Ok, did my first AG batch in my apartment. I did a simple SNPA clone that I developed years ago. I batch sparged, 4 gallon boil, post boil of 3.25 gallons with a 1.75 gallon top off to make 5 gallons in the fermentor. I hit all of my numbers, with an OG of 1.052 so all that remains is to sample it in a couple of weeks. My efficiency was 69% which isn’t to bad for such a small batch
:cheers: Congrats!
Do you plan on keeping primaries a little cooler during ferment?
I ask because I need to adjust how I keep primaries cool during ferment. My cool spot in my house doesn’t exist anymore do to some remodeling.
Ya… had been maintaining 72° in my cool spot, got home and this batch is at 78° F Its 1056 yeast so I hope it will be nice to me and not throw to many fun flavors. For $160 I can get a nice little chest freezer, I already have a temp controler. However… its gonna have to live on my deck. I miss my old 50° to 60° degree basement.
Cranked the AC down to 72°, gonna see how cool my bathroom gets with door shut and vents cranked open. Gonna be a chilly week in my apartment.
Checked FG today, 1.010. Yes I drank the sample, has that wonderful AG freshness. I don’t detect any harm from the fermentation temp getting up to 78° F but then it did start at 60° F and only ramped up towards the peak of fermentation. I’ll let it clean up and rack it to secondary Sunday. I think this method will work well for me, however bigger beers may require some DME to get the gravity up.
That"ll work, but remember…the moment you add DME, it is no longer “all” grain. 
Consider smaller batches for your big beers.
:cheers:
I know, and trust me I’m a purest, but you have to know the limitations of your equipment. You can only do so much with a 4 gallon boil. I could push it to 4.5 gallons but that doesn’t gain me much.
Actually I consider smaller batches a waste of time, for me 5 gallons is a smaller batch. I don’t have much problem adding some DME when needed.
I was able to do full boils on my gas stove in my minneapolis apt. My 10 gallon brew pot has a larger diameter then it does hight so I was able to put my pot on the stove and turn on two burners. Probably burned through a lot of gas but I was able to get 6.5-7 gallons to boil. You might have to adjust the preboil volume as I did not evaporate as much water as I do now using an outdoor propane burner. Good Luck@
