Need Advice: Stick with extract, or try all grain

[JKenshi]

Hi Everyone!

I'm going make a short question long and complicated, because that's what I do best, which is why I have to ask the question in the first place (see what I did there?).

I'm relatively new to brewing, I've done mostly ciders, but now have two successful beers under my belt which I brewed using extract and steeping grains. My next beer is going to be a wit... of the Hoegaarden variety because it's what my wife likes. Based on a number of factors I've decided to do a 3 gallon batch instead of my usual 5 gallon. I was planning on simply reducing my chosen extract recipe to the appropriate size, but now a different question has come up...

Being just a 3 gallon brew, I could potentially do an all grain recipe instead... there should be enough room to boil that sucker in my 5 gallon kettle.

So, this is where y'all come in... do I play it safe and stick with my extract recipe, or do I step out boldly and make a wit beer my first all grain attempt?

Thanks for your time!

 

[ba-brewer]

A 5gal pot seems a bit small for 3gal batch, what is your boil off and trub losses?

I use a 8gal kettle for my 3gal batches. I like to actually have 3.25 in the fermentor and use .75gal for kettle trub losses and 1gal boil off so my pre boil volume is 5gal.

Doing all grain is not that hard but if you don't have a bigger pot I would say do an extract version. I believe wheat extract is usually 50/50 wheat/barley so just need extract and water.

 

[Miraculix]

Keep it as simple as possible. Do biab, do not even think about thinking about trub losses or boil of rate, just add water after boiling if necessary to get desired og and dump it into the fermenter after boiling including trub and whatever floats in there(except the hops, use a hop sock), it will all settle out in primary anyway.

It is going to be good fun, go for it!!!!

 

[Br3w4u]

I agree with Miraculix.

 

[chickypad]

If you're interested go for it! It will open up some recipes that are difficult to do with extract alone, plus it's fun to have more control over the process. I do 3 gal batches in my 5 gal pot, though I do have to sparge most of the time. For the typical 5-7 lb grainbill I do a 10 qt mash, drain and squeeze the bag, dunk sparge with about 7 qts in a second pot (you could do a bucket, the water doesn't need to be hot), stir the crap out of it, then drain and squeeze the bag again and add those runnings to the pot. That gives me about a 3.75 gal boil and I end up with a full 3 gals into the fermenter, typically in excess of 80% mash efficiency. If you're okay with a 2.5 gal batch you might be able to just fit a full volume mash.

 

[madscientist451]

If you get a cooler mash tun, you can easily boil 3.5 gallon batches in your 5 gallon pot.
If you want to do BIAB, I'd scale it back to 2.25 gallons and using the Hoegaarden White Clone recipe found here:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/beer-recipe-of-the-week-hoegaarden-white/

You would use about 4 lbs of grain, 4 gallons of water for a full volume BIAB mash.
Using the calculator on the Green Bay Rackers website, you'd use about 4.36 gallons of volume during the mash.

https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

BTW the strike water calculator on the rackers site works for me and I hit my strike temp every time.
You CAN do a 2.5 gallon batch with your pot, but the volume needed will be 4.86 gallons and that's pretty full, its hard not to make a mess when you pull the bag or stir the mash with the pot that full.
Or, as others have mentioned, you can do a dunk sparge in a side pot or a bucket. In that case you could do a 3.5 gallon batch. It might be a good thing to try out a small batch, full volume BIAB, then next time move up to a larger batch with a sparge.
Since you're just starting out, a good practice is to have some Extract on hand if your gravity is a little low. Pull a sample about 5 minutes before the boil is over, chill it in an ice bath and take a reading. If its low you can calculate how much extract to use and throw it it at flameout. For the wit, Wheat LME would work, its 50/50 wheat and 2 row.

 

[LostHopper]

Does your wife have a sense of humor?

I mean, you know, just in case it's not a perfect Hoegaarden

 

[JKenshi]

Does your wife have a sense of humor?

I mean, you know, just in case it's not a perfect Hoegaarden

This is a dangerous question... of course she has a sense of humor... I just can't figure it out.

 

[RM-MN]

Don't do a wit beer as your first all grain. Wit beers have wheat as part of their base malt and depend on good conversion to hit the right OG. Since wheat is a smaller, harder kernel than barley it often does not get crushed well....if at all. That gets you poor conversion efficiency and a wort that is short on the sugars. Without that sugar addition from the wheat you end up with a low OG for a watery beer. Unless you have your own mill and know how to deal with wheat you and she will be disappointed with the beer.

