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I'm very new to this but home brewing is something I always wanted to try but never got around to it. I have my first batch fermenting made with a PicoBrew Pico appliance which is very nice but I think I might want to try making bigger batches using the brew in a bag method at times as well.

I don't want to go the turkey fryer route and hoping to be able to boil indoors on my natural gas range. My largest burner is 16k BTU, my second largest is 15k BTU. I don't want to use two burners.

What's the largest all grain boil I can do indoors on my 16k burner in a reasonable amount of time?

I'm hoping 2.5 - 3 gallons would be doable in a 5 gallon pot but curious as to what others manage to do indoors.

Found these calculators: For BIAB water volume http://www.biabcalculator.com/ I get 4.27 gallons to make a 2.5 gallon batch.

Also found this calculator for time to boil water. https://www.easycalculation.com/physics/thermodynamics/water-boiling-time-calculator.php Assuming 70% efficiency (which is just a guess to account for heat loss from sides and top of kettle) it would take 28 minutes to get from 32F to 153F and then 11 minutes to get from 153F to boil.

Does that sound about right to anyone that does smaller batches indoors?

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  • 70% efficiency is way higher than of what I've read so far. They are more in the 30~40% range.
    – rondonctba
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 3:05
  • You could test using water rather than guess
    – uSlackr
    Commented Aug 2, 2017 at 19:03

2 Answers 2

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You should be ok for the 2-3 gallon batch size you're after.

I regularly BIAB 1-2 gallon batches on the large burner of a regular kitchen cooker, the timings you have seem reasonable.

  • 20-30 min to bring your preboil + grain absorption volume up to mash temp
  • 10-15 min to bring your wort up to boil after the mash is complete

The largest batch I've brewed was around 15L (3 gallons), as my pot only holds 19L.

As Evil Zymurgist's post suggests, put a lid on the pot while you're getting up to temperature to expedite the process. Take it off once it's boiling.

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Your best bet is doing a partial boil brew, boiling 2 gallons of concentrated wort then adding 3 gallons sanitary water to the fermentor for 5 gallon batch.

Typically this is done with extracts. Would be challenging to do as BIAB, all grain.

If you want to do full volume boil. I would suggest attempting to boil just water in the volume you want.

16k btu is pretty small, but should be ok for 2-3 gallon boil. Just will take longer. Cover your pot until you reach boil to reduce the warm up time.

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