BeerBorg

See, I have WLP013 but I do not have any oak. So I guess that makes us even LOL.

mashani wrote:See, I have WLP013 but I do not have any oak. So I guess that makes us even LOL.

So... What do we need, a handoff point in Erie?

You bring the yeast in an unmarked briefcase, leave it under the bench in the park, pick up the brown paper bag of oats, feed the birds... The oak will be in the oats!

BigPapaG wrote:

mashani wrote:See, I have WLP013 but I do not have any oak. So I guess that makes us even LOL.

So... What do we need, a handoff point in Erie?

You bring the yeast in an unmarked briefcase, leave it under the bench in the park, pick up the brown paper bag of oats, feed the birds... The oak will be in the oats!

And come alone or the Oak cubes get it see!!!!

Dawg LB Steve wrote:

BigPapaG wrote:

mashani wrote:See, I have WLP013 but I do not have any oak. So I guess that makes us even LOL.

So... What do we need, a handoff point in Erie?

You bring the yeast in an unmarked briefcase, leave it under the bench in the park, pick up the brown paper bag of oats, feed the birds... The oak will be in the oats!

And come alone or the Oak cubes get it see!!!!

I love this forum.

So, did some tweeking to this today, and will try to squeeze this brew in this afternoon...

Made the changes to the original post as well.

Summary here:

EDIT: FINAL CHANGES 10/29/2015

- Removed CaraFoam (already enough wheat and crystal so head retention not a problem)
- Added another ounce of Roasted Barley taking it from 2.0 to 3.0
- Removed 8.0 ounces Crystal 60
- Added 6.0 ounces Crystal 20
- Changed hop addition times slightly to increase overall IBUs from 66 to 79.8, Increasing BU:GU ratio from 1:1 to 1.20:1
- SRM is 29.3 so it will be reasonably dark.

I like the new look... We'll see how it turns out!

A quick question or maybe I just missed it too, I dunno. What volume of water did you steep the grains in and then boil? With a 16qt boil kettle you couldn't boil the full 5G amount, so I'm assuming probably 2.5G or so of water and then adding the wort to chilled water that's already in the fermenter to raise the liquid amount to 5G or so and to help cool it too?

Any problems using a smallish brew kettle or pot like that? As I see most of the extract recipes I read say a 4G will work but 5G is preferred.

Thanks, Tony

TonyKZ1 wrote:A quick question or maybe I just missed it too, I dunno. What volume of water did you steep the grains in and then boil? With a 16qt boil kettle you couldn't boil the full 5G amount, so I'm assuming probably 2.5G or so of water and then adding the wort to chilled water that's already in the fermenter to raise the liquid amount to 5G or so and to help cool it too?

Any problems using a smallish brew kettle or pot like that? As I see most of the extract recipes I read say a 4G will work but 5G is preferred.

Thanks, Tony

Good questions Tony...

You could certainly do as you described... However the as you reduce the total wort volume, hop utilization tends to go down as the gravity of the boil is much higher. If you change the hop schedule / amount, it would work fine though.

Here's how I'll do this one...

I am using a 16 qt SS pot... So, I start by looking at the amount of grains that I'm steeping to determine how much water to use for the steep. In this recipe, there is only 17 ounces of grain so I'll probably use a gallon of water. (I don't stress about the water:grain ratio for steeping, just for mashing)

So for anywhere from half a pound to 2 pounds or so of grains, I will generally use about a gallon of water to steep in.

Steep for 30 minutes or so, and pull the grains and allow to drain. Some people squeeze the bag, some don't... Note that I don't generally, especially when there are dark grains involved. I tend to dunk like a tea bag for a few minutes then drain.

At this point, all the listed times are relative to the start of the boil... So the first hop addition will be in for the whole 35 min boil... As will the first third of the malt. Note that the rest of the malt goes in 15-20 minutes after the start of the boil so it's only in for 10-15 minutes to sterilize. (I also throw the wort chiller into the boil at T-10 so it can sterilize for 10 minutes as well!)

So, we've steeped and removed the grains...

For the extract, there is about 9 lbs... So, I'll add about a third of it to the steep water, and more water to bring the volume to about 3.25 gallons (leaving some room for hot break)...

Then I start the boil.

When all the hop, late malt and nutrient additions are done, I use my wort chiller to cool it to about 185°F and let the steep/whirlpool addition sit for about 20 min.

Then I cool to pitch temp (ish), transfer to carboy and top off with cool to cold water. Stir well, take gravity reading, aerate and pitch.

I'm not BigPapa, but I can tell you my experiences:

I do 2.5G BIABs in 16Q pot. Normal beers are fine, but if it's a really big beer then sometimes I need to top up even for that small a batch to account for boil off/loss to grain absorption.

