I'm not able to boil much more than 15-16 litre in my brew pot so I typically end up with about 11-12 litres of wort. I want to make bigger batches though so could I dilute a concentrated wort after the boil with sterilsed (boiled) water?
Is it OK to dilute wort post boil?
- Thread starter JonBrew
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tootal
Well-Known Member
Depending on your water source you could boil some water, let it cool and put it in the freezer in a sanitized container. Dump it in your hot wort to cool it down.
Exactly what I was doing not too long ago. Get around 3-4 gallons of 1.080 or 1.070 wort, then add water to bring it to where I want it to be for that batch usually 1.045-1.060. Quality will not suffer.
Alternatively you could try to do a second dunk sparge and try to get more sugars from the grain bag, then use that as top up water after a boil. I was just doing a batch and ran the numbers. I could get 45L in the fermenter if I used tap water, or based on the second sparge I could get 48L. Was the boil worth gaining another 3L of beer? Probably not. But it's an option and depending on numbers of the day it may be a good one.
Alternatively you could try to do a second dunk sparge and try to get more sugars from the grain bag, then use that as top up water after a boil. I was just doing a batch and ran the numbers. I could get 45L in the fermenter if I used tap water, or based on the second sparge I could get 48L. Was the boil worth gaining another 3L of beer? Probably not. But it's an option and depending on numbers of the day it may be a good one.
agrazela
Well-Known Member
I always top up with unopened 1-gallon bottles of distilled kept in the fridge. Already sanitary, no change to your water chemistry, and as said cools the wort. Usually at least 2 gal of my 5 gal batch is added this way, and so far I've managed to avoid needing to buy a wort chiller (just a sink full of ice water to part-chill the hot wort).
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Lots of things effect quality of the final product. Full boils can create a better prudoct, but I don't think it's worth worrying about until you can cool a full batch fairly quickly (Australian style no chill being an exception), and have some handle on fermentation temps.
More on full vs partial boils here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/full-boil-vs-partial-boil-324533/
and here: https://www.google.com/#q=site:homebrewtalk.com+Partial+vs+full+boil
I think, depending on the style maybe, that you can make just as good a beer with a partial boil. Just understand that your hop utilization will be less with a higher gravity boil.
You could also add boiling water during the boil, say 1 qt at a time. If you don't have a wort chiller, you might not want to do that, though.
You could also add boiling water during the boil, say 1 qt at a time. If you don't have a wort chiller, you might not want to do that, though.
