Question about my brew pot, and doing my first AG

[mikeyc]

Im doing my first AG next week, Im extremely excited. Im doing Edworts Stone IPA clone. My question is about my brew pot. It can comfortably hold 5.5 galons. Its a pot from a pressure cooker, and has worked fine so far. Is this going to be big enough for an AG? Im assuming with AG you can not top off with water after the boil. If I get less than 5 gal after boil off, is this going to affect the outcome of the beer?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

It won't be big enough for full boils if you want 5 gals in the primary. You'll lose about 1 gal over a 60 min boil, so you would need to start with 6 gals. Now, if you want to go ahead and brew an AG batch, and just scale the batch down to say, 4 gals, then you'll be OK, but still on the edge of how much you want to boil in that pot. You really want to look for a pot that's 8+ gals.

 

[jezter6]

Agreed. You need ~7-7.5 gallons of wort collected to make 5 in the fermenter. Even with an 8 gallons pot, you're going to have to watch it VERY carefully for boil over.

Get something big enough you don't have to worry about, or you'll end up with a lot less in the fermenter than you want.

If you can't swing a new pot, you can try doing split boils like some others have done, or you can just scale down the recipe to 4 gals.

 

[mikeyc]

Thanks. I cant swing the dough to get a new brew pot this month, maybe next. But I think I could do the split boil. Im assuming you just split the amount of hops between the two boils. Does the schedule, length of the boil change?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

You can do a split boil. Just split the hops like you said. The times don't change, although the evap rate may a little.

 

[BrianP]

If funds are low, you could try a turkey fryer. The pot is 7.5 gals, which is still a little small, but you can get close to 5 gal in the fermenter after boiling and other losses. You do have to watch it pretty close to prevent boil overs.

But then again, if you're in 'saving mode', it's better yet to save up for what will work in the long run.

I forget who quoted it, but when I was contemplating between a 5gal and a 10gal MLT, the advice was very handy: "buy cheap, buy twice".

 

[Kayos]

Turkey fryer. Brewing on the patio with a stogie and tunes is well worth $40. Comes with a 7.5 pot which is just baaaarley big enough.

http://cgi.ebay.com/30-QT-Aluminum-...ryZ20674QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[shafferpilot]

with careful heat control you can use a 7.5 and get more than 5 in primary. Either way, there's nothing wrong with topping up with previously boiled water. It'll mess with your IBU's but that calculation is an estimate anyways.