5 gallon all grain on an average stove top? Concentration Cream Ale

Good ol' cream ale.
Delicious for you, and for your beer
muggle friends.

So recently I posted that I actually prefer the craft beers of my youth.  With the possible exception of my MWIPA, I prefer simple clean beers.  I prefer basic flavors.   This weekend I will be brewing a Basic Cream Ale.  Old School Style in my mash tun, with my brew bag as a filter, step mash, to full volume.  I will be draining slowly to see if that has an effect on my efficiency. Infusion step mash no sparge in my cooler is always around 72% efficiency.   I will be stirring throughout the process.   I think I prefer cream ale to American lager and American pilsner.   Something about it just really agrees with my pallet.  I think it is the corn.  So I am going back to my good ol' Cream Ale recipe.  And I will be making 5 gallons of a concentration batch.  Because... well... It's Cream Ale.  And because I don't think I've ever shown you all how to do a concentration before.

Concentration is a simple process of making a smaller higher OG (concentrated) batch of wort, and then blending it with water to get to volume.   It used to be a common practice in home brewing.  Basically you brew a high OG small batch, in our case 1.075 and then blend it with water to reach volume.   You then stir and aerate to thoroughly combine the wort and the water. I use one of my wine degassing whips attached to a drill to mix the concentration and the water, and to aerate the wort.

Say what you will, Genesee is Delicious.
And, I'm reasonably confident the Genesee River
is safe to drink out of...

This is one of the recipes I will be focusing on. I love great cream ale.  It is hot as heck in KC right now.  I don't feel like firing up the turkey fryer.  So I am going to make this on the stove top in the air conditioned comfort of my apartment.  And show you all how you can make 5 gallons of all grain beer in a 5 gallon kettle on your stove top, by only boiling 3.5 gallons. And it is delicious.  And it tastes like any other all grain brew.  If you follow close instructions, it tastes just as good as any other beer you make.

I will be making the recipe below. And don't worry I will post all about how I do it with lots of photos, so that you too can make your own concentration wort.  This is a great technique for those of you who want to keep brewing in the dead of winter, but who don't want to stand in a freezing garage.

Concentration Cream Ale - All the grains... 
OG 1.047
FG  1.008
IBU 14
ABV 5%
72.5% efficiency
SRM - 2.63 predicted - probably around 3.5

Grain Bill
5 lbs of American Pilsner.  I will be using IdaPils from Cargill
2 lbs of Flaked Corn
1 lbs of Flaked Rice
.5 lbs of White Wheat Malt - yes wheat! I'm trying to get some head on the beer by doing a protein rest and using some wheat.  Feel free to substitute CaraPilsner if you like.

Hop Bill
.8 oz. of Liberty Hops at 60 minutes Yes I realize that at 4.77% this is not 14 ibu's remember this is a partial boil brew, like an extract. You have to account for that.
.5 oz. of Liberty Hops at 15 minutes

Yeast & Extras
1 package of US05
1 whirflock tablet
1 tsp of yeast nutrient

Mash schedule
Rest at 132 F for 15 minutes - dough in with 2.64 gallons of water at 142 F
Rest at 146 F for 40 minutes - add .7 gallons of 210 F water to get to this rest (why 210 F ? Well to be truthful, 210 F, because you can not actually add boiling water to your mash tun, the minute you take the kettle off of the stove it will stop boiling, I account for that in my calculations by using 210 F)
Rest at 156 F for 15 minutes - add .7 gallons of 210 F water to get to this rest
Rest at 168 F for 10 minutes - Drain 1.3 gallons of wort from the mash and heat it to a boil, when boiling add it back into the wort to get to this rest.  This is a Schluss Mash Decoction.
Collect 3.6 gallons of wort Check gravity, it should be about 1.068
Boil and follow hop schedule
As you near the end of the boil, check your gravity, you should be around 1.072 to 1.074.
Chill the wort to near pitching temperatures

I know they call it a farmhouse ale
but they are esoteric, and much smarter
than we are.  Trust me it is a cream ale!

Blend the wort with water to get to volume
Mix it and or shake it up so it is totally combined.
Pitch your yeast
Ferment
Package
Enjoy
Repeat

That's it.  That is all you have to do.  Yes, you can make 5 gallons of all grain beer on your stove top. And yes, you can do this with any style of beer.  And yes they will come out just fine.   For very high gravity beers, you should plan on doing a partial mash, where a portion of your sugars come from DME.