Brewing Techniques

I have been thinking of ways to better leverage the equipment I have in order to make bigger batches. What I mean is, I would like to make bigger batches than the 1 gallon kits I usually buy, but the pot I usually use to start the wort will not handle much beyond a gallon worth of wort. What I was thinking was to buy a 2 1/2 gallon fermenter, brew up a double concentrated batch of wort in the pot I use, then add the additional water when transferring into the fermenter. Will this work, or does anyone foresee any problems?

Any insight would be most helpful.

[quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]I have been thinking of ways to better leverage the equipment I have in order to make bigger batches. What I mean is, I would like to make bigger batches than the 1 gallon kits I usually buy, but the pot I usually use to start the wort will not handle much beyond a gallon worth of wort. What I was thinking was to buy a 2 1/2 gallon fermenter, brew up a double concentrated batch of wort in the pot I use, then add the additional water when transferring into the fermenter. Will this work, or does anyone foresee any problems?

Any insight would be most helpful.[/quote]

This is done by a lot of brewers to increase their output without buying bigger equipment. You’ll need to use more hops in the concentrated batch.
Start saving your money for a larger pot.

[quote=“Rookie L A”][quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]I have been thinking of ways to better leverage the equipment I have in order to make bigger batches. What I mean is, I would like to make bigger batches than the 1 gallon kits I usually buy, but the pot I usually use to start the wort will not handle much beyond a gallon worth of wort. What I was thinking was to buy a 2 1/2 gallon fermenter, brew up a double concentrated batch of wort in the pot I use, then add the additional water when transferring into the fermenter. Will this work, or does anyone foresee any problems?

Any insight would be most helpful.[/quote]

This is done by a lot of brewers to increase their output without buying bigger equipment. You’ll need to use more hops in the concentrated batch.
Start saving your money for a larger pot.[/quote]
This seems somewhat problematic as I usually will brew a kit, which I plan on buying two of a certain kit to do next time, and they only come with a certain amount of hops.

Although, quite honestly, I usually gravitate toward the less hoppy brews anyway.

Assuming you’re brewing indoors like me, the kitchen stove is probably the limiting factor. I can get a great boil on 3-3.5 gallons, but only a weak boil on 4 gallons. I have a thick-bottom 20qt stock pot. Because of the stove, any bigger would be a waste for me. But with that set-up I can brew 5-gallon (after top-off) extract or PM recipes. I can also do 2.5 gallon all-grain. (I do BIAB.) 2.5 is a pretty convenient size since you can just chop the typical 5-gal recipe in half.

I know you want to keep going with what you have, but the bigger pot brings a lot of versatility for relatively cheap.

[quote=“JMcK”]Assuming you’re brewing indoors like me, the kitchen stove is probably the limiting factor. I can get a great boil on 3-3.5 gallons, but only a weak boil on 4 gallons. I have a thick-bottom 20qt stock pot. Because of the stove, any bigger would be a waste for me. But with that set-up I can brew 5-gallon (after top-off) extract or PM recipes. I can also do 2.5 gallon all-grain. (I do BIAB.) 2.5 is a pretty convenient size since you can just chop the typical 5-gal recipe in half.

I know you want to keep going with what you have, but the bigger pot brings a lot of versatility for relatively cheap.[/quote]
Oh, I don’t doubt that a bigger pot will serve me quite well, however, I am a newbie and only have a 1 gallon brew kit for the moment. I am hoping to get a 2.5 gal fermenter by this fall so I can graduate into bigger batches.

Something I was considering was either buying two 1 gallon batch kits, or buy a 5 gal batch kit and split it. I suppose with how the kits are put together I would have to find a way to keep the grains, hops, malt and rest of it fresh if I am not using it all at once.

[quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]or buy a 5 gal batch kit and split it.[/quote]If you do this have NB convert the recipe kit to DME, it will be a lot easier to split.

Translation, please? What are “NB,” and “DME?”

NB ='s Northern Brewer

DME = Dry Malt Extract. Since it is Dry (power like) you can add that versus the LME (Liquid Malt Extract) you “add” less liquid, thus you can instead use more water.

And per the comment above, easier to “split” - it is a powder. warning, a very “fine” powder that gets sticky when wet, so use a dry butter knife etc

and I think some will say the best way to measure exactly half will be by WEIGHT

I think I will just stick with buying two of the 1 gallon kits, and just add a little bit more water. Which does limit the selection, but then I can always venture into putting together my own recipes, though I am rather far off from that stage of this hobby.

On a slightly different note, what are your preferences between glass and plastic fermenters?