Thought I’d try a pale ale recipe in Zainasheff & Palmer’s Brewing Classic Styles. It’s mostly light/Munich/wheat extract but includes a small Victory malt grain bill of .75 lb. Their recommended partial mash formula is 1.5 qts/pound, so I’d use 1.125 qts of water. Not much to work with! Need a smaller pot, obviously. They say to then transfer to a larger pot w/2 gal. of 165º water, steep, and then to the boil pot. But I’m getting hung up on the numbers because the pre-boil volume is 7 gal., I’m doing a partial boil and want to work with 3.5 gal on the stove. I have no idea how much my partial mash will yield. Should I measure this, subtract that from 3.5 gal. and then add the difference to my final steep/boil water?
Best bet for extract brewing is to replace the Victory with Crystal 30. It will impart very close to the same color and the starches are already converted to sugars.