Partial stovetop brew opinions!

[KLMtheReal]

Hello guys, I was thinking about a little experiment I want to carry out and I'd like to hear your opinions. For about a year I've been brewing using the BIAB method only. Before that I was brewing using prehopped kits. Since here in Greece the weather is quite hot I was thinking about making a partial Hefe brew, using 50% of light DME, 50% wheat DME, maybe steep some carapils for freshness and a ~13 IBU noble hop addition. I don't want to use my propane burner for once and do it convenienty on my stovetop. Sadly, my biggest kettle in the kitchen is 4 litres.

My question is, can I steep my grains in this kettle, adding my DME afterwards and boil normally with hops, then top it with plain water in the fermenter? Maybe for a 2,4 gallon batch (9 litres), essentially making a "prehopped kit" myself Should I add more hops to compensate for the poor utilization, or can that be done in the first place? Cheers!

EDIT: Apparently if I steep my grains, add DME and boil with hops I'll make a big syrupy mess so I think I could steep my carapils and then boil with hops, throw it in my fermenter and then add the DME to more water in the kettle and proceed to do an additional boil

 

[andrewmaixner]

Sounds like you understand it properly now.
The second boil may be unnecessary, just use whatever heat is necessary to get the DME to dissolve fully.

 

[KLMtheReal]

Sounds like you understand it properly now.
The second boil may be unnecessary, just use whatever heat is necessary to get the DME to dissolve fully.

Thanks mate! One more question. Since I will boil my hops in only 4 litres of "wort", how long do you think I should boil? An hour will give a huge boil off rate, and adding more water during boiling is a bad idea IMO. Can I add some high IBU hop like Columbus and compensate with more hops for less boiling?

 

[andrewmaixner]

Thanks mate! One more question. Since I will boil my hops in only 4 litres of "wort", how long do you think I should boil? An hour will give a huge boil off rate, and adding more water during boiling is a bad idea IMO. Can I add some high IBU hop like Columbus and compensate with more hops for less boiling?

Why would you think that is a bad idea?
Yes, you can boil more hops for a shorter time to hit your IBU goal.
Either way, use a basic recipe tool to do your calculation.

 

[Steveruch]

I just did a two gallon batch of Denny's rye IPA on a hot plate. I boiled three quarts of water with half the extract and with some mt hood and columbus hops for 20 minutes. I then added the rest of the extract and five quarts of ice cold water and pitched the yeast.

 

[KLMtheReal]

Why would you think that is a bad idea?
Yes, you can boil more hops for a shorter time to hit your IBU goal.
Either way, use a basic recipe tool to do your calculation.

I'm using brewmate for my recipes. I thought that adding water might compromise hop utilization, diluting the wort and whatnot, but I guess that's not the case I'll probably take the short route though, and boil for like 10 minutes and see how it goes with more hops, thanks!

 

[NGD]

I'm using brewmate for my recipes. I thought that adding water might compromise hop utilization, diluting the wort and whatnot, but I guess that's not the case [emoji14] I'll probably take the short route though, and boil for like 10 minutes and see how it goes with more hops, thanks!

Depending on what chart you look at, you’ll get different IBU figures but I would suggest doing at least a 20min boil of wort with hops to utilize more IBUs. Quite frankly on hot California summer days, I welcome short extract boil times.

 

[KLMtheReal]

Depending on what chart you look at, you’ll get different IBU figures but I would suggest doing at least a 20min boil of wort with hops to utilize more IBUs.

I ended up using less hops and I boiled for 60 minutes. I'm bottling on Friday, let's see how it turns out