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Topping off to boil volume

Jims New Brew

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Feb 21, 2011
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Location
Fenton, MO
I will be brewing my first Extract plus steeped grains batch tomorrow. I brew 2.75 Gal. batches and Beersmith calls for a full boil volume of 3.18 Gal. I plan to put 1.5 Gal. water into my brew kettle and heat it up to 164 F then put my specialty grains (in a bag) into the pot to steep for about 30 minutes. While they are steeping, I plan to heat 1.5 Gal. in another pot to 160 F. I will rinse or sparge the grain bag in this second pot of water. The sparge water will be added to the brew pot for a total of approximately 3.0 Gal. I would then need to add approximately 0.18 gal to top off the brew pot to the specified 3.18 Gal. and would then add my extract.

Here is my question.

Just to save some time, I would like to add the extract to the 1.5 Gal. of steeped tea in the boil pot while the grain bag is sparging in the other pot. I would then add the sparge water to the boil pot containing the tea and extract then top off the boil pot to the 3.18 Gal. Do you see any problem in doing it this way? I can't see how it would make much of a difference.

Thanks,

Jim
 
yeah sounds fine bit more work than you really need but is not going to hurt anything
 
Thanks guys.

The batch is in the primary fermenter and looking good. I decided to play it safe and follow convention.
I steeped my 1 # of specialty grains in 1.5 Gal. @ 154 for 40 minutes. Sparged (soaked the grain bag) in 1.5 Gal @ 154 for 10 minutes and combined the two liquids in the brew pot. I then topped off the brew pot to the 3.18 gal specified by Beersmith. After adding the dry and liquid extracts the volume in the boil pot was well over the 3.18 gal mark but when the boil was over and the wort was cooled, I actually needed to add about 3 cups of water to the fermentor to reach my target batch size of 2.75 Gal. Beersmith predicted a starting gravity of 1.077 and it came out to 1.075. Looks like I did something right even if I am not sure I understand it.

The only problem I ran into was cooling. My pot will not fit down very far into my kitchen sink so it took almost an hour to cool off the wort. I will need to buy a better pot (mine is enamaled steel) made of stainless that fits in my sink or come up with a wort chiller. (This hobby is fast becomming as expensive as my Harley)

I have a lot to learn but with your help I am making beer!
 
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