Would this be a terrible way to get 1 gallon of 70 degree wort?

[Kassad]

So most people brewing a 1 gallon AG batch would heat up approximately 2.5 quarts to 3 quarts of strike water for 2 lbs of grain, add the grains, mash, sparge with water to get them to 1.5 gallons to 2 gallons, boil for an hour down to about a gallon, then cool to 70 degrees, pitch yeast, ferment, and so on..

If a person wanted to really speed up, and simplify the cooling of the wort, could they use one of these methods instead:

1. Same steps above except keep boiling until you have about half a gallon of wort, then remove from heat and add cold water to drop temperature and get to 1 gallon 70 degree post-boil wort.

or

2. Reduce the strike water to .5 gallon (1qt/lb), sparge to 1.25 pre-boil gallons, boil down to half a gallon, then add cold water to get to one gallon and the desired pitching temperature.

I am going to assume this is a bad idea because it would be very easy to scale to 5 gallon recipes, it would eliminate the need for wort chillers, and it is so damn easy everyone would be doing it.

 

[saturng]

Option #1 wouldn't save you any time as you would spend more time boiling, also you would need to adjust your hop schedule to account for this.

#2 is similar to what some people do, I have read it being called making "concentrated" wort. Honestly, this isn't that much different than what most extract brewers do. The thing to account for here is your hop utilization. People much smarter than me about the subject can explain it better; but just as the amount of time you boil hops change the alpha acid utilization (think IBUs) the gravity of your wort affects this as well. The higher the wort gravity the less utilization. So in order to get the same IBUs you would need to use more hops.

I wouldn't say #2 is a bad idea at all. Some might say "what's the point with only one gallon that you need to chill". But (home) brewing isn't all about what other people do. I think you should try it and if it works for you, great! If not, who cares, you're still going to have something drinkable in the end.

 

[RM-MN]

It will work. Boiling it down like that will get you a darker beer due to the Maillard reaction and adding water post boil could lead to contamination but the risk is slight as many extract brewers do it regularly. Instead of just cold water you might want to make ice to add. The phase change from ice to water requires much more energy than raising the temperature of just water so you get a lot more cooling from the same volume. Think of your method as a way to make liquid malt extract.

 

[Kassad]

I guess my fear would be efficiency of mashing 2 lbs of grain with .5 gallons of water. Would a longer mash help, or should I just plan on trying to sparge really good?