Help on a 2nd All Grain brew

[Grant Marshall]

Hi Guys,

I've brewed a bunch of extract kits which has turned out really nice, started with a couple mangrove jacks, coopers and then a WilliamsWarn kit which has been the best so far. The last kit is when I experimented with a bit of mini-mash - I added 200g of Special B Belgian Malt, 30g of Coriander seeds and 20g of Orange Zest - steeped for 15 mins, and added Brew Enhancer 20 the WW Extract kit. Heated for 10 mins, added it all to the fermenter and topped it off to 23l.

 

I was wondering about trying something similar with A.G. Methods. But I'm up against a few things:

 

No gas burner - have to do it all on an induction hob, so 30l pots are out of the question.

No 30l pot either - biggest one takes around 8-9l.

 

So here is my recipe and what i was planning to do was to make an 6-8l wort on the stove with grains, and hops etc, then top it up to 13-15l and make a smaller batch. In theory I could make this a 23l brew and top it up with unhopped LME (or as I've read a coopers lager kit after the boil - as they are pretty low in IBU's).

2kg - Gladfields Lager malt

1kg - Caramunich malt

500g - Wheat Malt

500g - Oats

250g - Dextrose - last 10 mins of the boil

100g - Maltodextrose - last 10 mins of the boil

Mash for 60 mins at 60C (BIAB - no sparging)
Wort would be around 6-8l while on the boil.

30g Styrian goldings hops (3.6% AA) - Boil for 60 mins

Cool wort to 23-24C and pitch Breferm Universal Yeast (6g)

 

I wanted to make something along the lines of a Belgian Tripel, but I prefer beers with a more orangey amber colour (hence the caramunich). Low IBU's and a sweeter malty flavour.

 

What are your thoughts on doing this and topping up the wort to 13-15l? Would that mean I would only get 35-40% efficiency?

Some online recipe calculators have said at that efficiency I should still be getting 6-7% ABV but I thought it would be less than that - maybe around 3%?

[Chris P]

Searching Maxi BIAB may give another option. Not on this site but google and Aussie Home Brewer may be the key if you choose this method.

Cheers

[Grant Marshall]

Thanks for heads up - haven't heard of that before. Most of the sites have 19l Maxi BIAB recipes, and haven't found any that deal with topping up a wort post boil to the level I was thinking.

[Richard Jack]

What's the theory on adding both dextrose (to thin it out presumably?) and maltodextrose (to thicken it back up?)

[Grant Marshall]

No idea - I thought you alwasy needed to add dextrose to brews - and maltodextrin for body.
Didn't know one thinned and the other thickened....

I was in two minds whether to put either in to be honest, as I wanted to see what it would turn out all grain.

My main question is what is likely to happen if I simply dilute the wort from 7l up to 13l?

What does it do to the taste / abv etc?

[Barry]

Depends on what you dilute it with. If you dilute with vodka the ABV will go up.

[Grant Marshall]

haha I could also use Methylated Spirits that would increase ABV too

[Barry]

Make sure you strain the colour out through some white bread first ;)

[Richard Jack]

Well it's similar (but not exactly the same) to just brewing it with 13l of water in the first place. Have you got beersmith or some other brewing software? Beersmith has dilution calculators. 

To be honest I wouldn't be game to brew a tripel in a 8-9l pot. I'm not sure you'll get much water in that pot after your grain bill is in it...

I'd park it until I could get a burner or a big pot.

[Grant Marshall]

Yeah I might park the tripel idea until I get a bigger pot.

I've got beersmith, so will check out the dilution calculators tonight.

[Barry]

Apologies, that was really unhelpful.

If you dilute (with water presumably) everything will get diluted. ABV (volume increases, therefore alcohol by volume decreases), flavour (adding water makes it taste more watery), etc.

If you were to boil only 6 litres you would want that 6 litres to be pretty strong to double it's size by dilution. Probably twice as strong, but I'm not sure the dilution would be linear.

There's some other peculiarities in your recipe, for your first grain batch I would be sticking with a straight malt grist. Get rid of the mashed adjuncts, the wheat and oats. They'll just cause you mash issues.

Have a good long read of Palmer's How To Brew, then don't put anything in your beer that you don't understand why it's there.

[Grant Marshall]

Thanks mate - I'll have a read of it - I've been avoiding that site for the simple fact it doesn't use pictures and has loads of text. But will have to bite the bullet and give it a go.

I did one all grain the other day, 2.5kg of grains - base was 2-row pilsner, and the rest were speciality malts - mashed in a similar way.

[Barry]

Yeah I struggled with that when I started. I'm a visual learner, much easier for me to understand by witnessing it.

See if you can tag along to someone else's all grain brew day, that will give you a great idea of the basic processes, then the reading will make more sense.