Diluting to make more beer from smaller capacity

[nolabrew85]

I have been all grain brewing for 3 years now, and I brew on Brewmagic system with the capacity to make 10 gallon batches. I know some professionals and home brewers make more beer with less capacity by making a stronger beer and then diluting it. I would like to try this. If anyone has a good thread or article on this or just some tips, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[m1k3]

http://byo.com/stories/item/237-blending-for-volume-techniques

 

[laredo7mm]

I never thought of diluting after fermentation like the above linked article discussed. I just made a double batch of BierMuncher's Cream of three crops by entering the ingredients for his 11.5 gallon batch in BeerSmith.

I make six gallon batches (10 gallon max capacity kettle) so after losses, I end up with 5 gallons in the keg. Since I wanted two 6 gallon batches, I scaled his 11.5 gallon recipe to 12 gallons. I then dropped the batch size from 12 to 7 gallons. This gave me an OG of 1.069 as opposed to 1.040.

After kettle losses, I would have about 6.5 gallons of 1.069 wort so I needed to add 4.5 gallons of dilution water to get my 11 gallons (5.5 into each carboy) for fermentation. 4.5/6.5 = 69.2% <--- that is my IBU adjustment factor for dilution. My IBU's from beersmith said 21.9 on the 7 gallon batch, so 21.9 * 0.692 = 15.2 after dilution (close enough for me).

I think that only thing to keep in mind is that when brewing higher OG beers, you get less hop utilization so they may need to be adjusted in the recipe to account for that.

I was a bit over my 75% I used in my calculations so I end up with two carboys with 5.5 gallons in each at 1.041 OG. This was a week ago tonight so they only have a few more days left in primary before they get put into kegs for chill and carb.

 

[doug293cz]

Besides the adjustment for lower hop utilization with higher gravity wort, you need to adjust for the lower mash efficiency you will get by using a higher grain to total water ratio. The drop in mash efficiency is primarily due to decreased lauter efficiency, but you may also observe a lower conversion efficiency with the thicker mash (ref: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Mash_thickness.)

It turns out lauter efficiency is constant for a given grain weight to pre-boil volume ratio, if the sparge process, and the grain absorption ratio stay the same. You can use the following chart to see how efficiency varies with grain to volume ratio, and then adjust your recipe for the lower expected efficiency.



Brew on

 

[nolabrew85]

I'm basically trying to make 20 gallons of a 4.5 ABV beer in one batch on a system using 15.5 gal keggles. I think it may be doable because it is low ABV. I just worry about too much caramelization during the boil. Basically I am making sort a straightforward wheat beer and placing it into 2 different fermenters (10 gal in each) and pitching saison yeast in one and American ale yeast in another. After chilling the boil, I plan to split the wort into 2 different pots and then dilute each with distilled water until it gets to 11-12 gal and then chill each into a fermenter. Doable?

 

[doug293cz]

I'm basically trying to make 20 gallons of a 4.5 ABV beer in one batch on a system using 15.5 gal keggles. I think it may be doable because it is low ABV. I just worry about too much caramelization during the boil. Basically I am making sort a straightforward wheat beer and placing it into 2 different fermenters (10 gal in each) and pitching saison yeast in one and American ale yeast in another. After chilling the boil, I plan to split the wort into 2 different pots and then dilute each with distilled water until it gets to 11-12 gal and then chill each into a fermenter. Doable?

Let's work the example for 22 gals total in the fermenters.

For a 4.5% ABV beer with a 76% attenuating yeast (typical wheat beer yeast attenuation), then you will need 22 gals at an OG of about 1.045. If you have 12 gal post-boil, that will have to have an OG of 1 + 0.045 * 22 / 12 = 1.0825.

So, can you brew 12 gal of a 1.082 - 1.083 OG beer with your process? My simulations say it's possible with 14 gal pre-boil, ~33 lb of grain, and a mash efficiency of 82% (which requires a conversion efficiency of 100%.) If you only get 90% conversion efficiency, then you need ~38.5 lb of grain, and only get a mash efficiency of 70% - 71% (but in this case the mash volume is 15.1 - 15.2 gal, a little tight in a keggle.) The simulations assume a 1.25 qt/lb mash thickness, and 3X equal volume batch sparge (or equivalent lauter efficiency fly sparge.)

Brew on

 

[nolabrew85]

Thanks Doug293cz! I think I'm going to give it a shot! Isn't that part of the fun of the homebrewing!? I will probably need the 39 lb of grain, or just add a little sugar to the boil. That would be in character for saison but not wheat really. I might just have a little DME wort and boiled sugar water on hand in case I have to bump up the gravity on either or both in the fermenter

 

[idiotsinc]

I tried making a double batch of hefeweizen by brewing a condensed 5 gallon batch, splitting it between 2 fermenters, adding enough water to each to bring them up to 5 gallons. The problem is when splitting the wort. One ended up with a higher beginning gravity than expected, the other was lower. I ended up with 10 gallons of beer that I really didn't enjoy all that much.

 

[hopbrad]

the 1-2lbs of sugar for the saison should definately help. extract like you said is another option.

check out partigyle brewing too, you can take 1st runnings for a high OG beer and 2nd/3rd runnings for a lower one. or mix and match to get one slightly higher than the other. also can add in some specialty malts for the 2nd/3rd runnings if you want a totally different session/table beer.

 

[jddevinn]

A widely adopted technique for improving the economics of a brewery is 'high gravity' (HG) brewing, in which concentrated worts are produced and processed. The concentrated beers produced are diluted for sale....there are difficulties with preparing concentrated worts unless the addition of sugars or syrups to the copper [brew kettle] is allowed. Almost all the stages of the brewing process have to be adjusted, and the water used to dilute the HG beer must be very carefully serialized, deoxygenated and carbonated.

At a minimum you will need to address:

• How to achieve the HG, either with grain increase or with adjuncts
• Yeast attenuation limits
• Water chemistry adjustments
• Serializing the dilution water
• deoxygenating the dilution water!!!!
• to reduce oxygen uptake it may be useful to pre carbonate the water and add the HG beer to the water inside the sealed kegs....

 

[nolabrew85]

I think the deoxygenated water would only be for diluting AFTER the fermentation.

 

[jddevinn]

I think the deoxygenated water would only be for diluting AFTER the fermentation.

Yep... I assumed that was what was being discussed here.... diluting before fermentation is very common and didn't think it would require a thread..