I’m looking for some advice. I have been an extract brewer for almost 2 years. I would like to try AG but I don’t want to shell out for a large kettle and propane burner yet. I would like to make 3 gallon batches on my electric stove.
Can large recipes be scaled down accurately using Beer Smith or some other calculator?
Is AG difficult to do on an electric stove?
Do I need a smaller carboy or would a 5 Gal be okay?
I know NB has BIAB kits but I’m looking to experiment and thought 3 gal. batches might make it easier.
Scaling down is not a big deal, just multiply everything by .60 (3/5). Bear in mind that for a three gallon batch you will have to begin boiling about four gallons and have at least a five gallon pot. That may still be asking a lot of a home electric stove. Maybe there are some electric stove brewers out there with more specific information. A five gallon carboy should do fine as a primary fermenter.
+1 to what’s been said. I do 3 gallon batches of beers I know my wife won’t like and ferment in 5 gallon carboys. I do have a couple of 3 gallon carboys for the beers I decide to secondary, but those are getting to be fewer and fewer.
Beersmith will do the calcs for you if you want to avoid math 8)
Northern Brewer actually just started selling a BIAB three gallon starter kit with everything you’ll need. I do 2.5 gallon batches because that gets you about a case of beer and I do them on my gas stove with the pot completely covering one burner and part of another. I also leave the lid half on to help with heat retention and thus the boil but leaving enough room for the steam to escape. I write all my recipes in Beersmith and if you plug in a 5 gallon recipe there is a scale down tool on there that will do it for you. I’d just round the numbers to make it easier on you when purchasing.
Even doing an AG batch, you can make a concentrated boil and then top off to the 3 gallon mark. You will see a loss of efficiency. But the money spent is fairly low.
Or, you could some a partygyle stye of brew. Make your 1st beer a IPA. Then add some an extra pound of 2-row and some dark grains to make a porter/stout.
I have been messing with Hopville.com to sale things down with my own math. But oddly, when I scale down the hops int he recipe my IBUs are too low. Is that a flaw in hopville?
I do three gallon batches on the stove. When we bought a new stove a few years ago my wife suggested that we get one with an over sized burner which does pretty good bringing nearly 4 gallons up to a boil, better than the old stove with regular size burners all around.
I do 3 gallon batches and when I switched to all grain, I bought a 32 qt megapot and an outdoor gas burner. The std 4 burner stove deforms with the 32 qt megapot and 4-5 gallons of water. Ruined a burner that way. Btw, a great 5 gallon kit that makes a nice 3 gallon beer is the breakfast stout. Cut the oatmeal a bit. I was hoping BTV would do an ep with all 3 hosts taking off the shelf 5 gal kits and making them into 3 gal BIABs.
I started out with a larger scale 46l AG set up. Now I’m looking to scale down a bit as well. I do still have my gas burner, so even though I have considdered stove top, I can’t imagine choosing it over the open flame.
I’d say the electric stove top will work, but why not pick up a turkey friar set. They really are not too expensive.
