So I've brewed enough recipes to the point where I'm comfortable with giving all-grain brewing a shot. Thing is, I live in an apartment, and I don't have a garage or any outside open space. Is it absolutely required that I have a propane burner to do all-grain brewing or is there a way I can do it with a standard stove top?
Many (most?) stove tops don't have enough power for a full boil (for a 5 gallon batch) in a single kettle. But splitting the boil between 2 kettles (and thus 2 burners) and recombining at flameout is a way to overcome that.
Also, research electric brewing and you might be able to use a heat stick to supplement stove top. I've thought about going electric but am not confident enough in my tinkering abilities yet to build a piece of electrical equipment that I would submerge into liquid.
Brew in a bag (BIAB) is an awesome way to brew if you've got limited space. You mash and boil in the same vessel. Northern Brewer has a good video podcast if you want to have a look.
I did about 7 full boils on my stove top before recently buying a propane burner. It is possible to do it in one kettle but it takes a while, from start of my brew day until the end it was taking between 5-6 hours.
If you get a big enough diameter kettle, you can span it over 2 burners if you have a gas stove. I do this during the winter and it works fairly good. I get a pretty good rolling boil, but my boil off loss is definitely not as great as my propane burner.
Granted, I don't rush it (brewing is a leisure activity), but my ten gallon brew day is 5-6 hours using a natural gas burner on the patio.
Nowhere is it written in stone the batch size of home brewed beer must be at least 5Gs. If your stove can bring 3 1/2 gallons to a boil...you can brew 2.5Gs (9L) at a time.
If you have a big enough brew pot that it can fit over 2 burners, there's no trouble in bringing 7 gallons to a rolling boil in one pot. This also allows you to use the same pot as a hot liquor tank for your strike and mashout water. This works on the stove in my house that is probably from the 70s.
I brew 3 gallon batches and I'm able to mash in my oven and full boil on my stove top all in a 5 gallon pot. I do have another pot for the sparge i heat up when im mashing. I use just one rack, on the lowest setting and I'm able to fit the pot in the oven. I put the heat on 'low' or just below enough so the light stays on and while the oven is around 175, I haven't had a mash move more then 2 degrees yet (10+ batches). Doing imperial batches, the amount of grain needed isn't enough to make me strain to hold it over the pot while it drains/drips. Give the small batch biab method a shot.