 

[Br3w4u]

Don't do a wit beer as your first all grain. Wit beers have wheat as part of their base malt and depend on good conversion to hit the right OG. Since wheat is a smaller, harder kernel than barley it often does not get crushed well....if at all. That gets you poor conversion efficiency and a wort that is short on the sugars. Without that sugar addition from the wheat you end up with a low OG for a watery beer. Unless you have your own mill and know how to deal with wheat you and she will be disappointed with the beer.

He can use flaked wheat. I just made a wit with 50% flaked wheat and it’s great. Just be sure to use rice hulls.

 

[bronzdragon]

I would agree that brewing a wheat beer as your first all-grain throws some other variables in there. If you do go for it, I would do a long mash, like 90 minutes. On the other side of this, there is really no reason to just not do some more extract beers. The quality of the extract has really gotten a lot better over the last 10 years. I even do one every once in awhile when it catches my eye in a catalog. If you make beer that you like to drink, then you're doing it right. /cheers

 

[JKenshi]

Thank you all so much for input! Not only have you answered my questions, but you've inspired me as well. Here's my plan, based on your helpful feedback...

I'm going to stick with the recipe I have (I'm very confident in it) which has adjustments for All Extract, Extract with Specialty Grains, and All Grain versions. I'll just adjust the 5 gallon calculations down to a 3 gallon batch.

I'll do this as a BIAB recipe with a sparge so as not to push the limits of my system.

The starting gravity is expected to be low anyway, but I'll keep some DME on hand just in case I need to goose it up a little in the end. I'll need to have it on hand anyway for priming purposes.

Thanks again!

 

[Miraculix]

You are pretty much planning to brew the same way I brew here and I get about 85% brewhouse efficiency with the following schedule:

Mash with two third of the final beer volume.
Collect the wort.
Squeeze the bag like there's no tomorrow afterwards, to get as much wort out there as possible.
Put the bag back into the kettle, fill in the remaining third of the water, use cold water, stir well, let sit five to ten minutes, collect the wort again and squeeze the bag again.

You can safely expect 80% efficiency when following those steps, so you won't need dme afterwards.

 

[Br3w4u]

Double crushing your grains will help too

 

[Miraculix]

Double crushing your grains will help too

Yes, that's a good idea as well!

 

[JKenshi]

Hey, just a quick update... I started this brew yesterday. I probably had enough room to do a full mash in my kettle, but I went with the sparge as planned. In the end the OG was very high... like off the beer section of the hydrometer high, although I'm a little concerned that the wort was kind of bland. I added water to bring the OG closer to where it should be. I pitched Imperial Belgian Whiteout at 68 degrees and it took of like a rocket. A bubble ever 5 seconds in the airlock just 6 hours after pitching.

I'll update again in a few weeks when I have some more results to share.

 

[Br3w4u]

Hey, just a quick update... I started this brew yesterday. I probably had enough room to do a full mash in my kettle, but I went with the sparge as planned. In the end the OG was very high... like off the beer section of the hydrometer high, although I'm a little concerned that the wort was kind of bland. I added water to bring the OG closer to where it should be. I pitched Imperial Belgian Whiteout at 68 degrees and it took of like a rocket. A bubble ever 5 seconds in the airlock just 6 hours after pitching.

I'll update again in a few weeks when I have some more results to share.

What was the temp of the wort when you took your hydrometer reading?

 

[chickypad]

Hydrometers generally go up to like 1.160, are you saying it was higher than that? If you were really planning a Hoegaarden clone with enough grain for a 1.048ish beer then it sounds like you had a reading that is not actually possible. Like something way more than a slight temp correction. Something's not right, I assume you didn't get a pic?

 

[JKenshi]

Hydrometers generally go up to like 1.160, are you saying it was higher than that? If you were really planning a Hoegaarden clone with enough grain for a 1.048ish beer then it sounds like you had a reading that is not actually possible. Like something way more than a slight temp correction. Something's not right, I assume you didn't get a pic?

Temp was 72 ish... I meant that it was up in the table wine section of the hydrometer... round 1.080.

 

[Br3w4u]

Sorry if I missed it but what was your recipe?

