Joeneugs

Recipes 

I was wondering if its preferable to steep your grains in the full 6 gallons of water, or in a smaller volume and then add the wort to your boil kettle with the rest of the water and extract? Help is much appreciated!

johngault007

Recipes 

For a 5 gallon extract batch, I usually steep grains (usually around 155F) in 3.25 gallons. After I pull the grains, I top the water back up to 3.25 and bring to a boil and add extract etc...

It has turned out well in the past and I do not get crazy flavors in my beer.

BrewBeer4fun

Recipes 

If my extract brewing instructions calls for boiling in 2.5g and then pouring the wort into a bucket of 2.5g of cold, unflavored water, my question is this: Can you just cook with 5gal and not have to add unflavored water to the mix? I just feel like that would be watering down my brew and that weighs on me.

Plus the really nice 10gl ss kettle with built in thermometer is inches above the wort when cooking. So I would have to either cook 2 kits at once, or raise the water on one kit.

Any help would be appreciated as I am cooking again three Sundays from now...

JonK331

Recipes 

Yes, if your kettle can handle the full amount, do it. There are threads about full vs. partial boils.

johngault007

Recipes 

The more volume you add, the less likely you are to have the potential of a boil-over. I have basically stayed to the 3.25 rule and topped up at the end with filtered water and have always had great results.

From my understanding, extract is a mash concentrated with most of the water removed. If I had the volume in my boiling pot, I would boil the full volume. But if you are stuck to economic restraints, great beer is still obtainable.

Brewer_Bob

Recipes 

I understand that hop amounts have to be adjusted between a partial boil and a full boil due to the different hop utilizations. So does no such adjustment have to be made for steeping grains?