All Grain and Boil Volume

[Cockfighter]

After many partial mash and extract brews I have recently moved on to all grain brewing and (so I thought) full volume boils.

I've done two all grain batches that turned out great, with two more currently in the fermentor.

To boil the wort I bought a 25L (6.6 gallon) pot with tap and a high wattage induction plate to get it going, as my stove top lacks the power.

The brews I've done have used about 5.5kg (12 lbs) of grain, which is about the same amount of fermentables as I've used when doing partial mashing.

However I've been getting far better efficiency with my new setup, filling my 25L kettle to maximum and still having quite a high gravity for the boil (like 15 to 17 Plato - around 1.070 SG).

As such I go into the boil with a higher concentration of wort than what I want in the final beer.

What I've been doing is to boil the wort at the somewhat higher gravity, let it cool, add it to the fermenter and top-off with chilled water.

Since I use 30L (8 gallon) fermentors I can top off to a max of 28L to reach my desired initial gravity. Which I think is great because now I get to make more beer for my effort.

Now I've recently read that most all grain brewers have much higher boil volumes and boil down to the desired gravity.

Does anyone see anything wrong with higher gravity boiling and using top-off water? Do I have any more disadvantages to this apart from reduced hop utilisation?
The beer that's finished turned out great. Would I have better beer if I got an even larger kettle?

 

[Revvy]

Typically for All grain brewing the idea is to know how much your boiloff rate for your system (ie, how much you boil off in 60 or 90 minutes depending on if your using pilsner or not) that along with things like water loss due to grain absorption, and deadspace in your mashtun (the space under the ball valve/filter that may not come out of your tun.

And it kind of works roughly out in the water/grist ratio you use which is typically 1.25 quarts/pound of grain.

That is all factored in to your pre-boil volume above the 5 or whatever volume your final post boil amount is...it also determins you pre-boil gravity and how much it concentrates to for you SG...

I pretty much boil off about a gallon and a half per hour of boiling...it can be more or less depending on how viguours the boil is.

Now what often happens is we miscalculate this, and end up at the end of sixty having a higher or lower amount than our post boil volume should be.. I usually boil off about a half gallon more than I inteded... (I took a steel brush and dissasembled my burner and clean a decade worth of soot and rust out of it, and now it burns like a rocket, even at a low burn and boils off more than I intend.)

So my gravity is higher than the intended gravity, BUT magically if I top off half gallon of water, my gravity corrects itself to what it should be... if my volume is too high then I have the same thing in the opposite directions, and if I boil down a half gallion, the gravity corrects itself again....

Now having said this...this is EXACTLY how the principle of Stovetop Extract with top off brewing is done.. You have an extremely high grav, thick wort, which you typically dillute to a stovetop managable amount- again your boiloff amount per hour PLUS your intended post boil volume.. Most of the instructions say start with 3.5 gallons, and boil off to 2.5 gallons.. of STILL high gravity wort, which you then further dillute with another 2.5 gallon in your fermenter to 5 gallons, which should give you the correct (or close to OG) of your recipe.

Now for the longest time, and STILL to this day, "Old Dogs" and "Armchair Brewers" argue (and prolly have already said it in this thread while I'm writing this DETAILED answer) will argue that you can't do the same thing with all grain, that it's inneficient, that it will cause a zombiepocalypse, that we're idiots, etc, etc, etc.

The common "wisdom" has been, and many people will still argue it to the death, that "Full Boil is better."

But 10 years or so ago, I had two different brewers, both owners of two different homebrewshops say that's exactly how they did AG brewing, usually in the winter when it's too cold to haul out their turkey fryers. They mash a high test wort, calculate for ibus in it, and dillute it just like extract brewers do..

I started doing it years ago, doing everything from light wits to barleywines, with every concievable gravity and IBU's imaginable, and some of them medaled. I still do it in the winter, I have a pot that can just barely bring 3.5 gallons to a decent boil on my stove, and I bring it down to 2.5 gallons, and dillute.

And I have managed to medal with many of those beers. (So my argument is, "Better than what?" If I'm making great tasting beer, that judges love doing a dilluted all grain batch just like extract top off with water, and I'm also making great tasting beer with full volume boils that wins metals and my beer judge friends love, AND it's easier in the winter to do it inside, then how is it "Better" one way or the other?"

There's a lot of brewers on here who do it... I put together a throrough explanation of how I do it, including how I get beersmith to help me calculate all that I need, including using the "DILUTION" tool built right into it.

I go into a ton of detail on that in this thread...

Once you factor those things in, you should be able to dial in your efficiency and compensate for any issues you might be having.

In beersmith I have a separate equipment profile called "Stovetop AG with Toppoff) which factors in the boilloff of my stove as well as the numbers for my mash tun and my pre-boil amount and my post boil desired volumes, so it seems to calculate my recipe needs at 75% efficience, and I hit my numbers most if not all of the time.

Hope this long explanation, and the link helps.

 

[Cockfighter]

Hi Revvy, thanks for your detailed reply!
The thread you linked to has some great information. Good to hear I'm not the only one using this method.
In that case I'm not going to change a thing about my set up. I personally use Brewer's Friend and I've always hit my OGs when topping off to the desired fermentor volume.

I guess the proof is in the beer.

 

[Revvy]

Hi Revvy, thanks for your detailed reply!
The thread you linked to has some great information. Good to hear I'm not the only one using this method.
In that case I'm not going to change a thing about my set up. I personally use Brewer's Friend and I've always hit my OGs when topping off to the desired fermentor volume.

I guess the proof is in the beer.

It's a handy way to do it, for whatever reason, too cold to brew outside, don't have a big enough kettle, don't have a turkey fryer, or don't have a yard to brew in.

I started doing it out of necessity....when I started doing it I lived in an urban loft in the downtown core of a city, and the only way, besides taking my gear to another brewer's house, or wait for a group brew day, I could do a full volume turkey fryer boil was literally climb out the laundry room window and brew on the roof of the back part of the building I lived it...running the hose for my chiller off the laundyroom sink, and draining into the drainpipe for the gutter. I did once and freaked everybody out.

So necessity being the mother of invention, and not wanting to do just 2.5 gallon all grains I started to figure out just why can't we do essentially what EVERY beginning extract brewer who does 5 gallon kits does.... and despite all the naysayers I couldn't find any LOGICAL reason why any "supposed" issues the armchairneverdoneitbeforebrewers could come up with. Then I talked to two different Homebrewshop owners who I respected AND had tasted their beers and found out that how they did it in the winter, or in their shops when they wanted to brew.

But geez when I first started figuring this stuff our and talking about it on here you should have seen how closed minded and argumentative some of the "big names" on here got about how inefficient an blah blah blah it was. But after I posted it a few times and more people either said they were doing it that way, or started all grain on their stovetop that way, it got more accepted. What you saw there was from like the "second" generations of discussions on it.

Like you said the proof is in the tasting.