What would happen if....????

[zahrndt_usmc]

I am still using my gas stove top for partial mash which does not have enough power to bring 5 gallons of wort to boil. What I have been doing is bringing 3 gallons in one pot and 2 gallons in another and then combining them (it can sustain a boil but not bring that much to boil) My question is what would happen if I were to split my recipie in half and just deal with 2 pots of 2.5 gallons and then combine them in the fermenter? Would that affect the IBU's or color (I know that if i only do a partial boil it does, but will this?) Thanks in advance for all of yalls imput.

 

[halite]

Should not have any negative effects. Basically the worts will be the same in terms of concentration, hop additions etc. It should not have any negative effect just because they are smaller batches. As long as you keep everything the same for the two pots then it won't be a problem.

 

[brewchez]

Just be sure to split the hop amounts between the two pots evenly and it should be fine. It'll be fine even if you don't do it evenly, but you'll have a hard time predicting what the end results will be and how to repeat it if you get a great batch.

But doing it differently in each pot will have a minor difference in the complexity of the hop profile in the beer... again difficult to repeat if desired.

 

[malkore]

like brewchez said, split everything equally, including your runnings from each phase of the mash, so that you get fairly equal gravities starting the boil. only really thick gravity boils get less hop utilization at a noticable level.

I have myself done split boils with two 16qt stockpots, recombined in the fermenter for all grain batches, because my ceramic top stove burners won't run anything larger than about a 13" diameter pot.

And you can easily water bath chill those smaller pots in the sink or tub in about 15-20 mins...so you don't have to get a chiller like you would in a full 6-gal single pot boil.