Top off with all grain/pm?

Just curious if you can top up in fermenter with all grain/pm? Thinking of doing 2.5/3 gallon boils on my gas stove biab style during the winter until i can use my turkey fryer. what do you think?

 

What size kettle do you have? I brew AG inside all the time w/ a 5 gal pot doing a 4.5+ gal boil and topping up in the fermenter. Just be very careful of boil overs!!! If you are only going to boil 2.5 to 3 gallons, I would do smaller batches, BUT it is possible. If you are doing PM, you can top up no problem as you are already supplementing with extract. Folow DeathBrewers process and you will make great beer! There are many threads regarding this very issue already out there, just do a search.

 

I have a 5 gal ss, 7.5 gallon aluminum, and 8 gallon aluminum kettle. not sure if i can get a full boil going on any of them with my gas stove.

 

I straddle 2 burners with mine and have no problem boiling almost 5 gallons. Experiment with the bigger kettle so you don't have the mess factor and see how long it takes to get to a boil and how vigorous it is. I just don't use my big aluminum pot because I don't really think crawfish and crab flavored beer sounds very appetizing

 

1 of the pots is tall/thin the other aluminum pot is short and fat. which would be better a tall thin one over 1 burner or a short/fat one over two burners?

 

Short fat over 2 burners, IMHO

 

I do top off ag batches all time. I often do 5 gallon batches dilluting 2.5 gallons of wort with 2.5 gallons of water.

I've been doing quite a lot of them in the winters in the last couple of years.

I do it a lot in the winter when I can't brew outside. I use a pre-boil gravity of 3.5 gallons boiled down to 2.5 and topped off with 2.5 gallons of water, and I've never had an issue with efficiency whatsoever, or hop utilization problems either.

I use beersmith to calculate everything then use their "dillute with water" calculator and hit my numbers all the time. A recipe calculated in a program like beersmith that takes into account for boil size will tell you how much grain you need to achieve whatever your set efficiency is. Basically you are still making a high grav wort, like your extract extract actually is, and then using the calculator dilluting it down.

The only thing I account for is hop efficiency. And I simply up my hopbill by about 18% to overcompensate for poor hop utilization. And I bet you with a better understanding of the formuals and such, you could nail the amount you need to overcompensate more precisely that I do, but 18% more seems to work for me.

I've done everything from IPA's to really light lagers this way and have had some great beers come out of it. My Wit and my Vienna Lager made this way have both placed in comps. And another one, my chocolate mole porter picked up a bronze.

I still do a lot of half sized Ag batches, because there is no extra math involved, but over the last two years I've found that the "you can only do full sized all grain batches, and can't dillute with water," isn't exactly true....it just takes a little finegaling with the maths.

I think the idea that you "can't" is just one of those common wisdom things that folks repeat because they've heard it, and never really give it much thought, or worse yet, just repeat the premise verbatum...

Funny thing is I've discussed this with brewers who own 2 different LHBS's (and have decades more experience than me) and they've been doing the same thing for years. I first thought about it, when I overboiled a 5 gallon batch on my turkey fryer by a gallon, and sat down and played with the dillution ration to top off with water, and it returned to the gravity had I not missed my post boil volume...I started to wonder what if....and it's been fun. Especially finding out that it works for many different styles, from really hoppy to not subtle brews.

 

The better heat tranfer of aluminum might be better for stovetopping. You may be very pleasantly surprised how much you can boil over two burners. Take it slow and easy once you get near boiling...you really don't want a boilover inside...unless you plan on renovating the kitchen anyways.

 

I've done the same as Revvy for years as well with no problem. It is "common wisdom" that it doesn't work, but having done it I know for certain it does. Still, every time I tell anyone about it, I am told how certain they are that it doesn't work. I've actually had people tell me that you can't do that while drinking the end result with no idea.

 

I did two BIAB AG batches this last weekend doing partial boil. The first time about 3.6g of wort, the second time I got about 4 gallons. Both times topped off to 5-gal with tap water.

Remember that you are going to combine your mash water with your sparge water and the tough part is to get just enough to fill the kettle to the just-right-amount with your newly created wort.

Also consider getting three mesh bags for your grain bill instead of trying to fit it all inside one.

Mash your base grains and specialty grains together.

 

I also collect extra wort from my MLT in an extra kettle so I can top off with wort rather than water towards the end of the boil, say right after 15 min hops additions (less boil over risk that way!). This gets me close to 5 gallons in a 5 gal kettle w/ little problems w/ boil over. I will boil the extra wort seperately so I get the hot break outta the way and it doesn't slow down the final few minutes of my main boil.

Amazing how people will tell you what you can't do while you are in the process of doing it :rockin:

I'm not saying it is the best method, but it certainly makes great beer w/ in the confines of my setup. Keep brewin, keep innovatin, keep postin the results

 

What do you do hopwise???

