How to brew beer using the "Twin Turbo" method

Home brewing beer is fun and rewarding. The average household stove is adequate for most extract or partial mash brewers. When I moved to a small apartment I discovered that my stove really struggled to heat large volumes of water. After several crappy batches I decided enough was enough and it was time to come up with a brewing method that will not only speed up my brew day but increase the quality of my beer. I normally do extract or partial mash brews but this principle could be applied to all-grain brewing, provided you have the space. These instructions will be for extract w/ steeping grains brewing, if you brew you should know how to alter them for partial/full mash.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Crappy stove
• Home brewing equipment (thermometer, carboy, etc)
• Beer ingredients (hops, malt, etc)
• 1 stock pot at least 2-3 gallons
• 1 stock pot at least 4 gallons (choose a pot big enough to help prevent boil-overs!)

1. My method is named "Twin Turbo" since it utilizes 2 (or more) pots to speed up the brewing process. We will be splitting our batch into a "hop" pot and "malt" pot (or pots) that can be heated simultaneously with much more efficiency than heating the volumes combined. This shares some ideas with the "Texas Two-Step" method, where half of the malt extract is added at the end of the boil.

2. Hop Pot: In this pot dissolve 1 lbs Light LME into 1.25 gallon water to get a wort with S.G. of 1.028. The actual gravity isn't important, its only important that we have something in the ballpark of a full-volume boil if we want to match full-volume boil hop utilization numbers. The lower the gravity the more efficient we'll be able to extract bitterness, but we should not boil in plain water. As we boil-off water the gravity will go up. If we boil off 1/2 a gallon of water we will finish the boil at 1.048. Bring this pot up to a full rolling boil and add your hops according to your usual hop schedule.

3. Malt Pot: The remainder of the ingredients go into this pot. Put in 1.5 to 2 gallons of water, heat the water and steep/mini-mash your grains for the usual amount of time. Remove the grains, heat to a near boil, turn off the flame, and add malt extract. After dissolving the extract turn the burner back on and bring it to a light boil (not a rolling boil as with the hop pot) to minimize boil-overs. You do not need to boil this pot for the full 60 minutes - boiling is mainly to sterilize it. I do a 30 minute boil. Add any other ingredients at proper times (ie Whirlfloc with 15 minutes to go, honey with 5 to go).

4. When each pot is done boiling you can add it to a carboy with cold water in it as you normally would. If the pots finish at different times, you can add one, put the carboy into a tub of cold water to start cooling it, then add the other pot when it finishes.

5. From here on follow the normal brewing process.

Tips & Warnings

• The malt pot can be split into 2 pots if there is not enough heat for 1 pot.
• If you do not use an immersion chiller or counterflow chiller, you can add each pot to the carboy (with cold water in it!) when that pot's boil time is up.
• Using pot lids will increase heating efficiency.
• Brewing can be hazardous - take all proper safety precautions and never leave your pots boiling unattended!
• This article assumes you are familiar with the extract brewing process and leaves out many details. Do not attempt this unless you understand how to brew.