I also do 5G Partial Mash or extract/steep brews in the same 16Q pot. Those are obviously partial volume, and in my case yes I do top up with cold water in the fermenters.

A bigger pot has always been problematic in this house. My old stove couldn't possibly boil any more in a reasonable timeframe. My new stove could do it, especially if I put a pot across 2 burners, but I would need a low height/wide diameter pot, as there is an overhead microwave, etc... So I just haven't bothered with it as I make good beer even when done as PM/PV. I've toyed with the idea of getting propane and moving outdoors, but that's just one more thing to mess with, and I'm more into convenience as long as the beer turns out good.

The biggest thing to consider when doing partial volume boils is hop utilization vs. gravity, as in your gravity is possibly higher then the recipe intends during the boil. You can tweak your brewing software to account for this. Also in bigger beers you might get some extra kettle caramelization that is unintended if you kick up the gravity a lot. If doing extract additions, an easy way to also solve this is to reserve some of the extract and add it as a late (10 minute or so) addition. That way you can do the boil at intended gravity for the most part.

I hope that helps, and I'm sure BigPapaG will pipe in here too.

EDIT: I see BigPapaG piped in simultaneously... see his post above too, it goes into detail about some of what I described here.

Ahhh... Great Minds brew alike I guess!

Hmm, Thanks for the info and quick replies. I appreciate it.
That gives me some more info and stuff to think about. As my stove cooking area is also height limited and I'm using a coiled element electric stove, for the 5G batches I'll probably eventually do, I may go with a 16qt also. I'm currently using my wife's 12qt SS pot and it fits fine and quickly heats the 1.25-1.5G that I'm using for my 1G batches.

Just FYI, in a 12 quart pot I've done 5 gallon PM/PV batches with extract added late - and a large amount (3 gallons of water or so) - top up in the fermenter in the past. And believe it or not, that can still make great beer. You just need to be creative, consider the PM or Steep to be all of the "cool stuff" (and pretty much all you will boil, with only enough extract to bump it up to 1.03-1.04 for the bulk of the boil), and the all the other extract top up at the end to be the bulk of your 2-row or whatever you are using as the base malt blend. One cool side effect when doing this is if you stick your 3 gallons of water in the freezer for a few hours, you can not even bother cooling. Just pour a couple into your fermenter (like old school Mr. Beer), then dump your hot wort into it, and then top up the rest of the way, and you are in the 60s and ready to pitch. When my house brett is raging in the summer, I have done this sort of thing on purpose, not just out of "necessity" - just to make sure my wort stays above infection temps until the very last second before I pitch. (and no you don't need to worry about HSA from dumping your hot wort into the fermenter, it's really hard to get HSA at our scale). I still will do similar thing with my 16Q pot for 5 gallon batches in the summer, but with less top up water obviously and some level of active cooling and/or a hop stand to cool it down a bit first.

[quote=Mashani]I still will do similar thing with my 16Q pot for 5 gallon batches in the summer, but with less top up water obviously and some level of active cooling and/or a hop stand to cool it down a bit first.[/quote]

That's my PM method as well...

I make sure though that I cool the wort after the hopstand before adding it to my very 'fra-gi-lé' Italian glass carboys...

Then I top off with cool/cold water as well..

Ok, brewed this up today and pitched with US-05.

Made one MORE change...

Don't know why but I just FELT like it needed 1 oz of Chocolate Malt (450-500 SRM)

Still thinking I should have also upped the Midnight Wheat to 12 oz just to increase the SRM...

But, cé la viè... Who cares if it's black or not... All I know is IT SMELLED DELICIOUS!

Here's the transfer...
And here's the Hydro... I added a bit more water than I needed to so it came in at 1.064, all good!

I called mine an American-Style India Dark Ale, because Cascadian Dark Ale seems too localized to the Pacific Northwest....according to something I read somewhere..

I basically brewed an IPA and added Chocolate Malt and Carafa III to it. It came out pretty roasty and stout-like too. I never used Carafa III before and the 'Aroma' it provides must be a roasted aroma. When I brew it again I may try keeping the Chocolate and Carafa III to less than 5% of the grain bill.

IBU=58, SRM=35, OG=1.055, FG=1.012, ABV= 5.5%
BU:GU - 58 / 55 = 1.054

CaraPils 04.25%
2 Row Malt 82.75%
Chocoalte Malt 02.00%
Carafa III Malt 11.00%

BigPapaG can defy gravity! Vote for BigPapaG as BOTM!

BTW - I like 1oz of chocolate malt in anything. What I had nice success with in my dark kolsch to get it good and dark but with only tiny hints of roasty was cold steeping some of the roasted dark malts overnight (I forget how much I used but something like 4oz total in 5 gallons), and then tossing some of this stuff: