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Milk-lizard84

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Howdy y'all.
Just wanted to ask a couple of questions in regards to extract brewing. I've had some success with kits but wanted to tackle something with abit more thought process involved.
Would a 20l pot be big enough to do full extract brews?
Also when making recipies what software is better for creating recipies?
I wanted to have a crack at this recipe for a sierra nevada clone
http://www.blackbucketbrew.com/sierra-nevada-pale-ale-clone/
 
Hey Milk-Lizard!
When looking to mess around with recipe ideas just use the AHB kit/extract spreadsheet.
Howdy!

Canuck
 
i use brewmate. once you get the hang of how the brewing process works, you'll be all over it making new recipes. give it a try! http://brewmate.net/
 
I love a good username...so firstly, I'm keen to know why you needed "84" on the end of "Milk-lizard"? :D Woulda thought you'd have that name all to yourself...

Back on topic...take a look at this guide I posted a while back on extract brewing, the process includes what you need to do to make full batch sizes with smaller pots. I use a 20l pot myself. There's a link in the article to a spreadsheet widely used around here for designing extract brews: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/70529-a-guide-to-extract-with-specialty-grain-brewing/
 
Haha yeah i use that user name for a few things. Your the first to pick up on the 84 part though carnie. 84 is just the year I was born and the milk lizard is just a song title from a band I like.
Never intended it to be funny but I guess you can't get past what it's referring too haha.
Thanks heaps for the link. Ill have a good look at it when I get home. I'm looking forward to trying something different.
I was thinking maybe getting a 30 liter pot which I'm guessing I might be able to use for biab down the track.
 
Once you've done a few all-extract brews, you could use your 20l pot for BIAB, and if you want to do an all-grain batch just do a small volume (e.g. a ~10l brew, like Nick JD shows you how to do here).

Or if you want a full volume batch, you could do a 10 litre BIAB with your base malt as above, then top up the batch with extract and top up water like you would on an all extract brew...then you're doing a "partial mash" brew.

EDIT: If you're going to get a bigger pot, try for something 40+ litres rather than 30, 'coz a 19 litre standard AG pale ale style BIAB brew would need roughly 35 litres of water for the mash, and ~32 litres to start the boil.
 
I used to use a 9L pot which I topped up with boiling water from the kettle as it evaporated.


cheers
 
Thanks for the edit carnie. I just purchased a 30l pot in hasty excitement before rechecking your post. I have looked into getting a 40l pot now and getting a refund on the 30l. Atleast this was I can do biab brews and extract with the one pot. Cheers for the advice carnie. Fucken legend
 
Thanks for the edit carnie. I just purchased a 30l pot in hasty excitement before rechecking your post. I have looked into getting a 40l pot now and getting a refund on the 30l. Atleast this was I can do biab brews and extract with the one pot. Cheers for the advice carnie. Fucken legend
 
Hey carnie got another question for you. Just wondering with a 40 to 50l pot would a 3 ring burner be enough to heat that much water up for brewing or should I look for something bigger?
 
I don't have a pot that big, and I have a 4-ring 75,000 BTU burner, so I can't answer your question based on experience. I'm sure someone else will though.

Based on the 'science' numbers I researched when looking into it, I believe it takes ~4 BTU to raise 1 litre of water by 1 degree. So if you have 30 litres of 15C water, and you need to lift it 85 degrees to get to 100, you'd need 4 x 30 x 85 = 10,200 BTU. I believe that's in one hour. Your 3 ring burner should be what, 40,000 odd BTU? So it should be able to boil 30 litres within about 15 minutes. Obviously a bigger burner with more BTU will get it there more quickly.

As you can see it's pretty linear...so how long does it take your 3 ring burner to bring say 10 litres of water to the boil? Then multiply that by 3 for 30 litres.
 
wow.....

.....lots of numbers there.


Speed of boil should not be important should it ?......just watch fire up it and have a beer or two !

Good advice on the 35-40L pot for the prospect on moving to BIAB.
Thanks.
 
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