How to increase volume without more kit

[feemackenzie]

Hers' my kit list (and I am a begineer)
- 40 litre coolbox for sparging
- 15 litre stove pot for boiling water
- 25 litre fermentation vessel

Currently, I use 7 litres of water for the malt; 7 litres of water for sparging and then combine the two to boil.

Using the current equipment is there any way I could increase my brew quantity or, is the stock pt at 15 litres my limiting factor

 

[terrym]

Hers' my kit list (and I am a begineer)
- 40 litre coolbox for sparging
- 15 litre stove pot for boiling water
- 25 litre fermentation vessel

Currently, I use 7 litres of water for the malt; 7 litres of water for sparging and then combine the two to boil.

Using the current equipment is there any way I could increase my brew quantity or, is the stock pt at 15 litres my limiting factor

Partial mash. Grain in the pot etc. Top up water and DME into the FV. Recipes need to be adjusted however for reduced volume boil which affects hop utilisation.

 

[jof]

I use similar sized stock pot for boiling.
In fact I only use an old steamer for sparging.
I do a partial mash of up to 1.5kg grain & top up with 2kg DME for my traditional 40 pint batch.
That's about the biggest boiling pan I can use on our electric hob.

 

[feemackenzie]

I use similar sized stock pot for boiling.
In fact I only use an old steamer for sparging.
I do a partial mash of up to 1.5kg grain & top up with 2kg DME for my traditional 40 pint batch.
That's about the biggest boiling pan I can use on our electric hob.

Let me check: you are booking 12+ litres in a pan, using this to sparge. Boiling this with hops and then topping up in the ferminater with water and DME?

 

[Drunkula]

Do multiple boils - get the 15 litre pan and 3 others on the go at once if you have to.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Brew more often.

 

[jof]

Let me check: you are booking 12+ litres in a pan, using this to sparge. Boiling this with hops and then topping up in the ferminater with water and DME?

No. I am draining about 1-2l water from the original mash.
Then transferring the grain into the 2 tiers of the the steamer & trickling hot water over that to sparge & adding that to the pan.
My pan generally ends up with 7-10Lof wort once I have finished, depending on what I'm brewing. I usually taste whats left of the mash to make sure it's not toeo sweet as I don't want to leave too much sugar behind.

 

[Cwrw666]

I recently did a brown ale and got 40L in my FVs out of a 30L boiler by doubling up on all ingredients quantities (I normally do 20L brews in it) then after the boil splitting it between 2 FVs and diluting with boiled water up to 20L in each FV. No problem with hop utilisation as of course brown ale doesn't have much hops in it anyway.
Only problem was that it didn't taste much like brown ale and was much, much darker than it should have been. (More caremelisation?). Wasn't a bad beer though, very drinkable.

 

[terrym]

Let me check: you are booking 12+ litres in a pan, using this to sparge. Boiling this with hops and then topping up in the ferminater with water and DME?

I do BIAB partial mashes using an 11 litre pot limited by my hob. My grain limit is just under 2 kg. I mash in the pot but batch sparge in a small plastic FV. The boil is about 9 litres max which I keep topping up as the boil progresses. I then add DME straight to the FV with top up water. I use the BF calculator to massage recipes to allow for reduced hop utilisation. Typically I can brew about 19 litres at OG 1.040- 1.045 from 1.5kg base malt plus speciality grains, and 1kg DME. If my pot were bigger allowing more grain I would probably use a combination of a larger brew volume to 23 litres with less DME.

 

[Gerryjo]

Back when I started AG I bought a SS pot set (cheap) on ebay 5,8,11 and 15l for around £25 and converted a 52l cool box from tesco @ £20, between them I did a full infusion mash and split the wort between the larger pots but only doing a 60 min boil in the 15l utilising the hops and the smaller pot was only 15 min with no discernable difference to the beer. Then I bought a Burco 30l which I still have and will use even though I have a BrewZilla.
There's ways and means but just working out what's best for yourself and the easier you can do it the better it will be for you.

 

[Kveik Freak]

You could try partigyling if you have or can find other largish pans. Pros- more beer, and you can use the different portions of the wort to make different styles if you want. Cons- much longer brew day.

If you can stretch to it, there are 20L pots on ebay for £25-30. Just don't do what I did and buy one that's only suitable for a gas cooker when you have an electric hob. Even with a heat spreader I can't get the bugger to boil.

Catering size food tubs make great fermenters, you can get 10-20L ones with lids pretty easily from anywhere that deals with catering size quantities of food. You might even see people advertising them free for uplift on your local facebook marketplace or gumtree. If you want you can add a hole and a grommet to the lid to put an airlock on it or hang a thermometer in the vessel. Or you can just leave the lid loose to let the CO2 out. Food grade and free!

If you are just making tiny amounts (2-4L) at a time then the big 4-5L jugs you can get for about £7 are very handy.

Be very careful when you are boiling your wort. It's like jam- much hotter than you'd expect and sticks to your skin if it gets on you.

You don't say how much grain you're going to be using but say you got 12L of wort, that's a lot in a 15L pot. At the start of the boil proteins rise to the surface and form a foam, which you have to break up or it will boil over. As well as being dangerous, a boilover is a pain to clean up.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

By brewing at high gravity, then liquor back (dilute). Obviously you'd need more fermenters though. In reality, it's not quite that simple as hop utilisation changes

 

[feemackenzie]

Hi, again. I have now a few more brews under my belt...... does the following sound feasible. Aim, to make a SMaSH ale using 4kg malt and hop.

Heat 10 litres to 70c, pour into coolbox. Heat second 10 litres to 70c and add, and finally a further 5 litres to give me 25 litres of sparge water. The final 5 litres would be heated to say 60c so the whole lot sits at 65c in the coolbox.

Sparge for an hour.

Take out 10 litres and boil hops (hop quantity would be for a 25 litre brew) to give an intense wort (I have noted the comment regarding proteins/jam like mess)

Cool this 10 litres and then combine the 10 litres plus 15 litres into fermenter plus yeast.

Result: large volume brew using 15 litre stock pot

Plan B: do two brews !

Any opinions?

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

All I can remember from when The Brewing Network discussed it was that it wasn't at all straightforward. Adding all the boiling hops sounds like a good start. Have you searched the internet to see if any craft brewers do it?

To be honest, I'd have thought if it was an easy thing to do with the size of batch most homebrewers brew, the forum would be awash with information.