Glad to know there's other folks bucking the common wisdom about this on here.

 

I generally bump my hops up by 15%. This increase seems to work well with my system but your actual mileage may differ. I really like this technique. I use full boils more often than not now just because I have the equipment but this method served me well for some time.

 

I have a quick related question here. I've been doing BIAB AG, but my boiloff rate is high at 2 to 2.25 gal per hour. I'm trying to do full boils for 5 gallon batches, but I'm using an 8 gallon pot, which means I can only boil 7.25 gal tops. I wind up having to top off, which works from a gravity perspective, because after topping off, I still hit the target OG (the huge boiloff means I overshoot my OG, but have less volume).

I'm really just curious how adding 0.5 gal to 1.0 gal of topoff water is affecting hop utilization, if at all? Is it significant? Should I be bumping up my hop amounts? If so, do you bump up all hop amounts, including full boil amounts, mid/late additions, 0 min additions, etc?

 

For that small amount of water, I wouldn't bother.

 

I haven't used this method in a while, but it looks like I am going to have to dust it off for a large upcoming project. I'll be making several 7 gallon batches and topping them to 10 to fill a 50 gallon wine barrel. I think I'll call the final product "Common Wisdom" as a hat tip to the technique. Now, I just have to hammer down the recipe.

 

You can also consider running two pots at once with the wort/hops evenly split...I did that for a while to achieve the equivalent of a full boil on the stovetop.

 

I too do this all the time. Go for it OP, it works just great. I also do BIAB but I sparge/mashout after which gets me to my pre-boil. It can be tricky with the sparge, and took me awhile to see what ratios work for my equipment. I mash in 2 SS pots in my oven, sometimes 1 if my OG is not too high. I have done the fermentor top-up as well for anything from a low OG wit to a barleywine. I cannot taste any difference in beer quality.

I wish I could relate to everyones LHBS experiences, but my LHBS is completely useless when it comes to info. When I asked which hops to use for a recipe (back when I first started brewing) he said "It doesn't matter, they are all pretty much the same. Just throw them in the fermenter when you add the yeast". Quality. Quality.

 

Sorry to renew an older thread, but do you have any sample receipes for this you could share? I'd like to give it a try and something "proven" would help. Basic pale ale or similar would be great. Thanks

 

Based on the replies in this thread, the recipes are the same. You just use less water. Mash with 3.5 gallons of water, boil down to 2.5 gallons. If the recipe has an OG of 1.050 then your OG will be 1.100. Add 2.5 gallons of top-off water and your OG will then be 1.050. That said, you may want to increase the hops in the recipe by 15 to 18%.

 

Yup, rob nailed it.

But I do post a more thorough explanation of the process inn the most recent thread discussing it, http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/ag-4-gallon-boil-but-5-gallon-batch-size-243910/#post2917819

 

Great! I'll go take a look at that thread. I've done quite a few 2.5 gal AG full-boil on the stove with good success, for my taste anyway. Looking forward to trying this out.

 

I did a search on this exact question and came across this thread so I apologize for the bump. I've been doing BIAB batches on my gas stovetop and I max out at a 5 gallon boil. This of course, reduces the wort and thus I've been limited to performing 4 gallon batches.

I would like to give this a try but have aquestion on hop utilization. Revvy indicated that we should increase hops by 15% if we top off an all grain batch. Is that limited to the bittering hops or does it include the entire hop schedule? Thanks!

 

I've just always done ALL hops across the board.

 

Same here. I bump them all by 15% except for dry hops. Coincidentally, I dusted this technique off and used it for the first time in a while about two weeks ago. I made an all grain oatmeal stout on my rig with full boil and while that was going I made an all grain CAP partial boil on my old turkey fryer and small kettle and topped it off. Still fermenting but tastes fantastic. And no, it doesn't look darker.

 

I hate to bump an old thread as well but I've been studying this. Anyway....

Is it certain that just 1 gallon of top off water will not affect Hop utilization ? After all, it doesn't seem like much, but 1 gallon is still 16 Cups of water (USA)...... Thinking about it like that is what makes me worry that I should up the hop % some......

Can someone sway me that 1 gallon is really nothing at all ??.........

 

I top off with about 2 gallons or so,including boil off. Regardless of AE to PM.

 

high gravity AG wort topped up is no different than high gravity extract wort topped up.

 

You might adjust your hops up a little. I used to boil about 4 gallons and top up. I know my boil wasn't very vigorous and I was always watching for boil overs! So I would throw a few extra grams in there. Who am I kidding, I'm a hop head, I threw quite a few extra hops in! But one gallon won't make a huge difference in utilization.