Converting recipes

[NOISEpollution]

I've been reading through Calagione's Extreme Brewing book and he has a bunch of clone recipes in there. For most of these recipes, they start by adding 6 gallons of water to the brew pot. My brew pot holds only about 4 gallons comfortably so I'm wondering how I can convert these recipes without sacrificing taste.

Any suggestions?

 

[hopsalot]

It would be more helpful if you gave us the recipe you are looking to convert

 

[NOISEpollution]

It would be more helpful if you gave us the recipe you are looking to convert

Well there are two that I'm looking to convert and each one poses a different problem.

The first one is T'ej

6 gallons water
3.3 lbs light LME
8 lbs honey
Wyeast 3632 Dry Mead
9.6 oz gesho root

1. Heat 6 gallons of water to a boil. Remove from heat and add extract and honey. Return to boil.
2. Boil to 5.5 gallons
3. Cool to 75
4. Rack to fermenter and pitch
5. Ferment for 3 days
6. Remove 2.4 gallons and place in separate pot. Place gesho in grain bag, add to pot, bring to boil. Simmer for 15
7. Remove gesho and cool to 75
8. Return to fermenter and ferment to completion. Rack to secondary and ferment 2 more weeks

The problem with that one is that there's no boil time, it just says to boil to 5.5. How do I do that?

The other recipe is the 60-minute IPA

6 gallons water
6 ounces crushed British amber malt

7 lbs light DME (75 min)
1/2 oz warrior (continuous)
1/2 oz simcoe (continuous)
1/2 oz amarillo (continuous)
1/2 oz amarillo (end of boil)

Wyeast 1187 ringwood ale
1 oz amarillo (6-7 days)
1/2 oz simcoe (6-7 days)

1. Heat 6 gallons to 150. Add crushed British amber malt in grain bag and steep for 15.
2. Remove grain bag, bring to boil. Blend hops.
3. Remove from heat and add extract
4. Return to boil
5. After 15 minutes, begin adding hops a little at a time over 60 minutes.
6. After 60 minutes, remove brew pot from heat and stir to create whirlpool while adding another 1/2 oz of amarillo. Cover and let settle for 20 minutes.
7. Cool wort and rack to fermenter.
8. Pitch and aerate.
9. Rack to secondary after 6-7 days and add amarillo and simcoe.
10. Allow to condition in secondary for 12-14 days.

 

[booherbg]

I think 10% / hour is one of the generic parameters for boil off time. Your specific vessel may vary, but if you boil 10 gallons for 1 hour, you can expect to have like 9 gallons on average after one hour, then 8.1 gallons after 2 hours of boiling.

I use hopville's recipe creator/calculator to adjust my recipes to my smaller setup. Keep the percentages the same and adjust it fine-tune like until your gravity is where you want it. Beer Calculus . homebrew recipe calculator

edit: so 10% boil off from 6gal would be 5.4gal. So you're basically looking at a 60 minute boil (or just a bit less, but 60 minute if you assume like a 11% or 12% boil off rate). So there you go. 60 minute is pretty standard. I'm assuming no hops? If that's the case, you don't need to boil extract or honey except to sanitize the water. So you can pretty much boil as long or little as you want since there are no hops isomerization restraints. Some recommend less boiling (like 20 minutes) for extract so you don't risk caramelizing it.

 

[NOISEpollution]

I think 10% / hour is one of the generic parameters for boil off time. Your specific vessel may vary, but if you boil 10 gallons for 1 hour, you can expect to have like 9 gallons on average after one hour, then 8.1 gallons after 2 hours of boiling.

I use hopville's recipe creator/calculator to adjust my recipes to my smaller setup. Keep the percentages the same and adjust it fine-tune like until your gravity is where you want it. Beer Calculus . homebrew recipe calculator

edit: so 10% boil off from 6gal would be 5.4gal. So you're basically looking at a 60 minute boil (or just a bit less, but 60 minute if you assume like a 11% or 12% boil off rate). So there you go. 60 minute is pretty standard. I'm assuming no hops? If that's the case, you don't need to boil extract or honey except to sanitize the water. So you can pretty much boil as long or little as you want since there are no hops isomerization restraints. Some recommend less boiling (like 20 minutes) for extract so you don't risk caramelizing it.

Correct, no hops in the T'ej. The gesho root does the bittering. So if boiling is only for sanitizing, could I just dump 8 lbs of honey straight into the fermenter and top it off will gallons of bottled drinking water to bring it to 5.5 gallons and shake the fermenter up to mix them together?

 

[booherbg]

Correct, no hops in the T'ej. The gesho root does the bittering. So if boiling is only for sanitizing, could I just dump 8 lbs of honey straight into the fermenter and top it off will gallons of bottled drinking water to bring it to 5.5 gallons and shake the fermenter up to mix them together?

technically yes. some people do that, for example if you want to make hard cider you can just pour apple juice and yeast into a clean fermenter.

but it pays to be paranoid in this hobby. i'd still boil for 15 minutes to make sure you are for-sure clean. even drinking water (or the lid of the bottle, or whatever) could introduce something bad.

plus you want your extract to blend into the water and honey. it may stick to your vessel's bottom if you don't warm it up. adding it to boil is an easy way of doing this.

 

[hopsalot]

use how much water you are comfortable with, making an concentrated batch then top off ot the end with cold water. Wont be exactly the same but the only other option is to get a bigger pot