 

[chickypad]

Yeah I was wondering also what your recipe and volume was, because if you overshot by 30 pts it still sounds like a measurement error, recipe calculation error, etc.

 

[JKenshi]

Sorry if I missed it but what was your recipe?

Sorry for the delay... was in surgery.

2.5 lb Organic two row
2.0 lb White Wheat Malt
12oz Flaked wheat
12oz flaked oats

malt was milled on a finer than usual setting to accommodate BIAB. Mashed at 152 degrees in 2.5 gallons of water for 90 minutes. Sparged with additional 1 gallon. Boiled for 60 minutes.

.5 oz Goldings for 60 minutes
.25 oz Saaz for 10 minutes
Orange peel and coriander at flameout.

After the boil and chilling I had 2.5 gallons of wort with the very high OG reading. Added another quart of water to bring the OG down.

Pitched Imperial Whiteout at 70 degrees. Was bubbling away within 6 hours of pitching and holding temp at 68. Going like crazy the next day. Started slowing within 36 hours. No visible activity in the airlock at 48 hours. I still see a little movement in wort, so I'm not thinking it's done.

Per advice here, I'm going to let it sit for another two weeks before bottling.

 

[Br3w4u]

Looks right. You just had a very efficient brew day. 90% efficiency per brewers friend. Should be a potent beer.

 

[kckndrgn]

New brewer here, just bottled my first wit beer last night, sampled it and it was great. It was an extract kit, as I move forward with my brewing I look forward to trying this recipe out.

 

[JKenshi]

Looks right. You just had a very efficient brew day. 90% efficiency per brewers friend. Should be a potent beer.

Everything went really right with this brew day... I was panicking trying to figure out what I missed... no dough balls, right temps, good sparge, solid boil. I kept second guessing myself.

I'm going to have a tough time waiting the three weeks... the good thing about doing half batches is I can't really get my syringe far enough into the carboy to pull an early sample.

 

[Br3w4u]

Everything went really right with this brew day... I was panicking trying to figure out what I missed... no dough balls, right temps, good sparge, solid boil. I kept second guessing myself.

I'm going to have a tough time waiting the three weeks... the good thing about doing half batches is I can't really get my syringe far enough into the carboy to pull an early sample.

You should get a thief. I mainly just use mine for sour beers anymore but they are helpful if you take gravity samples often.

 

[r4dyce]

Cool I hope it turns out well. I also routinely get very high efficiencies when I do BIAB. Funny because the original articles I read about the method said how you lose so much efficiency compared to traditional methods. I've found the opposite is true. My suspicious is that the double grind more than compensates for any efficiency losses built in the method.

 

[lablover]

I vote for BIAB. You can get 2.5 to 3 gallons out of a 5 gallon pot. I do it all the time. Go for it, you'll have fun.

 

[oakchips]

Yep, BIAB and rice hulls to avoid porridge - good luck !!

 

[JKenshi]

Hey everyone! I just wanted to follow up on this. After letting the bottles sit for awhile, the beer turned out GREAT!! I'm not normally a wit guy, but I think this is my best beer yet. So good, in fact, that I only have a few bottles left and will be brewing a 5 gallon batch of it shortly!

Thanks for all the great advice!

 

[JKenshi]

And here are some picks of the brew and its namesake.

 

[CerealCity]

BIAB. I've never looked back.

 

[El Nino]

I use a 5 gallon kettle also, but a full 3 gallon batch would probably need a bigger kettle. If the grain bill isn't too big, I could get 2.75 or so (Did a golden ale last weekend with a 5lb grain bill). But generally you want a kettle 2x as big as your batch size if you're doing BiAB.

With that said +1 to BiAB, having fun with it atm and getting really good beer in the process.

 

[AZBeer]

BIAB. I've never looked back.

Agreed. Going to BIAB was probably the thing that kept me brewing. If I would have stuck with extract, I don't know if I would've stuck with brewing. Took me several batches to really hit my stride, but once I did, I started brewing some really good beer...if I do say so myself.

 

[TwistedGray]

Agreed. Going to BIAB was probably the thing that kept me brewing. If I would have stuck with extract, I don't know if I would've stuck with brewing. Took me several batches to really hit my stride, but once I did, I started brewing some really good beer...if I do say so myself.

Then you should look into the FotHB trade thread!