10 gallon batches

[Dustin 0]

Quick question. I now have a large enough mash tun to make 10 gallon batches but I only have a boil pot capable of doing 8.5 maybe 9 gallon boils. So would it still be ok to do a boil that is not full volume and just add a gallon or so water in the carboys when I fill them with the wort?

Well I know its ok but what sort of drawbacks would arise from doing it that way. I've spent enough money and I really don't want to go by yet another boil pot.

Thanks in advance.

[Gymrat 1]

I would think the biggest disadvantage would be diluting your OG. You would need to figure out how strong to make your beer to get the gravity you want. Also you would be diluting your hops as well. But as an extract brewer you should be used to that.

[bpgreen 209]

"Dustin" post=263270 said:

Quick question. I now have a large enough mash tun to make 10 gallon batches but I only have a boil pot capable of doing 8.5 maybe 9 gallon boils. So would it still be ok to do a boil that is not full volume and just add a gallon or so water in the carboys when I fill them with the wort?

Well I know its ok but what sort of drawbacks would arise from doing it that way. I've spent enough money and I really don't want to go by yet another boil pot.

Thanks in advance.

You'll be boiling a more concentrated wort, so go utilization won't be as good. Other than that, I can't think of anything.

[Dustin 0]

But you can just make up for that by adding grain and hops to cover the extra water added at the end right? I guess I could just to an 8 gallon batch put into two separate carboys.

[Gymrat 1]

Think of it this way Dustin. When I was extract brewing 5 gallon batches I was doing 2.5 gallon boils. Then making up the difference with water. I am not sure that what you are suggesting is really that much different. You just may need to do a little extra math, or get a little extra practice, to get what you are after.

[Dustin 0]

Sounds good. I just have this big mash tun now and I am really tired of brewing two seperate 5 gallon batches when I can just brew one 10 gallon batch and cut the time in half. I have about 7 recipes now that I really like and I am fully content brewing very larg batches of this beer so brew days are further apart. This way I can probably brew once a month istead of two or three times. As much as I love brew day I've learned very quickly that moving to all grain is a lot more time consuming but worth it because the final product in my opinion is much better.

Thanks again.

[russki 4]

Just want to add my 2 cents - you can upgrade to a larger pot pretty cheaply - here's a 13 gallon aluminum pot for $45:
Cheap pot

Or, you could get a used 1/2 barrel keg and make a 15-gallon keggle. With AG, to end up even with 8 gallons of wort, you'll need to start with 10-11 gallons pre-boil.

Or, here's another neat idea - partigyle! You make two different beers from a single mash - a stronger one with the first runnings, and a weaker one with the second. You would need a second pot/burner though, but you can have two different beers, rather than 10 gallons of same.

[Screwy Brewer 61]

Another thing to try is fill your mash tun using 1.25 mash thickness then mash as usual and lauter into your 9 gallon boil pot until it's nearly full. Then fill another two or three gallon pot with the remaining sweet wort and bring it to a boil. Of course you don't want to lauter off any more wort unless it's around 1.020 to prevent extracting tannins.

The idea being to replace the boiled off wort from the nine gallon pot with boiling wort from the smaller pot as needed. After cooling down the wort just add in some makeup water to the fermentors, that will keep your OG within a point or two of a full boil.

[Dustin 0]

"Screwy Brewer" post=263352 said:

Another thing to try is fill your mash tun using 1.25 mash thickness then mash as usual and lauter into your 9 gallon boil pot until it's nearly full. Then fill another two or three gallon pot with the remaining sweet wort and bring it to a boil. Of course you don't want to lauter off any more wort unless it's around 1.020 to prevent extracting tannins.

The idea being to replace the boiled off wort from the nine gallon pot with boiling wort from the smaller pot as needed. After cooling down the wort just add in some makeup water to the fermentors, that will keep your OG within a point or two of a full boil.

That is a legit idea right there since I am up to my eyeballs in boil pots.