5 gallon kettle?

I plan to do my first AG this weekend. I'm a little concerned about my kettle. I obviously can't hold 5 gallons since it will boil over, so my question is if I can do it at 4.5 gallons and say 1-1.5 gallons boil off would it be worth it? Or can I add water during the boil? Or just top it off?

I have a keg that will be a keggle just not any time soon, so I don't want to buy another kettle if I can make this one work.

Thanks in advance for any help

I did biab with a 5 gallon kettle, had about 3.5 for the boil, and topped off to 5 gallons

That won't effect the taste?

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Walshy87 said:

That won't effect the taste?

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It will make it taste like beer

eelpout said:

It will make it taste like beer

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Perfect! hopefully I don't screw it up

You could always split the wort and boil in two pots if you can't get full volume in your kettle. You have to split your hop additions but other than that its the easiest solution I can think of for the short term.
If your going small volume boil and topping off keep in mind you will dilute your OG so you might want to make your batch using slightly more grains/extract than if your doing a full boil volume.

You can also hold some of the wort and add it as you boiloff....just be sure to boil all wort additions for say 20 minutes. Sort of like cheating but you can start and end w/ 4+ gallons this way in a five gallon pot.

The smaller pot might hurt efficiencey a bit, but no big deal...this means a slightly lower ABV or a slightly smaller batch...4.5 gal. perhaps ?

wilserbrewer said:

You can also hold some of the wort and add it as you boiloff....just be sure to boil all wort additions for say 20 minutes.

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Would you be worried about DMS here? Or with the small volume that you're adding back is it not an issue?

chickypad said:

Would you be worried about DMS here? Or with the small volume that you're adding back is it not an issue?

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Unless using pilsner malt, DMS is not a great threat IMHO. Also w/ the amount your adding back in, not so much an issue. Although, I tend not to worry...

If you feel better, just use more malt and water down the end product...

Thanks for the tip. I have a 3 gallon pot I can use and I'll just split the hops