I am a huge fan of IPAs and other hoppy beers, and I was thinking about doing a load of experimental beers on the small scale over a few days. Here is my idea:
Mash a 5 gal wort with the following grain bill:
MASH INGREDIENTS
10 lbs Rahr 2-row Pale
0.75 lbs. Belgian Caramel Pils
0.25 lbs. Briess Caramel 12
Make 5 one gallon batches using different hop additions.
Split into 10 different growlers for a mass fermentation, using the same partitioned starter.
I think that this will show me more of what type of hops are what I am looking for and what amount I would need to use. What do you guys think?
why not boil 5g for 30min or so then split up in 1g bathces with 5 different hops.
Boiling and adding a certain amount of hops to each to get the ibu you want.
Instead of doing 5 1hr boils or maybe I misunderstood your process
One gallon an hour is looking at a 5 gal batch, which is why you have a 6-6.5gal boil. There are many things that contribute to the loss, including how vigorous of a boil, surface area and amount of water.
My idea is to get about 6.5 gals from the mash and boil 5 batches with about 1.25gals each. This will be done in two sessions on my stove top using three 6 qt pots. Basically creating two 60 min boils that will give me wort of ~1.050. A bit more work will be done in each session as I am adding hops to each gallon. I am also aware that hop absorption is less efficient with less water, but its not that significant.
I am going to do this next month and I will post my results.
[quote=“brans041”]One gallon an hour is looking at a 5 gal batch, which is why you have a 6-6.5gal boil. There are many things that contribute to the loss, including how vigorous of a boil, surface area and amount of water.
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I am going to do this next month and I will post my results.[/quote]
Pls do post results. I haven’t done the math, but I do expect the boil off to be higher with the 6Q pots, the ratio of surface area to volume is going to be higher. Now, here’s an idea:
Float a stainless steel mixing bowl on top of the wort. Maybe add a little water or marbles or something so it sinks a bit and stays stable? That will reduce the surface area, and reduce boil-off, but it won’t create much surface for condensation to drip back and create DMS.
Or you could just top off as you go with boiling water from a tea kettle. Might as well put that 4th burner to work
[quote=“brans041”]There are many things that contribute to the loss, including how vigorous of a boil, surface area and amount of water. [/quote]Correct on the first two, but boil-off is independent of the volume (unless it’s zero).
[quote=“brans041”]One gallon an hour is looking at a 5 gal batch, which is why you have a 6-6.5gal boil. There are many things that contribute to the loss, including how vigorous of a boil, surface area and amount of water.
My idea is to get about 6.5 gals from the mash and boil 5 batches with about 1.25gals each. This will be done in two sessions on my stove top using three 6 qt pots. Basically creating two 60 min boils that will give me wort of ~1.050. A bit more work will be done in each session as I am adding hops to each gallon. I am also aware that hop absorption is less efficient with less water, but its not that significant.
I am going to do this next month and I will post my results.
Thanks for all of those who participated![/quote]
You may want to do a “Test Boil” in the pots you plan on using to verify boil off amounts. I’d hate to start out with 1.25 pre-boil and then boil off .50-1.0 gallons. Isn’t boil off amount per hour somewhat of a constant independent of pre-boil volume? If you boil off 1 gallon per hour in a particular pot, you will boil off the same amount if you start with 1 gallon or 5 gallons. It would be a real bummer to put all that work into it and only end up with .50 gallons of each batch.
[quote=“metron-brewer”][quote=“brans041”]One gallon an hour is looking at a 5 gal batch, which is why you have a 6-6.5gal boil. There are many things that contribute to the loss, including how vigorous of a boil, surface area and amount of water.
My idea is to get about 6.5 gals from the mash and boil 5 batches with about 1.25gals each. This will be done in two sessions on my stove top using three 6 qt pots. Basically creating two 60 min boils that will give me wort of ~1.050. A bit more work will be done in each session as I am adding hops to each gallon. I am also aware that hop absorption is less efficient with less water, but its not that significant.
I am going to do this next month and I will post my results.
Thanks for all of those who participated![/quote]
You may want to do a “Test Boil” in the pots you plan on using to verify boil off amounts. I’d hate to start out with 1.25 pre-boil and then boil off .50-1.0 gallons. Isn’t boil off amount per hour somewhat of a constant independent of pre-boil volume? If you boil off 1 gallon per hour in a particular pot, you will boil off the same amount if you start with 1 gallon or 5 gallons. It would be a real bummer to put all that work into it and only end up with .50 gallons of each batch.[/quote]
The pot actually is similar in dimensions as my 8 gallon pot, so there shouldn’t be that much difference. I will let you all know though.[/quote]
Not talking about dimensions, it is the boil volume. Yes dimension effect it to but when your boiling that little of volume the volume comes into play even more.
You are going to boil a ton off doing a 1 g boil.
FOr instance if you boild a few cups for an hour it would probably be completley gone. Your not just going to loose 15% or so like when boiling 6+ g.
