Boil size for extract brew?

[Jim Blockley]

Hi Folks,

I'm planning on doing my first extract brew this weekend, following a recipe from Graham Wheeler's book. My main question (I'm sure there will be others) is what quantity of water is minimum for the boil? I will be following the 23l brew length quantities, but the biggest pan I have is 10l as I don't yet have a boiler. Can I do the boil in a 10l pan, then just add cold water up to the 23l mark once it's in the FV?

I've been using some great kits done by Matt at Pop's in Cheltenham which are effectively extract brewing kits I think. They use two tins of liquid malt extract and a couple of muslin bags with grains / hops in. I've used these with an 8l boil and they've worked fine, but I'm not sure if it would work with a proper extract brew.

Thanks in advance!

I'll be doing:

2500 g light spraymalt (this is the same as dried malt extract right?)
200g Crystal malt
32g Fuggles (start)
32g Golding (start)
20g Golding (end)

[stitch]

spraymalt is the same thing as dried malt extract

A 10L pot is quite small to make a 23L brew in, but entirely possible. You will just have to dilute the resultant hot wort with enough cold water to make it up in the fermenter.

You also need to be aware that hop utilisation in the boil is lessened by a more concentrated wort. Therefore you would have to add more hops at the beginning to get the same bitterness out.

OR, there is an option of adding, say, 1kg of the spraymalt at the beginning and the rest towards the end of the boil. This will improve hop utilisation, but also adds complication to the process.

Hope this helps...

[Jim Blockley]

Thanks Stitch, great advice. I will try and get a bigger boiler, but will see how I get on with what I've got for the first attempt.

I know it would be hard for you to say, but how many more hopw woudl you add at the start of boil to achieve the correct bitterness? 50% more? A degree of experimantation will be required, but a guideline would be really appreciated. I assume end of boil hops and dry hopping would be the same.

[stitch]

yeah, end of boil hops & dry-hopping is the same

the software I use suggests about 59g each for the fuggles & golding to get the same bitterness levels out. But this is a very rough amount and also depends on the AA% of those two.

something else to think about is that the more hops you chuck in the boil the less wort you get out as they will soak up a lot of the liquid. A rough guide is 1 litre of liquid per 100g of hops.

[Jim Blockley]

Thanks again. I've only been on this forum a couple of days, but responses always come in within minutes and answer the question perfectly!

The software you mention, is that Graham Wheelers 'beer engine'?

[stitch]

I use steve_flack's "Beer Alchemy" for Macintosh. Highly recommended ... if you have a Mac.

[jimp2003]

It is a matter of debate as to whether concentrated wort does affect hop utilisation, at least to a level that it is noticeable to the average homebrewer.

But if you are concerned about this you could just add half of the malt extract at the beginning of the boil and then the other half 15 minutes or so from the end. This will mean that you will be extracting the bitterness in wort that is not too concentrated.

One other thing to consider with using a small pan is that the wort that is lost to the hops is very concentrated and you might lose a few gravity points in the final volume due to this.

[twentyfootwilf]

Just picked up on this thread a bit late due to being new to the extract brewing forum. Well I was just wondering if using hop pellets in a hop bag in a concentrated wort in a small boiling pan and then running hot water out of a kettle through the hops to sort of sparge them would help in trying to avoid losing gravity points due to the hops soaking up malt ? Hope this makes sense.

[Jocky]

Just picked up on this thread a bit late due to being new to the extract brewing forum. Well I was just wondering if using hop pellets in a hop bag in a concentrated wort in a small boiling pan and then running hot water out of a kettle through the hops to sort of sparge them would help in trying to avoid losing gravity points due to the hops soaking up malt ? Hope this makes sense.

I have no idea. It's an unconventional idea. There might be a danger that you also collect some of the hot break in doing this.

[PaddyX21]

I don't know if this is a stupid suggestion, but couldn't you split the batch and do 10L twice to get 20, and then only need to top up a small amount, or just leave it as 20L?
This question is as much for my own benefit as the op's lol, so forgive me for the semi hijack!

[jonnymorris]

[quote="PaddyX21"]I don't know if this is a stupid suggestion, but couldn't you split the batch and do 10L twice to get 20, and then only need to top up a small amount, or just leave it as 20L?[/quote]
You could but then you're doubling your effort, i.e. two 90min boils with DME and hop additions at different times. Not worth it IMO.

Also note that with a 10l pot you're only going to be boiling c.8l at most and will only be left with c.6l at flame out. That said, I've used a 15l pot with great results and it's all good experience.

Best of luck.

[twentyfootwilf]

I don't know if this is a stupid suggestion, but couldn't you split the batch and do 10L twice to get 20, and then only need to top up a small amount, or just leave it as 20L?

You could but then you're doubling your effort, i.e. two 90min boils with DME and hop additions at different times. Not worth it IMO.

Also note that with a 10l pot you're only going to be boiling c.8l at most and will only be left with c.6l at flame out. That said, I've used a 15l pot with great results and it's all good experience.

Best of luck.

Is there any reason why you can't top up the pot as the level drops due to evaporation?, as long as you top up with boiling water from the kettle the temp wont drop so the boil can be kept going without too much loss of volume

[simon50]

hello, i have done this without problem using a 8l pan.

all i did, using beer engine, was make one "recipe" with just my steeped grain and hop schedule with a very small amount of DME just to get my IBU's where about i wanted them (baring in mind the IBU you get is to be divided by brew length)

then another factoring in the rest of the DME (which just goes straight into the fv from the bag), which includes the steeped grain from the first to get a guide gravity, topped up with one kettle load of water to dissolve the dme, the hot hopped wort, then 10+ litres of room temperature campden treated water and it was still midly too hot to pitch the yeast.