing anything to the sugars and grain stuff right? Help? Lol

 

[kcpup]

You could boil in two pots.

Get as much as you can in your large pot to help with hop utilization. Boil the rest separately in a smaller pot and reintegrate after cooling in the fermenter.

Cheers

 

[RM-MN]

Why don't you scale your recipe down to 4 gallons and then you don't have to worry about how to integrate that extra wort. I've been doing 3 gallon batches in a 5 gallon pot and it works out well.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Any reason why you cannot do part boil and topoff AG? I understand hops utilization is better with full boil, etc. but if you don't have the equipment yet....

 

[zeekage]

The boils more about extracting the hops charactora than doing anything to the sugars and grain stuff right? Help? Lol

And making sure all kinds of nasty critters are killed off before you pitch your yeast. If you don't boil all of your wort at least some I think you'll end up with sour beer and I'm guessing that's not what you're going for.

You can top off with clean water post boil, or boil in 2 pots, or even add water mid boil, or scale down your recipe. But don't leave any actual wort un-boiled.

 

[wilserbrewer]

One thing you can do if you are using a small kettle, is to hold back some of your wort and add it to the kettle as it boils down. W/ your 6 gallon kettle, start boiling w/ 5 of the 6 gallons collected, as that 5 boils down, slowly add the last gallon of wort during the boil to be left w/ five gallons. All wort must be boiled! Fermcap S will help prevent boilovers.

 

[afr0byte]

Your efficiency is going to suffer if you can't do a full boil, because you don't have as much water to rinse the grains with.

 

[tre9er]

I would either use two pots or do as Wilserbrewer suggests. When you sparge, make sure you've got the grain bed above 168 and empty all that you can (within reason) into the kettle, commence boil. As it boils down, add more of the wort from your cooler mash tun. Shouldn't affect your efficiency because you still sparged with the same volume, you just didn't drain the last bit out after sparge.

 

[Pie_Man]

There are some good solutions posted by others. I just wanted to say that doing smaller batches is what I've been doing. Using brewing software like brew target or beersmith, it's pretty easy to scale a smaller batch recipe. Doing a 3-4 gallon batch is a way to save a couple dollars and still brew beer while I experiement with new recipes and the learn the all-grain process. This solution would work given your current equipment and it might allow you to brew more often like me.

 

[tre9er]

If saving money on beer is your goal, you're in the wrong hobby!

But seriously, buying hops and grain in bulk and crushing grain yourself can save you quite a bit on your cost of a batch. Harvesting yeast is also another way. Most good yeasts can go 3 generations before they mutate.

 

[TrubHead]

Why don't you scale your recipe down to 4 gallons and then you don't have to worry about how to integrate that extra wort. I've been doing 3 gallon batches in a 5 gallon pot and it works out well.

doing the same here. smaller batches are the way to go when tweaking recipes and resources are limited.

 

[dryan1986]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Got a lot of good replies. Two boil pots it is! Lol. I dont think efficiency will be an issue seeing as how ill still be mashing and sparging to get the full 6.5 gallons just boiling some sepratley, and adding into the main pot gradually. And hops utilization shouldnt be an issue cause extract recipes only boil 3-4 gallons. Not a concern of "saving" money persay. Just not spending it till' i know its the path i wanna use more often. Extracts fun and all, but i think im gonna enjoy all-grain. Just wanna try it before i go all in.

 

[afr0byte]

And hops utilization shouldnt be an issue cause extract recipes only boil 3-4 gallons.

Partial-boil recipes normally use more hops, to get to a given level of bitterness, compared to a full boil.