You will need to test it or you are going to have some high gravity wort than what you planed for and isomerization may be effected
You may want to consider collecting more wort from the same grain bill, and doing 2 gallons boils to accomodate for the boiloff issues discussed above. That way your lower pre-boil gravity can better withstand the serious increase of gravity associated with the higher boiloff rate, and you’ll end up closer to your desired OG for an IPA.
The pot actually is similar in dimensions as my 8 gallon pot, so there shouldn’t be that much difference. I will let you all know though.[/quote]
Not talking about dimensions, it is the boil volume. Yes dimension effect it to but when your boiling that little of volume the volume comes into play even more.
You are going to boil a ton off doing a 1 g boil.
FOr instance if you boild a few cups for an hour it would probably be completley gone. Your not just going to loose 15% or so like when boiling 6+ g.
You will need to test it or you are going to have some high gravity wort than what you planed for and isomerization may be effected[/quote]
There are a lot of factors. I do hope the OP posts results and pot sizes (Height and Diameter).
Surface area is one factor, but I don’t see any good references on how significant a factor it is.
But the amount you boil off is somewhat dependent on volume too. Boiling water turns it into steam. An extreme example for illustration: If I have a swimming pool size amount of water boiling for an hour, it will produce a LOT of steam, resulting in LOTS of gallons of boil-off (if you draw the steam away). It would take massive amounts of heat to boil that much water, so you will get many gallons of boil-off.
Boiling 5Q in a 6Q pot will obviously require far less heat input, so less (amount of) steam conversion would occur.
The smaller pot will have less surface area, but most likely a higher ratio of surface area to volume. So it’s tough to know which factors outweigh the others. An experiment is in order. I’d expect the boil-off rate for 5Q in a 6Q pot to be a lower amount than 5G in a 7.5G pot, but a higher % rate (relative to volume).
IOW: If I boil off 1G out of 5G in the big pot in an hour (a 20% boil-off rate), I don’t expect I’ll boil-off the same 1G out of 5 Quarts in the small pot, and only have 1 Quart remaining after an hour (that would be an 80% boil-off rate). But I do expect more than a 20% boil-off rate (more than 1Q boil-off) for the small pot.
20%-80% is a pretty wide range, and I don’t think we can pin down the variables enough to predict it very close. It’s easier to let the OP boil some water anyway .
[quote]There are a lot of factors. I do hope the OP posts results and pot sizes (Height and Diameter).
Surface area is one factor, but I don’t see any good references on how significant a factor it is.
But the amount you boil off is somewhat dependent on volume too. Boiling water turns it into steam. An extreme example for illustration: If I have a swimming pool size amount of water boiling for an hour, it will produce a LOT of steam, resulting in LOTS of gallons of boil-off (if you draw the steam away). It would take massive amounts of heat to boil that much water, so you will get many gallons of boil-off.
Boiling 5Q in a 6Q pot will obviously require far less heat input, so less (amount of) steam conversion would occur.
The smaller pot will have less surface area, but most likely a higher ratio of surface area to volume. So it’s tough to know which factors outweigh the others. An experiment is in order. I’d expect the boil-off rate for 5Q in a 6Q pot to be a lower amount than 5G in a 7.5G pot, but a higher % rate (relative to volume).
IOW: If I boil off 1G out of 5G in the big pot in an hour (a 20% boil-off rate), I don’t expect I’ll boil-off the same 1G out of 5 Quarts in the small pot, and only have 1 Quart remaining after an hour (that would be an 80% boil-off rate). But I do expect more than a 20% boil-off rate (more than 1Q boil-off) for the small pot.
20%-80% is a pretty wide range, and I don’t think we can pin down the variables enough to predict it very close. It’s easier to let the OP boil some water anyway .
-kenc[/quote]
IME I loose about .5g for a 1g batch. May change even more depending on hops I use,AG or extract, etc.
Surface area is not as much of a factor with a very small boil like this as most pots are pretty close to the same size or the very small difference will not be a huge change. Now if your boiling 1g batch is a drastically huge or mishaped pot for that kind of volume you will have more issues.
I dont see why some one would boil 1g batch in a very large or very shallow long pot/pan.
I know for a fact that you wont boil a gallon off in an hour, (anyone who has cooked spaghetti in a pot like that or made chicken soup would know that). I do not know exactly what would boil off but I doubt it is going to be much more than a quart. I will let you know. No need to fight about it anymore. This thread is closed until I post again.
No one is talking about boiling off 1g. Also you don’t boil spaghetti for an hour so using that to judge your boil off rate wont even be close. You might only boil off a quart depending on how vigourous you boil, but I dont even come close to only boiling off that much. Don’t see what your talking about a fight, were trying to help you so your not stuck with a 1.1000 gravity wort.
Won’t the evaporation rate be closely related to the air/water surface area? Thus, the smaller kettle will result in a smaller amount of water boiled off?
This would bring the OPs boiloff rate closer to normalized in the smaller vessels.
[quote=“edawgwv”]Won’t the evaporation rate be closely related to the air/water surface area? Thus, the smaller kettle will result in a smaller amount of water boiled off?
This would bring the OPs boiloff rate closer to normalized in the smaller vessels.
