small boil pot for 5 gallon batch possible?

[Krispy Krouton]

Hi. My first crack at all grain in a muslin bag went well. The beer is the best I've brewed but I only brewed kits up until now. Something went wrong with the numbers though and although I managed to get the right O.G I ended up with only half the beer. For some reason 15 bottles instead of 30. Anyway I've got a boil pot that's 18 litres to the brim, I understand I can't use the full capacity of this but is there any way of using this pot to make a 23 litre batch? I was thinking of boiling the wort for the given time with the hops and tipping into the fermenter, and then boiling the sparge separately for a short while and adding that in. Or is it possible to make a strong small batch and top up the fermenter with water kinda like you would do with a kit? One way or another I've got this 18 litre pot and really want to make 23 litres. . if at all possible, wouldnt even mind if it took a bit longer. Got a free pressure barrel and have injector gas on order for it. Cheers thanks for reading

[byronb]

It can certainly take a while to get the numbers right, adjust for one thing and everything else seems to move

I think what you want is Maxi-BIAB. Basically boil a higher OG wort then liquor back (dilute) to achieve the desired volume and OG. http://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?t=352

[Krispy Krouton]

Thanks for the quick reply byronb. Yeah something went wrong numerically, instead of scratching my head I'm drinking it and suddenly it don't matter you've mentioned maxi biab to me before, but I didn't mention the small brew pot. I will certainly check that link out. Cheers!

[alexlark]

For my first BIAB I got 21L out of my 19L pot by using the Maxi BIAB technique. My figures were not spot on either but I ended up with cracking beer at the desired OG and FG. Check out my thread here: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=67731