Boil Volume

[hazz20]

G'day all, putting on a brew along these lines, something like a wheat beer,

2.5kg wheat malt

0.7kg ldme

15g P of R @ 60 min

10g saaz @ 5 min

irish moss @ 15 min

Wyeast w3638

Will be my first extract brew so am not sure about the volume needed for the boil, and how much of my malts need to go into it. From what I've read I think I need to chuck it all in, dissolve, then put in the hops. Also would a bit of grain be an idea?

Thanks for your help,

Hazz

 

[bconnery]

G'day all, putting on a brew along these lines, something like a wheat beer,

2.5kg wheat malt

0.7kg ldme

15g P of R @ 60 min

10g saaz @ 5 min

irish moss @ 15 min

Wyeast w3638

Will be my first extract brew so am not sure about the volume needed for the boil, and how much of my malts need to go into it. From what I've read I think I need to chuck it all in, dissolve, then put in the hops. Also would a bit of grain be an idea?

Thanks for your help,

Hazz

Boil as much water as your pot will allow. That's what I did.
You need to boil some malt with the hops, but you don't want to boil it all for the whole time.
For lighter coloured beers I used to usually go 500g/1kg of malt for the whole boil (depending on the size of your pot) and then add the remainder at 10 minutes to go.
Wheat needs to be mashed so unless you are going to go down the minimash route, which is easy, then I'd stick with all extract for this style of beer.

EDIT: Not sure if the wheat extract your are using there is a blend of wheat and barley, otherwise that's a fairly high percentage of wheat to barley, not much wrong with that, just depends on how important tradition/style etc is to you. 50/50 or 60/40 is more traditional, but people have gone 100% wheat too...

 

[seemax]

You want your boil wort to be around 1.040SG, so use the 100g/1L water rule... ie 5L boil, dissolve 500g malt. At end of boil, dissolve the remainder of the malt. The reason being, hop utilisation is a function of wort SG, a heavy wort will extract less from the hops and you're IBU will be out.

As for the wheal malt, mashing/steeping by itself wont work... I would use equal amounts of base malt to wheat (ale/pils).

 

[Pollux]

What is your batch volume and how big is your pot?

 

[RdeVjun]

Yep, as per bconnery's and seemax's post, no need to boil all that malt. I'd boil a minimum of about 4 litres of water with 400g malt and add the hops per schedule, step the rates up from there if you wish at 100g malt / litre.
If you can chill your remaining water, with just that 4 litres of water plus the hop utilisation malt boiling though the hour, just before its done add the remaining malt, return to boil to dissolve and sanitise (don't muck about though), when time's up add it all to the fermenter and you'll find it about the right temperature for pitching.
I did this today and it came in spot on 20 degC, but I had ice forming in my chilled water. I had previously boiled and then chilled my 16 litres of rainwater and was chuffed when it came in on target for once. Things can go right, after all...
If you do this, keep the chilled water clean though, if you're not set up for it with well- sealing lidded pots then things can go bad with ease. Anyway, see how you go with that amount of malt & water for starters.

 

[hazz20]

Thanks heaps guys, got a lot of mis-leading info from some local brewers which just confuses things.
Pollux, 23l batch with a pot that will hold I think about 8-10 litres.

Cheers,

Hazz