I only have a 15 ltr stock pot as my boiler and have been doing partial mash/partial boils, with the addition of extract in the fermenter, to get my 5 gallons of beer. I had a thought last night that might enable me to brew all grain without the need for a bigger boiler.
Simply put I'd mash in my bag as usual and dunk sparge in another bucket. I'd then only boil the 1st part of the sweet wort for the normal 90 mins with just my bittering hops. After the boil I'd transfer the hopped wort to the original mashing bucket to cool in the sink. The weaker sweet wort from the dunk sparge would then be boiled for just 15 mins with my late hops. Once the two parts have been cooled I'd then combine them in my fermenter and pitch the yeast as usual.......
Quantities involved would be approx
5 kg Grain
18/19 ltrs water ( mash )
10 ltrs water ( sparge )
Hops as per recipe...
That " should " yield around 23 ltrs into the fermenter
Now, my only concern is the hot break in the short 15 min boil. With the S.G. being a lot lower, would 15 mins be enough to give me a hot break? Would there be much of one anyway even with a FULL boil? As the only hops in this boil are the late flavour hops there's no need for them to be boiled for the full time either.
I hope I've covered everything. Does anybody do this already? I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts people might have on this idea. And to anyone who uses this method regularly, my apologies for trying to tell you something that you already know
Cheers Tom
