6 gallon boil with an extract kit

First, sorry if this has been addressed before, but I tried to find an answer and have had no luck. I just received my larger kettle and I want to do full boils. I have been using a 5 gallon kettle and topping off to five gallons. With the trub, I am only getting around 40 beers after I transfer. My question is, can I start with 6 gallons in my kettle and figure 1/2 a gallon loss to boil off and another 1/2 gallon to trub? Will it water down my beer using an extract kit?

Have you used your new kettle yet?
If not boil 6 gallons of water for an hour to see what the boil-off rate is.



Don't worry too much about trub (yet) - focus on hitting your expected OG. Which, with extract is simply a function of how much extract is being dissolved in a certain amount of water.

I usually shoot for 5.25 into the fermenter (so long as I hit my OG).

wherestheyeast said:

Have you used your new kettle yet?
If not boil 6 gallons of water for an hour to see what the boil-off rate is.

Don't worry too much about trub (yet) - focus on hitting your expected OG. Which, with extract is simply a function of how much extract is being dissolved in a certain amount of water.

I usually shoot for 5.25 into the fermenter (so long as I hit my OG).

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No, I haven't used my new kettle yet, good idea, I will definitely do a boil to measure where I'm at on the boil off. As far as the OG, this will be my 4th batch and on the first 2, I couldn't tell you what is was because I know I wasn't reading the hydrometer right. The 3rd batch I think I read it right and nailed it. So once I'm consistently nailing OG, what adjustments do you recommend to get more from the transfer? It's possible I could be bad at the auto siphon too. I just feel like I'm losing beer somewhere and I'm trying to correct it.

Must be leaving a lot behind in the boil kettle...unless you're doing something that leaves way more trub behind. I'm getting 48 to 50 bottles from 5 gal batches pretty consistenly.

And, as far as extract kits go, generally speaking you're going to be very close to OG as long as you end up with 5 - 5.25 gallons into the fermenter regardless if your boil ended with 3 and you had to add 2, or started with 7 and had to boil off 2. As long as you end up with the kit-specified volume into the fermenter it's going to be very close to OG.

The only caveat is that if you leave behind a lot of wort due to being worried about trub then topping off to the full ~5 gallons could cause somewhat of a reduction in OG. Likewise, if you don't boil off enough (to try to make up for trub loss) then the OG will be somewhat reduced as well.

I have a 9 gal brew pot and always do 6.5 gal boils. It allows for about a gal of boil off and about 1/2 a gal of trub loss. My normal net of beer to bottle is about 5.25 gal. I love it.