Hi. First steps into using grains and I'm hoping to make an Exmoor gold clone. Lovely drink that is. After reading around a bit I've got some stuff on order and I'm looking forward to this. The recipe I'm following is for 23 litres but my brew pot is too small for a batch this size but hopefully an 18 litre pot will be big enough to make half this amount. Got a few questions I'm unsure of:
1. If I half the amounts on the recipe will it make the same beer but half the amount?
2. How much strike water is needed for 2.3kg of grain and how much should be used for sparging before the boil to make 11.5 litres of beer?
3. Because I'm using a bag in a pot I've read that the beer will be cloudy. It isn't that important to me to have clear beer if it tastes good but is this true?
Cheers.
using paint strainer
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daddies-beer-factory
Re: using paint strainer
Hi, I dont do brew in a bag but i think i can help, as i do all grain
1, yes its all proportional so the water, grain, hops and yeast can be scaled up or down
2, its 2.5 L of water per kilo of grain. and you can keep sparging till the wort coming out is at og 1005. however you will lose a few litres during the boil. so for 11.5 L I would quess to start at 16.5 (there is a way of working it out somewhere) (check og before you start boil and adjust with cane sugar if needed ?)
3. chuck a crushed protofloc tablet in for the last 10 mins to help clear, and the beer should clear in the bottle/barrel when cold conditioning.
Good luck fellow brewer
1, yes its all proportional so the water, grain, hops and yeast can be scaled up or down
2, its 2.5 L of water per kilo of grain. and you can keep sparging till the wort coming out is at og 1005. however you will lose a few litres during the boil. so for 11.5 L I would quess to start at 16.5 (there is a way of working it out somewhere) (check og before you start boil and adjust with cane sugar if needed ?)
3. chuck a crushed protofloc tablet in for the last 10 mins to help clear, and the beer should clear in the bottle/barrel when cold conditioning.
Good luck fellow brewer
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Krispy Krouton
Re: using paint strainer
Thanks for the reply. 16 litres seems a lot to be boiling on my kitchen stove and the boil pot only holds 18 up to the brim. What's wrong with topping up the fermenter with water to the desired brew length if it finished up low after the boil?
Cheers
Cheers
Re: using paint strainer
If you top up with cold water direct from the tap, you've got a (small) risk of introducing some kind of infection. Topping up with boiled water however, isn't so dissimilar to what you do with a kit (hot water into a wort that starts off too thick).
There probably are some subtleties though - 1-2l to 16l wort probably won't have a noticeable effect but you might find a difference if you mashed and boiled 12l and then added another 12l of water afterwards. I do stove top BIAB in small batches and mash in the full volume of liquor. I skip the sparging step (although I do leave the grain back sitting in a colander over a bowl, tipping in the additional run off during the boil) and typically get an OG a few points higher than the recipe, suggesting greater efficiency when the grains have more room to swim around in the liquor.
I would be cautious of starting the boil without a reasonable amount of clearance below the lip of the pot; better to start with a smaller batch and work up than have boiling sticky wort all over your hob or, worse, over you!
Wulf
There probably are some subtleties though - 1-2l to 16l wort probably won't have a noticeable effect but you might find a difference if you mashed and boiled 12l and then added another 12l of water afterwards. I do stove top BIAB in small batches and mash in the full volume of liquor. I skip the sparging step (although I do leave the grain back sitting in a colander over a bowl, tipping in the additional run off during the boil) and typically get an OG a few points higher than the recipe, suggesting greater efficiency when the grains have more room to swim around in the liquor.
I would be cautious of starting the boil without a reasonable amount of clearance below the lip of the pot; better to start with a smaller batch and work up than have boiling sticky wort all over your hob or, worse, over you!
Wulf
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daddies-beer-factory
Re: using paint strainer
Hi, If you only have an 18 L pot and want to make an 11.5 L beer, then calculate all your ingredients to make 11.5 (so half everything).
mash in with 2.5L grain per kilo, then just sparge until the pot looks safe (ie plenty of headroom = no splash over) ie 13/14L
check OG at the start of the boil (if you get what you were aiming for the well done, if its a bit weak you can add some cane sugar half way through boil. or if its a bit strong then you can chuck in some boiled water into the fermenter !)
mash in with 2.5L grain per kilo, then just sparge until the pot looks safe (ie plenty of headroom = no splash over) ie 13/14L
check OG at the start of the boil (if you get what you were aiming for the well done, if its a bit weak you can add some cane sugar half way through boil. or if its a bit strong then you can chuck in some boiled water into the fermenter !)